Jeffrey Gedmin

Jeffrey Gedmin (born May 13, 1958 in Washington, DC ) is an American political scientist and executive director of the Legatum Institute. From 2001 to 2007 he was director of the German branch of the Aspen Institute , which is located in Berlin on the Wannsee island of Schwanenwerder , as well as a member of the advisory board of Deutsche Bank . From 2007 to the beginning of 2011 Gedmin was Director of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Gedmin was and is a permanent guest at roundtables on German television and interview partner for weekly magazines such as B. the focus . According to Michael Stürmer, he is trying "to bridge the gap to radically changed American political thinking".

Jeff Gedmin's career began through contacts with the State Department , where he worked as a choir director. His musical training took him to Salzburg and the GDR . While traveling in the late 1970s and spending several months in the GDR in the 1980s, he began to be increasingly interested in politics and especially in Eastern European countries. Initially a rather left-wing student with minor subjects in German language and literature, he increasingly developed points of view with which he is now close to the so-called neocons . He changed from a music student (majoring in piano) to a political publicist. While working as a high school teacher, he was doing his PhD at Georgetown University in parallel . He then worked for several years at the American Enterprise Institute for Political Research in Washington, where Richard Perle was his mentor.

As director of the New Atlantic Initiative, an interest group of international institutes, politicians, business people and journalists, Gedmin had close contacts to Henry Kissinger , Margaret Thatcher , Donald Rumsfeld , Madeleine Albright , Benjamin Netanyahu and Václav Havel . As head of the Aspen Institute in Berlin, he set himself the goal of combating what he believed to be rampant anti-Americanism in Germany. He often took very controversial positions, such as in his world column "Why I think the EU is a mistake" or on the International Criminal Court (Europe is hypocritical and self-righteous. The criminal court will be politically abused - like other UN bodies too) . Gedmin had good contacts with the US administration of George HW Bush .

Life

Jeffrey Gedmin was born on May 13, 1958 in Washington, DC . He attended high school and then began studying music and language. In 1977 Gedmin studied at the interpreting institute in Munich. He then completed an overseas academic year at the University of Salzburg .

1980 Gedmin passed the examination for the Bachelor of Arts (major: Music) at the American University in Washington DC From 1981 to 1988 Gedmin worked as a high school teacher. At the same time, he passed the Master of Arts examination in 1982 . In addition, Gedmin studied a summer semester in 1984 and 1985 at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Erfurt University of Education.

In 1986 Gedmin graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced Studies (SAIS).

He worked from 1988 to 1997 as a political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute and received his doctorate in 1990 from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. His doctoral thesis deals with German Area Studies.

From 2001 to 2007 Gedmin was director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin (Wannsee island Schwanenwerder) and writes columns for Die Welt and American Spectator . He is also a frequent guest on television. Gedmin gives lectures on topics such as Atlantic security and economic and political cooperation .

Jeffrey Gedmin then headed Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty in Prague as CEO .

On January 11, 2011, Gedmin's appointment as CEO of the Legatum Institute, a think tank in London, was announced.

Activities and work

Gedmin acts as a co-initiator of various signature campaigns that, for example, called for the war in Iraq and described it as necessary. The signatories are made up of political celebrities such as Condoleezza Rice , Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz .

In his columns (Die Welt / American Spectator) Gedmin reviews the political climate and events between the USA and Europe. The political action of the US administration under George W. Bush is presented and tends to be rated positively. US relations with Europe are presented from a US and neoconservative perspective.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jeffrey Gedmin Named President Of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
2. ↑ Why I think the EU is a mistake, Die Welt, July 22, 2004
3. ^ Spiegel online commentary on the previous source
4. ↑ Europe is hypocritical and self-righteous. The criminal court will be abused politically - like other UN bodies in: Der Tagesspiegel, July 8, 2002.
5. ↑ PDF at www.li.com  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.