Atlantic Bridge (Germany)

Atlantic Bridge (Germany)   (Deep state milieu)
File:Atlantik-Brücke logo.svg
Formation	1952
Headquarters	Berlin, Germany
Type	•  think tank •  influence network
Interests	Germany, Creating a network of reliable political cadre
Membership	•  Christian Wulff •  Thomas de Maizière •  Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg •  Michael Otto •  Jürgen Großmann •  Thomas Enders •  Paul-Bernhard Kallen •  Hans-Gert Pöttering •  Charles Schumer •  Cem Özdemir •  Edelgard Bulmahn •  Michael Vassiliadis •  Wolfgang Ischinger •  Richard Burt •  Silvana Koch-Mehrin •  Craig Kennedy •  Kai Diekmann •  Katja Gloger •  Joshua Bolten •  Philip D. Murphy •  Henry Kissinger •  Josef Ackermann •  Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg •  Helmut Kohl •  Helmut Schmidt •  Rupert Stadler •  Torsten Oltmanns •  Joachim Gauck •  Angela Merkel •  Sigmar Gabriel •  Michael Hüther •  Norbert Röttgen •  Andreas Dombret •  David Deissner •  Angelika Gifford •  Reiner Hoffmann •  Alexander Lambsdorff •  Christian Lange •  Eveline Metzen •  James von Moltke •  Omid Nouripour •  Julie Linn Teigland •  Anahita Thoms •  Friederike von Tiesenhausen •  Karsten Uhlmann •  Nagila Warburg •  Michael Werz •  Ute Wolf •  Sven Afhüppe •  Tamara Anthony •  Anna von Bayern •  Frank Behrendt •  Angela Cullen •  Christina Eibl •  Tasso Enzweiler •  Manuel Hartung •  David Ignatius •  Adam Lashinsky •  Kirsten Rulf •  Klaus Scherer •  Sylke Tempel •  Matthias Naß •  Jan Fleischhauer •  Claudia Roth •  Friedrich März •  Katrin Göring-Eckardt •  Stefan Liebich •  Rudolf Scharping •  Hubertus Schmoldt •  Guido Westerwelle •  Volker Rühe •  Jens Neumann •  Siegfried Luther •  Martin Kohlhaussen •  Christoph Bertram •  Juergen B. Donges •  Norbert Gansel •  Jürgen R. Grossmann •  Arend Oetker •  Beate Lindemann •  Max M. Warburg •  Christopher Vollmer •  Sebastian Blum •  David Livingston •  Bernd-Georg Spies •  Dominik Pförringer •  Alexia D’Arco •  Alexander Görlach •  Brian Moran •  Friedrich Bieselt •  Ute Elisabeth Weiland •  Sabine Bendiek •  Eveline Y. Metzen •  Anahita Thoms •  Fritz Erler •  Kurt Birrenbach •  Kurt Becker •  Henry Kissinger •  Zbigniew Brzezinski •  John J. McCloy •  Herman Georg Kaiser •  Gotthard von Falkenhausen •  Alexander Menne •  Liz Mohn •  Jörg Paura •  Friedbert Pflüger •  Pam Campos-Palma •  Felix Reinshagen •  Hanno Stegmann •  Jan Friedrich Kallmorgen •  Andreas Winiarski •  Christopher Becker •  Amanda Mertens Campbell •  Alex Yergin •  Cenk Sidar •  Barbara Engels •  Ana Ramic •  Elizabeth Linder •  Ernst Friedländer •  Erik Blumenfeld •  Albert Schäfer •  Hans Karl von Borries •  Marion Gräfin Dönhoff •  John J. McCloy •  Friedrich Merz •  Burkhard Schwenker •  Andreas R. Dombret •  Jürgen Fitschen •  Eckart von Klaeden •  Max Warburg •  Nagila Warburg •  Ingrid Hengster •  Philipp Rösler •  Patrick Döring •  Dorothee Bär •  Markus Blume •  Joachim Pfeiffer •  Karl-Heinz Paqué •  Karsten Voigt •  Christian Lindner •  Claus Kleber •  Stefan Kornelius •  Sonja Lahnstein-Kandel •  Martin Winterkorn •  John Christian Kornblum •  Birgit Breuel •  Max Strauß •  Carlo Schmid •  Kurt Georg Kiesinger •  Karl Schiller •  Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker •  Max Horkheimer •  Axel Springer •  Friedrich Carl Freiherr von Oppenheim •  Joachim Zahn •  Otto Wolff von Amerongen •  Hans Constantin Boden •  Kurt Hansen •  Hans-Günther Sohl •  Konrad Henkel •  Otto Graf Lambsdorff •  Casimir Johannes Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg •  Karl Heinz Beckurts •  Karlheinz Schreiber •  Dieter Holzer •  Hilmar Kopper •  Hans-Dietrich Winkhaus •  Josef Joffe •  Philipp Mißfelder •  Richard von Weizsäcker •  Walther Leisler Kiep •  Ernst Friedlaender •  Arnold Bergstraesser •  Karl Klasen •  Ali Aslan •  Elmar Theveßen •  Hans Tietmeyer
A long established and relatively public organ of the US to control German politics.

Although they are based on very similar ideas, Atlantik-brúcke is not to be confused with its British counterpart The Atlantic Bridge

Organization

Atlantik-Brücke ('Atlantic Bridge') is the most powerful US-German influence organization, a network of powerful people to strengthen German ties to the US, especially through NATO. The members have dominated the leadership in every German party since its foundation, and all the chief editors and leading journalist in the German MSM-press are members.

Founded in Hamburg in 1952, it was located in Bonn between 1983 and 1999 and is now located in Berlin. The association organizes invitation-only conferences, seminars and colloquia. Through various programs for "Young Leaders", military officers, leading journalists, central politicians and promising students, Atlantik-Brücke fosters social networks among current and future pro-US German leaders in business and world affairs.

The Atlantic Bridge is cooperating with CIA-close think-tanks like the Aspen Institute, and the membership list has a significant overlap with Bilderberg-participants.

Award named after CIA-director

From 1993 to 2008, the AB named its highest price in honor of CIA-officer Vernon A. Walters, responsible for such regime changes as the 1973 coup in Chile..

From 2015 onward, their highest price is named after former CIA-director George HW Bush.

Young Leaders

The two Atlantik-Brücke Young Leaders conferences receive more than 500 applications per year, from which 120 Young Leaders are chosen with the help of a steering committee of political, business and academic leaders. Sixty young leaders are chosen for the German-American Conference (30 Americans and 30 Germans) and sixty are chosen for the European Conference. As of 2011, the German-American Young Leaders Conference has been running for 33 years.

The Young Leaders Program initiated by Atlantik-Brücke represents the oldest and largest program dedicated to identifying and nurturing relationships among the future custodians of the transatlantic partnership. Since the first Young Leaders Conference was held in 1973, over 1,500 Europeans and Americans have attended one of thirty-two German-American Young Leaders Conferences or ten European Young Leaders Conferences, a 10-day international young leader exchange.

Alumni of these prestigious gatherings remain in contact with each other both informally and through regional discussion groups and biennial alumni conferences that had been held under the auspices of Atlantik-Brücke. On January 1, 2011 Atlantik-Brücke established the independent organization "Atlantik Forum e.V. – the Young Leaders Alumni of Atlantik-Brücke" to more effectively facilitate and manage all these activities. 

Prominent Young Leaders alumni

Christian Wulff, Former Federal President of Germany

Thomas de Maizière, Former Federal Minister of Interior

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Former Federal Minister of Defense

Michael Otto, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Otto Group

Jürgen Großmann, Chairman of the Managing Board of RWE

Thomas Enders, President and CEO of Airbus Industries

Paul-Bernhard Kallen, Chairman of the Board of Hubert Burda Media Holding

Hans-Gert Pöttering, Former President of the European Parliament

Charles Schumer, Senior U.S. Senator from New York

Cem Özdemir, Chairman of Alliance 90/The Greens

Edelgard Bulmahn Member of Parliament; Former Federal Minister of Education and Research

Michael Vassiliadis, Chairman of the Board of IG BCE – Mining, Chemical and Energy Industrial Union

Wolfgang Ischinger, Former German Ambassador to the United States

Richard Burt, Former United States Ambassador to Germany

Silvana Koch-Mehrin, Vice President of the European Parliament

Craig Kennedy, President of the German Marshall Fund of the United States

Kai Diekmann, Editor-in-Chief of BILD Zeitung

Katja Gloger, Editor-at-large, STERN Magazin

Joshua Bolten, Former White House Chief of Staff, President George W. Bush

History

Eric M. Warburg (founder of the firm currently known as Warburg Pincus) was one of the founders of Atlantik-Brücke, together with legendary editor Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, Chancellor of Germany Helmut Schmidt and other leading Hamburg citizens. In those Cold War times, the U.S. was looking for influence on Germany. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) probably gave the idea for founding the Atlantik-Brücke; Eric M. Warburg was a friend and consultant for John J. McCloy, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and President of the World Bank. The Atlantik-Brücke is the German counterpart for the U.S. based American Council on Germany (members include US diplomats Richard Holbrooke and Henry Kissinger).

Extract of member list

Below is a selection from the member list of the Atlantik Brücke:

Philip D. Murphy, former United States Ambassador to Germany

Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State of the United States of America

Josef Ackermann, former CEO of Deutsche Bank, Germany

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, former Secretary of Defense of Germany

Helmut Kohl, former Chancellor of Germany

Helmut Schmidt, former Chancellor of Germany

Rupert Stadler, former chairman of Audi AG

Torsten Oltmanns, Global Marketing Director at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants

Joachim Gauck, former President of Germany

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany

Members of the Board

Chairman

Former Federal Minister Sigmar Gabriel, MdB (SPD), Deutscher Bundestag, Berlin Vice-Chairmen

Professor Dr. Michael Hüther, Director and Member of the Presidium, German Economic Institute, Cologne

Former Federal Minister Dr. Norbert Röttgen, MdB (CDU/CSU), Berlin Treasurer

Professor Dr. Andreas Dombret, Former Member, Executive Board of Deutsche Bundesbank, Columbia University, New York Executive Director

Dr. [David Deissner]]

Members of the Board

[1] Angelika Gifford, TUI AG, ProSiebenSat1 Media SE und Rothschild & Co., Munich

Reiner Hoffmann, German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB), Berlin

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, Munich Security Conference (MSC), Munich

Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, MdB (FDP), Deutscher Bundestag, Berlin

Parliamentary State Secretary Christian Lange, MdB (SPD), Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, Berlin

Eveline Metzen, American Chamber of Commerce in Germany e.V., Frankfurt am Main

James von Moltke, Deutsche Bank AG, Frankfurt am Main

Omid Nouripour, MdB (Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen), Deutscher Bundestag, Berlin

Julie Linn Teigland, Ernst & Young GmbH, Mannheim

Anahita Thoms, Baker & McKenzie, Düsseldorf

Friederike von Tiesenhausen Cave, Bloomberg L.P., London

Karsten Uhlmann, Frankfurter Brauhaus GmbH, Frankfurt (Oder)

Dr. Nagila Warburg, Warburg Archive Foundation, Hamburg

Dr. Michael Werz, Center for American Progress, Washington, DC

Ute Wolf, Evonik Industries AG, Essen

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