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We will keep this website unchanged for the time being, so that all our articles published between 2015 and 2020 will continue to be available to our readers.

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And there’s no doubt that the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the unprecedented lockdown of much of the world will be severe. The world will witness a global recession at least as deep as the financial crisis of 2008, possibly even worse than the Great Depression of 1929. When addressing the German public in March, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the challenge was the country’s biggest since the end of World War II.

European countries—and hardest-hit Italy and Spain in particular—will need massive help to get their economies back on track. While vast amounts of money have been promised already by the European Commission and individual member states—€1 trillion plus and counting—, there is disunity regarding how precisely to finance a “European Recovery Fund,” whether the help should come in the shape of loans or grants, and whether “coronabonds,” or “eurobonds” in general, are the way forward.

The German government, while signaling willingness to help more, keeps saying nein to the idea of shared liability—so not quiet everything is changed, after all. (Indeed, there is some reason to suspect that Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, is right in arguing that the pandemic “will accelerate history rather than changing it.”)

In this issue, our contributors try to sketch out ways ahead. DGAP director Daniela Schwarzer warns that Europe needs to emerge strengthened from the crisis, and that Germany, taking over the EU presidency on July 1, has to play a special role in this: “Berlin cannot limit itself to the role of honest broker.” Daniel Twining and Jan Surotchak of the International Republican Institute call on the United States and Europe to defend democracy—and Western leadership— against the authoritarian advances of China and Russia (did US President Donald Trump get the memo, though?). British journalist David Goodhart argues for seizing this opportunity to retreat from hyper-globalization, and US sociologist Richard Sennett predicts that the crisis may well mark the end of the “cities of towers.”

Some change at least, it seems, is inevitable.

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In fact, “we all” witnessed something else entirely.

The Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country after failing to subdue peaceful demonstrators by brute force. In response, the Kremlin sent its “polite people” to Crimea–well-equipped special forces without insignia who prepared the ground for Russia’s annexation of the strategically important peninsula. It also started waging a bloody war in eastern Ukraine, which so far has cost 13,000 mostly Ukrainian lives and displaced almost two million people.

Since this breaking of international norms, Vladimir Putin’s Russia seems to have gone from strength to strength: threatening Europe militarily, waging hybrid war against the West, intervening decisively in Syria and most recently in Libya. But is the country really going from strength to strength? And how should Europe, and Germany in particular, deal with it?

Putin’s Russia is an erstwhile superpower in decline, argues Anders Åslund—an authoritarian kleptocracy caught in an anti-reform trap. Recent constitutional changes notwithstanding, the question of whether Putinism can continue to function without Putin will need to be answered, one way or other, during the 2020s. And Maxim Trudolyubov reminds us that Russia will also be facing a societal change of great consequence: the bequeathing of assets to the next generation.

A Russia in decline is no less dangerous, on the contrary. As Heinrich Brauss, until 2018 NATO’s deputy secretary general, reminds us, it is turning into an ever more threatening neighbor, even though many in Germany prefer to close their eyes to this.

Meanwhile, it has been obvious for some time that Germany’s Russia policy makes no sense. It consists of little more than post-2014 sanctions and pressing on with Nord Stream 2 regardless–an absurd combination, as Liana Fix writes. Now that Emmanuel Macron has started to reach out to Putin, that’s even more true.

In the country of “Putin-Versteher”, it probably needs to be spelled out: a more active Russia policy requires the exact opposite of “understanding Putin,” of forgiving and forgetting, of appeasing and abetting corruption and criminality. Together with Paris and the rest of Europe, it’s time to find new, more convincing, more creative answers to the question of how to deal with the mighty and often destructive power next door.

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© Bitteschön TV

In memory of Dr Sylke Tempel (1963-2017), the Board of Trustees of the German-Israeli Future Forum Foundation set up the Sylke Tempel Fellowship Program in 2018.

Under the patronage of Sigmar Gabriel, former Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs and chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke, the foundation awards fellowships to young journalists working on foreign and socio-political issues that will continue to be relevant in Israel and Germany in the future.

The projects are discussed with experts in closed workshops, presented at public conferences and published.

The second year (2020) will focus on the topic “Israel and Germany in the Year of the US Presidential Election: National Narratives, Identities, and Foreign Policy.” Cooperation partners include the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the European Leadership Network (ELNET), the foreign policy magazine Internationale Politik (the German-language sister publication of Berlin Policy Journal; Sylke Tempel was editor-in-chief of both), and Women in International Security (WIIS).

Call for Applications

This call for applications is aimed particularly at young media professionals in Germany and Israel.

Journalists, bloggers, podcasters, and other media creatives who deal with the relations between Germany, Israel, and the United States of America are invited to apply.

The fellows are required to submit an article or other media creation by August 30, 2020, which will be published in a special edition of foreign policy magazine Internationale Politik, in the end of the year. They may independently choose where they want to work. In May 2020, they will be invited to attend expert meetings and a workshop in Israel in order to discuss their projects. In the end of 2020, they will have the opportunity to present their projects at a public conference in Berlin.

Up to twelve fellowships will be awarded with a grant of €3,000. In addition, travel and accommodation costs for the workshop and the two-day conference will be covered.

In order to apply, please provide the following documents:

– Your curriculum vitae

– Sylke Tempel was a passionate reader. In her memory, we are interested to know which literary work you recommend we read, and why.

– A motivation letter

– An outline of the planned project (please refer to the focus topic detailed below on no more than three pages)

Please send us your application documents in German or English by February 29, 2020, by e-mail in one file to: fellowship@dizf.de

If you have any questions regarding the application, please contact Teresa Schaefer: schaefer@dizf.de

Please apply with a project related to the following topical umbrella:

“National Narratives, Identities, and Foreign Policy”

How do the United States’, Israel’s, and Germany’s national narratives, their self-told historical stories and perception of self, impact their foreign policy and relations to one another? How and why do supposedly fixed identities change over time? Are they reflected in election campaigns? If so, how are they expressed specifically in Israel, Germany, and the US? How do national narratives and perceptions of each other shape bilateral and trilateral relations?

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Cover artwork © Lo Cole

It was the strongly anti-Communist US columnist and gossip writer Walter Winchell who first coined the term in print in 1953.

“Howz [sic] About Calling the Russians our Frienemies [sic]?,” he asked in the Nevada State Journal, on May 9, 1953—at a time when Americans and Russians had clearly been enemies for a couple of years already. Five weeks after Winchell published his article, the early Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union even threatened to turn hot when workers rose in Eastern Germany to protest the regime of Walter Ulbricht and the Soviet forces that propped it up.

It’s a reminder, though, that relationships in international affairs are rarely clear-cut; and often they only appear so in retrospect.

“Frenemies,” in its modernized spelling, didn’t really stick at the time of Winchell’s writing and only gained wider currency in the 1990s. Today, of course, it’s an apt way of describing how states relate to states in today’s world. Since Donald Trump has entered the White House, the US seems to have lost interest in having allies. And even a bilateral relationship as close as that between France and Germany has both cooperative and competitive elements, with the latter gaining ground.

The country least comfortable with this—helpless, indeed—is Germany, writes Jörg Lau, foreign editor of Germany’s weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT, in this issue. Berlin has seen the foundations of its foreign policy eroded since at least 2014, with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its war in Eastern Ukraine, with the double-blow of the Brexit referendum and the triumph of Donald Trump, and this year with French President Emmanuel Macron, having finally lost patience and going it alone–and against Germany’s grain.

Most worrying: Instead of coming up with new policy ideas, Berlin prefers to play dead.

In a world of frenemies, this is a strategy that no longer works if it ever has. Not forging your own foreign policy means that others will forge it for you. In particular, Germany needs to take the threats posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China more seriously, warns US Republican senator Tom Cotton, while the DGAP’s technology fellow Kaan Sahin makes it clear that there’s no way back to the alleged “certainties” of the Cold War, even in a “decoupling” technology sphere.

As a new decade starts, Germany’s foreign and European policies desperately need a new beginning. The status quo is no more. Therefore, carrying on as before cannot be an option.

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© REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

Munich Security Conference chairman Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger didn’t waste time, delivering a warning in his opening speech: “The red alarm lights are blinking.” According to Ischinger, the risk of interstate conflict has never been this high since 1989. A tense international security situation set the tone for this year’s MSC, and neither Europe nor the United States seemed to have any plan to address the threats facing them both.

These risks were spelled out in brutal detail in the course of the conference: the situation in the Near and Middle East, North Korea, the risk of cyber warfare, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the growing power of illiberal superpowers. The clearer the picture of the dangers facing the West became over the three days, the more worrisome the lack of any concrete strategy to minimize these risks. The West, which finds itself locked in conflict with illiberal states, seems to be paralyzed by complex challenges and deep divides within its own camp.

EU Governments Are Ready to Cooperate

Over the first two days, discussions focused on the state of the European Union and NATO; PESCO, or “permanent structured cooperation,” a defense framework the EU launched last year, was one of the central themes. The EU defense initiative, which will also coordinate funding in EU member states, was spurred by three developments: first, reduced confidence in the USA since the election of President Donald Trump; second, a need to demonstrate the resilience of the EU in the face of Brexit; and third, a desire to better coordinate the growing defense expenditures the EU states were making in the course of meeting the “2 percent of GDP” goal NATO demands.

The criticism of PESCO that has been expressed in recent weeks also appeared in both official statements and informal conversations in Munich—an unpleasant surprise for Europeans, who had assumed that the USA would see a strengthening of the EU’s defense capacities as a step in its own interests. This fact was pointed out by NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, who said that “stronger defense cooperation in Europe is not an alternative to NATO,” and stressed that the non-EU members of the defense alliance would not be at a disadvantage; after all, with the Brexit decision 80 percent of NATO defense spending will soon come from non-EU countries.

Some participants indeed thought they could see Washington’s fingerprints on Stoltenberg’s statement. The American government is concerned that the USA could lose access to the EU market and be excluded from future developments. In unofficial discussions, representatives of the smaller EU member states also worried that they themselves could be among the losers, in particular if the European defense industry should consilidate. So far, however, despite all criticism, PESCO remains a project the NATO planning staff is firmly committed to. At the same time, over the coming months and years it will need to be evaluated against the hopes that have been placed upon it.

Germany and France Seem Ready to Get Going

Additional ideas came from Berlin and Paris during the joint appearance by acting German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen and her French counterpart Florence Parly. Von der Leyen underlined the foreign policy stance of the recently concluded coalition agreement, saying “We want to remain transatlantic, but become more European.” She supported a “PESCO that would also serve European foreign policy”—that is, the possibility to proceed further as a smaller group that would make decisions by majority. Parly underlined the new level German-French defense cooperation had reached since the German-French summit in July 2017, both “operationally”, as in the stabilization operation in Mali, and in terms of its equipment and procurement. That being said, behind the German-French dynamic on stage, it was clear that differences of opinion remain. Parly highlighted the “European Intervention Initiative,” which is seen as something of a second priority to PESCO in Berlin. Germany wants to build up the EU’s capacities, while France wants to build up its own operational strength, leaving PESCO a less significant role.

On the following day, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker underlined the EU’s “desire for independence” in its foreign and security policies, though he stressed that this was not directed at the US or NATO. He also expressed strong support for majority-based decision-making in these areas. However, appearances by new Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz made it clear that this enthusiasm is in no way shared throughout the entire EU.

Post-Brexit Cooperation with Great Britain Remains Unclear

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s speech brought long-hoped for clarification on a few issues related to the Brexit process. The Prime Minister suggested a security alliance between the EU and UK following Britain’s departure from the union. Within this framework, cooperation in the area of internal security would be continued, according to May. In saying this, she made an important concession: in cooperating with the EU authorities, London will “respect” the decisions of the European Court of Justice.

Despite these statements, May’s speech lacked a clear unifying message: While she did clarify that Great Britain was “unconditionally” committed to the defense of Europe, her warning that disunity would “damage both sides” revived fears that London would use its security assets as negotiating leverage. The general reaction to May’s speech in Munich was hence mixed.

The USA: Continuity Against Trump

The mission of US participants to the 2018 Munich Security Conference was clear: they needed to convince their NATO allies that the transatlantic relationship was sturdy, that guarantees made to allies were trustworthy, and that US foreign policy would maintain continuity. From the German side, the friendlier tones were welcomed, and acting German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned in his speech that Germany would have to contribute more to making Europe stronger and more capable of acting on its own, and in doing so improve the cooperation with the USA. Europe cannot shape the world or defend the liberal order that it has profited from by itself, according to Gabriel.

General H. R. McMaster, US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, delivered a mostly “classic” pro-transatlantic speech: he stressed the common values the USA shares with Europe, and labeled three issues as particularly high priorities in the USA’s foreign policy: the prevention of the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the war on terror, and the strengthening of international organizations; the last of these, admittedly, appeared slightly disingenuous in light of the massive criticism Trump has leveled at these same organizations. Unlike in the previous year, when Vice President Mike Pence and US Secretary of Defense Mattis vanished from the podium after their talks, McMaster was prepared for a dialogue in Munich. In the course of this discussion, McMaster distanced himself from the president in confirming that it was now “indisputable fact” that Russia had acted to influence the US presidential election. Trump reacted furiously on Twitter over the weekend.

Asked about the Hobbesian views he sketched in an op-ed he published in the Wall Street Journal with Trump’s chief economic adviser Gary Cohn in May 2017—namely, that he saw the world as an (economic) war in which every nation had to fend for itself—McMaster clarified in Munich that his thesis only applied to the competition between free and unfree states, and that he in no way meant to include the relationships between allies, a tactical re-interpretation that is nevertheless contradicted by many of the things Trump himself said throughout 2017.

On the annual MSC Congressional Panel, the four speakers worked across party lines to present a credible image of continuity in US foreign policy. Should the White House deviate from the previous line, Congress would intervene, as for example in the case of the Russia sanctions or the State Department’s financing.

Escalatory Rhetoric Instead of Dialogue

The panel, focused as it was on communicating continuity, also showed what has changed leading up to the start of the 2018 MSC: From Washington’s point of view, North Korea has become the most significant risk, while at the past MSC, terrorism had topped the list. The fact that Trump’s escalatory rhetoric has made inroads among the foreign policy-makers in Congress was demonstrated by Senator Jim Risch (R-ID), who warned that any military action from Pyongyang would fail “massively” and bring loss and destruction of “biblical proportions.” During the panel on nuclear arms control, US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan and former Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak accused each other of pursuing aggressive nuclear arms policies. They traded the kind of verbal blows that one would hardly expect to hear even at the height of the Cold War.

In general, there was little from the US side about national maximization of utility and transactional dealmaking. In fact, the opposite was true: the Americans present worked to restore greater credibility to Washington’s place in the Western alliance and the Western community of values. In this they were only partially successful. Participants still considered Trump’s word to be final, whatever his representatives might say.

From the Post-Western World to Systemic Conflict

In 2017, the fall of the West and its international relations paradigm and the rise of a “post-Western” world, created by Russia and Iran among others, was one of the central topics of discussion. In the 2018 MSC, however, debates about the international security situation were held against the backdrop of a more and more openly acknowledged systemic conflict between Western, liberal democracies and authoritarian, sometimes protectionist regimes. Foreign Minister Gabriel said, for example, “This new world, which is much more complex than the world of the Cold War, is defined by systemic competition between developed democracies and authoritarians.”

The Americans who were present worked to deliver a clear statement on this systemic conflict, one that would place them on the side of Europe. In this context, former Vice President Joe Biden attacked Russia directly: “Putin is doing everything he can to destroy the transatlantic alliance and the international liberal order.” According to Biden, it was easier for the Russians to attack the West than to repair the political, economic, and social fractures in their own society.

Russia Once Again Plays the Victim

In fact, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s appearance showed that Russia still sees itself as a victim of Western expansionism above all, and is still far removed from the political mainstream. In a speech that was gloomy even for Lavrov, the foreign minister liberally mixed Nazi revisionism with developments since the 1989 fall of the Soviet Union, and characterized the charges filed against 13 Russian citizens by Special Counsel Robert Mueller due to their interference with the US election as “gossip”. Turning to the conflict in Syria and the conditions necessary for a regional security structure, he showed little interest in returning to productive cooperation with the West.

The Elephant in the Room: China

China’s roll warrants further reflection. In the plenary session, Foreign Minister Gabriel was the only one to explicitly refer to it; he interpreted the Belt and Road Initiative as an attempt “to establish a comprehensive system to influence the world in line with Chinese interests.” China is a counter-balancing force in the systemic conflict, and at the moment the only one pursuing a thoroughly thought-out global strategy. The EU has to develop more internal consistency and help the member states develop a common sense of their interests in the union’s foreign relations. It must then develop strategies and instruments to implement these interests together.

China was otherwise relegated to the fringes of the discussion, although even here it was clear that certain things were being thought of differently: belief in China’s transformation, for example—both in terms of its step-by-step democratization and in its transition to a market economy—seemed to no longer be present, even among representatives of the business community. The Belt and Road Initiative is seen as a threat, and not only because China is strategically investing to secure access, undermine Western norms, and build up its own position, but also because it has the potential to divide inner-European unity.

Dealings with China, Central Asia, and the Eastern neighborhood of the EU are themes for which the EU currently has no persuasive strategy. At the same time, with the USA’s withdrawal the EU will have to learn to work with the powers in these regions.

This new significance of the relationship with China was hardly seen at the conference. Investments in dialogue with China are urgently necessary. In Fu Ying, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, the Chinese sent an experienced diplomat and a representative of the Chinese nomenklatura to the MSC discussion on nuclear arms control; otherwise, however, the challenges posed by China, India, and a rising Asia remained largely unaddressed.

There were few actual programmatic discussions in Munich; with the exception of Foreign Minister Gabriel’s, the closest were delivered by the emir of Qatar, Sheik Tamim Al-Thani, and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. The last suggested an “inclusive” security structure for the Gulf Region, one built step by step, but simultaneously rejected the notion that Tehran was responsible for the current tense situation and dodged a question about Israel’s right to exist. It was also typical of the political environment that when there were specific suggestions made there was hardly any reaction.

The EU: More Strategy, More Ability, More Engagement!

Cooperation within the EU paints a mixed bag: There has been progress with the creation of structures and processes in the area of defense, and despite initial skepticism the Central and Eastern Europeans seem to be on board. However, strategies for handling the most significant risks, whether an escalation of the situation in the Middle East, the actions of North Korea, or a destructive cyber attack, were absent on both sides of the Atlantic.

Thus the hoped-for “step back from the brink” failed to occur during the Munich Security Conference. Instead, several debates seemed much more suited to spur on ongoing conflicts, as with the debate about the situation in the Middle East on the final day. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular used his talk as a reproach to Tehran more than anything else: in the course of his address, he held up a part of an Iranian drone recently shot down in Israeli airspace.

No one should expect the international situation to quiet down. German and European international policy-makers have great tasks ahead for which they are not yet sufficiently prepared. As Foreign Minister Gabriel demanded, they must become much more strategically capable, as well as more active and innovative, in order to succeed in this new systemic conflict and help reduce instability. There isn’t much time left.

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Our colleague and friend, Sylke Tempel, passed away on October 5, 2017, at the age of 54. She was struck by a tree and killed in Berlin during Xavier, a flash storm. Tempel served as editor-in-chief of Internationale Politik since 2008 and founded this publication, the Berlin Policy Journal, in 2015.

Tempel was one of Germany’s most prominent foreign policy thinkers. She was a regular guest on the political talk show circuit; she moderated panels at conferences across the world; she lectured students at Stanford University’s Bing Overseas Studies Program in Berlin; she worked with leading policy-makers on shaping international relations; and she chaired the German chapter of Women in International Security (WIIS).

Her sharp intellect and critical thinking resonated on the global stage. She thrived in debates, engaging opinions from across the political spectrum and fearlessly confronting high-ranking politicians, thinkers, and analysts. She loved a good argument, but she was never intransigent. She did not waver on her values – staunch advocate of democratic ideals and open, tolerant societies that she was – yet she listened to and engaged with other views.

Sylke Tempel was not merely erudite; she was also able to communicate complex topics to a broad audience in straightforward, unambiguous language, free of the jargon that so often clouds political discussions.

“She always thought about how to communicate the debate surrounding foreign and security policy here to a wider audience, not just in Germany but also abroad,” said Thomas Bagger, Director of Foreign Policy in the Office of the Federal President and a former director of the Federal Foreign Office’s policy planning staff. “Her ability to view things from the outside, to understand what people saw and expected of Germany, earned her particular prominence because there are so few in Germany who do so.”

Emily Haber, State Secretary in Germany’s Interior Ministry and a friend of Tempel’s over many years, recalls her immense desire to examine an issue from all sides – not to reaffirm her own beliefs, but to truly understand intricacies and nuances. It was a trait that set her analysis and coverage of Israel apart, for example. Her deep love and sympathy for the country did not prevent her from taking account of the various perspectives of the region’s political struggle, or building close friendships on all sides of the conflict.

“She wasn’t able to lie to herself. She wasn’t able to embellish things if they weren’t there to be embellished. She was extremely honest,” said Haber.

•••

Sylke Tempel was born May 30, 1963, in Bayreuth in northern Bavaria. As a young woman, she aspired to study medicine in the city of Augsburg. She was waitlisted, however, and enrolled at Munich’s Ludwig-Maximilians University instead. It was there that her love for history, political science, and Israel blossomed. She wrote her thesis on “The Reparations Question: Relations between the German Democratic Republic and Israel between 1945 and 1988.” She never did return to medicine.

After receiving a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation, Tempel conducted research for two years at Columbia University in New York – freelancing for the German-Jewish Aufbau – and then completed her Ph.D. on “The Relations between Jewish-American Organizations and the Federal Republic of Germany after 1945” at the University of the Armed Forces in Munich.

She moved to Israel where she would spend more than a decade reporting on the Middle East for various German, Austrian, and Swiss publications, including Die Woche and Jüdische Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany’s leading national Jewish weekly. Fluent in Hebrew, she covered a vast range of stories in the region, including the Oslo Peace Process and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

Tempel authored six books, including Freya von Moltke: Ein Leben. Ein Jahrhundert, a portrait of an anti-Nazi resistance fighter, and Wir wollen beide hier leben. Eine schwierige Freundschaft in Jerusalem, featuring letters of correspondence between an Israeli and Palestinian student. She was honored with the Quadriga Prize for the latter.

She was also a dedicated transatlanticist, contributing to numerous American and international publications and lecturing at the Institute for German Studies at Stanford in California. Just before her death, she joined a group of leading German foreign policy experts to pen a transatlantic manifesto titled “In Spite of it All, America.”

“She had strong faith in her values,” said Joachim Staron, an editor at Internationale Politik. “Not even Donald Trump could shake her belief that the transatlantic relationship was fundamentally important.”

“A German With a Sense of Humor”

Throughout her life, Tempel remained passionately curious. She was a voracious consumer of books, articles, and films on the most varied of topics, from ancient history to contemporary satire, Harry Potter and the latest Tarantino movie. She drew upon a rich reservoir of knowledge, making her one of the most sought-after moderators and commentators in her field.

Despite the prestige and many honors bestowed upon her, Tempel also remained unfailingly kind, generous, and funny – so very funny, in a disarming, mischievous way. Her broad smile and warmth filled the room, and even the busiest of days were punctuated by the sound of laughter emanating from her office. She delighted in silly YouTube videos that she circulated among her colleagues and Loriot sketches she would recall in editorial meetings – and the Minions, a particular favorite. She drew parallels between Asterix and Obelix and Mickey Mouse and mankind’s most fundamental conflicts with a twinkle in her eye.

“She said it was always her advantage to be a German with a sense of humor because no one expected that,” said Rachel Tausendfreund, editorial director at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, who worked with Tempel at Internationale Politik. “She was elegantly charming.”

Tempel had a penchant for jewel-toned jackets and brightly hued purses and shoes, a jolt of color in the often-drab foreign policy world of black and gray suits. Of her many projects, one was to update the IP and BPJ offices on the top floor of the German Council on Foreign Relations. When renovation work unexpectedly stalled (after a week, inexplicably, only two of six doors had been sanded and painted) she and her colleagues rolled up their sleeves and went to work painting themselves.

She ensured that all birthdays were celebrated with singing and generous portions of cake. She treated her colleagues’ children as her own, welcoming them to spend time in the office and share in her appreciation for Donald Duck. And she actively mentored younger colleagues, serving as a role model particularly for women trying to find their feet in male-dominated domains like foreign policy or defense.

Her long-time colleague, Uta Kuhlmann, said Tempel remained so firmly grounded due to her upbringing in the countryside in southern Germany and her close relationship with her family. She built her life upon three pillars: friends, family, and work. If professional commitments grew difficult, she would draw joy from her private life, surrounded by a small circle of good friends, her parents, her godchildren, or her partner.

“Sylke was just happy. She chose what she surrounded herself with in life, and she managed to do so because she was so clever and smart and optimistic,” said Kuhlmann.

Despite her professional commitments and busy travel schedule, Tempel was also deeply devoted to her nephew and her godchildren. She and her partner spent hours helping with homework assignments and traded in their convertible for a family car. Tempel also served as a reading ambassador, reading to students in a Berlin school in the morning before going to the office. She was generous with her time and attention, regardless of her audience.

“Sylke would completely concentrate on the person she was talking to at the moment. She gave you all her attention and concentrated on what linked her to you, and what would interest you,” said Emily Haber. “She would get the best of people because she took interest in what they could offer. That’s rare.”

Tempel led the push to turn Internationale Politik into a leading political affairs magazine, growing the brand and sharpening its profile to include IP Wirtschaft, or IP Business, in 2012. She had been working with the head of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), Daniela Schwarzer, on plans to restructure the think tank as well. She was also selected to be among the first class of Thomas Mann fellows, a program bringing leaders from across German society to the US to foster dialogue and exchange with intellectuals and institutions in the US.

Sylke Tempel is survived by her parents, her sister, her nephew, her partner, and her friends and colleagues.

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It is with great sadness that the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and the German Foreign Office report the death of Dr Sylke Tempel, Editor-in-Chief of the DGAP journals INTERNATIONALE POLITIK and BERLIN POLICY JOURNAL. She died in an accident on October 5, 2017.

Dr Sylke Tempel was an extraordinary person who influenced the debate on foreign policy in Germany and far beyond. She shaped the public discourse on international affairs in the media, as an expert at political and public events, and was also a sought-after commentator on German foreign policy. Through her work, she helped many inside and outside Germany gain a better understanding of German foreign policy.

Since 2008, Dr Sylke Tempel reimagined the DGAP’s foreign policy journals and turned them into important reference points for those interested in international affairs.

Dr Arend Oetker, President of the German Council on Foreign Relations: “In Dr Sylke Tempel, the German Council on Foreign Relations loses an outstanding member of the German media and political community. As a commentator and academic, she significantly influenced national and international debates and was a key sparring partner on German policy issues.”

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel: “We are mourning a good friend and a passionate foreign policy advocate. Her death is a heavy loss for us in Germany and far beyond. Those who have followed Dr Sylke Tempel’s path, her analyses, and her contributions to debates and discussions over the years, hugely treasured her brilliance and her warmth, her subtlety and her political acumen.“

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Artwork: Mitch Blunt

Our September/October issue on the German election is out now – available at Google Play

and the Apple App Store

ONE MORE TIME

ANDREAS RINKE
The Merkel Mystique
Germany’s chancellor seems unassailable. How does she do it?

MAXIMILIANE KOSCHYK
The Great Disconnect
It’s been called the most boring election ever. That might be because the parties are avoiding the very issues closest to voters’ hearts.

CLARE RICHARDSON
On the Data Trail
The CDU and the SPD have returned to door-to-door canvassing, with a technological twist.

SUMI SOMASKANDA
Nasty Newcomers
The populist AfD once polled in the double digits. The party’s support has waned, but not enough to stop it from entering the Bundestag.

CLOSE-UP

Merkel’s Heirs
The chancellor has spent a quarter of a century fending off party rivals. Is there anyone left to succeed her?
By MATTHIAS GEIS

WHAT GERMANY NEEDS TO DO NEXT …

CLAIRE DEMESMAY AND JANA PUGLIERIN
… On France and the EU

JAN TECHAU
… On Three Top Priorities

NIKOLAUS VON TWICKEL
… On Ukraine

TYSON BARKER
… On Digitalization

QUENTIN PEEL
… On Brexit

GERMANY’S ECONOMIC FUTURE

MARCEL FRATZSCHER
“The Bottom Forty Percent Have Not Benefited”
Germany is Europe’s leading economic powerhouse, but it has some homework to do after the election.

WORDS DON’T COME EASY

DEREK SCALLY
GroKo, Jamaika, & Co.
All the political colors, synonyms, and acronyms you need to know when it comes to forming a new German government.

Read more in the Berlin Policy Journal App – September/October 2017 issue out now.

The post The September/October 2017 Issue appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© Artwork: Katinka Reinke

Our July/August issue on EU reform and the Franco-German tandem is out now – available at Google Play

and the Apple App Store

EUROPE BY NUMBERS
Shifting Priorities

FULL STEAM AHEAD
RALPH BOLLMANN
Kohl’s Belated Heiress
Finally trying on Helmut Kohl’s boots, the German chancellor is ready for deeper European integration.

ALMUT MÖLLER
Taking the Bull by the Horns
Why Paris and Berlin should not wait until after the German elections to get going.

CLAIRE DEMESMAY AND JANA PUGLIERIN
Ode to (Some) Joy
Where France and Germany are likely to chime – and occasionally clash.

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI
“We Need to Fix Our Economy, That’s for Sure”
Poland’s former foreign minister on how to make the EU stronger.

CLOSE-UP
Bruno Le Maire
All eyes are now on France’s economy minister. Is he the right man to push through much-needed reforms?
By DANIEL VERNET

GERMANY’S NEW ROLE

URSULA VON DER LEYEN
“You Grow with the Job”
Germany’s defense minister on how to advance European security in turbulent times.

JÖRG LAU
More Stick, More Carrot
Chancellor Merkel is right, the old times are over. Here’s what a new German foreign policy could look like.

JAN TECHAU
Greater Ambition, Please!
Berlin not only needs to do more, it needs to want to do more – and have a strategy to go with it.

RUSSIA AND THE WORLD
LIANA FIX
To Reform or Not to Reform
Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has proposed a radical overhaul of  Russia’s economy. Chances of implementation are slim.

THOMAS W. O’DONNELL
Neue Neue Ostpolitik
What lies behind the US-German spat over new Russian sanctions affecting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline?

RINA SOLOVEITCHIK
Protectors of the Truth
How RT, Sputnik & Co. portray Germany and Europe.

TURKISH-GERMAN RELATIONS
SINAN EKIM
Back from the Brink
In a new low, German troops leave the Incerlik airbase. But there is scope to rebuild Turkey’s relations with Germany and the EU on the economic front.

EUROPEAN ENCOUNTERS
GERALD KNAUS, ANDREAS NICK, AND NADAN PETROVIC
“We Need More Amsterdam in Sicily”
Addressing the refugee crisis and the rising numbers of African migrants arriving in Italy, the EU needs new thinking.

Read more in the Berlin Policy Journal App – July/August 2017 issue.

The post The July/August Issue appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.