Seasons Greetings from Munich!

I hope this letter finds you and yours healthy and enjoying the celebrations in our “new normal.” While the club was not able to have many in-person gatherings this year, we did get creative and offer many new online gatherings and events that we hope you enjoyed. This has been an unusual year for all of us, finding new ways to connect while social distancing, and one positive side effect of moving online was the chance to reconnect with friends (and meet new ones) in different geographical locations, and to participate in lectures and events all over the world.  

With the “Yale Clubs of Eurovision” (including London, Israel, and Moscow) we enjoyed a Pan-European Feb Club in February, and the Yale Club of Israel invited us to an evening with Ambassador Michael Oren in April. Also in April, the Yale Clubs of London and Austria hosted an event about American politics in the aftermath of January 6th with Geoff Kabaservice ’88 PhD ’99. In May, June, and July the EMEA YaleWomen hosted virtual get-togethers. This pan-European coordination is ongoing, and we plan on organizing a virtual Feb-Club again in 2022. Watch the website for invitations to their events whenever possible. And no pressure on all of you other graduating years, but 1988 is really rockin’ the EU scene right now – in addition to yours truly in Germany, Anica Alvarez Nishio is active with The Yale Club of London, and Jonathan Nighswander is the Vice President of the Yale Club of Austria. I’d love to challenge other affiliations to try to best us! 

Within Germany, we had no trouble with a quorum at our Annual General Meeting in March via Zoom, and it was lovely to see many of you at our virtual happy hour in May honoring outgoing president Laura Sprague with the YAA Club Recognition Award for her decades of service to the club. Laura (also class of 1988, just saying!) was highly professional, incredibly generous and always cheerful giving her time to the club, and it was a lovely excuse to gather with Yalies from all over Germany to for a Zoom toast and chat.

In October, Laura organized a group from our Frankfurt chapter for a family friendly Taunus hike to the picturesque Rote Mühle Gasthaus: The Taunus hike drew not only an alumnus from the Düsseldorf area (post-doc in pharmacology), but a well-behaved dog and a five-month-old new member! We heard about a cutting-edge article to be published by one of the group, wild boars, and the Bundesbank's/European Central Bank's differing areas of responsibility. The fall sunshine allowed us to sit outside at the Rote Mühle and indulge in fall specialties like freshly pressed apple juice, Federweißer and Zwiebelkuchen.

In Munich, Munich Dialogues on Democracy had a wonderful array of speakers, profiting from Zoom to be able to welcome experts from various locations to talk about the state of democracy around the world.

We kicked the year off in February with Arun Chaudhary, political operative and White House Official Videographer under President Obama, who spoke to us about what makes a successful campaign in a healthy democracy. In March, former Ambassador and President of the World Bank Robert B. Zoellick joined us to talk about the evolution of U.S. diplomacy and foreign policy, and in May, Sterling Professor of History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale, David W. Blight, joined us for a wonderful conversation about his Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Frederick Douglass.

In June, Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale, Jason Stanley, joined us for an event co-sponsored by the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, talking about his work on fascism, and in September we were able to be together live and inaugurate the beautifully renovated theater at Amerikahaus in Munich. Princeton Professor of Politics and award winning author Jan-Werner Mueller spoke about his latest book Democracy Rules, taking on the true definition of democracy and how we can re-invent our social contract to strengthen it. This event showed us that a hybrid format is possible, and our events going forward will hopefully therefore be available live to all of you online and for view on YouTube afterwards. Finally in October we had an amazing panel on what is going on in India today with Yale professor Steven I. Wilkinson, Founder and  Editor-in-Chief of The Wire Siddharth Varadarajan , and the Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan and South East Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations Manjari Chaterjee Miller.

We have exciting speakers lined up for 2022, starting with The Atlantic’s George Packer ('82), whose December event had to be postponed due to the resurgence of the corona virus. The events are always posted on the Yale Club of Germany website, and you can sign up to follow Munich Dialogues directly at https://www.dialoguesondemocracy.com, where you can also watch most of the above events with links to the YouTube channel of our partners at Amerikahaus Munich.

Finally, the Yale Alumni Association had its annual Assembly and Convocation in November, a virtual gathering of alumni leaders to learn from their peers, discuss volunteer resources and tools, and get an inside look at Yale today. The video sessions are available to all alumni here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/8975866, and I can highly recommend the session on the vision for The Jackson School as particularly interesting for Yale’s commitment to being the world leader in International Affairs.

As you know, we do not require dues at the Yale Club of Germany; we do however have yearly running costs to maintain the website and for some organizational fees to keep our status as an “eingetragene Verein.” We would be very grateful if you would consider a donation to the club – any amount you feel appropriate (we suggest €20) and do include your name and contact information if you would like a tax exempt letter for German taxes.

Thank you! Wishing you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season, and looking forward to fun activities in 2022. 

Boola Boola,

Bartley

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The Yale Club of Germany e.V.

• http://www.yaleclub.de

• For up-to-date event information, join our Facebook group.

If you have event ideas, would like to get involved in club activites, let us know!

Interviews

The Yale Club is always looking for alumni to interview local high-school students who are applying to Yale College. If you would like to help out or learn more, please contact our ASC director, Rebecca Haltzel-Haas.

Yale Book Award

If you interested in presenting the Yale Book Award at a high school in your area, please contact the club board.

Contributions

The Club does not assess dues, but asks its members to make an modest annual contribution (€20 suggested, but any amount is welcome) to help fund Club activities such as the Yale Book Award.

To contribute, please arrange a bank transfer (Überweisung) to the following account and be sure to include your email address so we can send you your tax-deductible donation receipt:

Bank (Kreditinstitut des Begünstigten): n26 Bank
Payee (Begünstigter): Hans Christian Siller
IBAN: DE76 1001 1001 2621 3219 84
BIC (SWIFT): NTSBDEB1XXX

For any question regarding contributions, please contact our Treasurer, Hans Christian Siller.

Club Officers

PRESIDENT

Bartley Grosserichter (Yale College ’88)
Munich
bgrosserichter@aya.yale.edu

TREASURER

Hans Christian Siller (GSAS ’12)
Berlin
chris.siller@aya.yale.edu

SECRETARY

Alexander Schmitt Glaeser (LLM ’89)
Munich
aschmittgl@aol.com

ALUMNI SCHOOLS COMMITTEE

Rebecca Haltzel-Haas (Yale College ’90)
haltzel-haas@aya.yale.edu

DATA PROTECTION OFFICER

Jana Striezel (LLM ’02)
Wolfsburg
jana.corinna.striezel1@volkswagen.de