Barely 100 days into office, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his three-party Ampelkoalition have already made history. After 16 years of government led by Angela Merkel and the Christian Democrats, in December a new government took over led by Olaf Scholz and the Social Democrats together with the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats. Initially, Germany’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the country’s economic recovery, and energy policy and climate change were at the top of the political agenda. While the new government was taking form, tensions were building with Russia over Ukraine. By the end of February, there was a full-scale war on Europe’s doorstep. Chancellor Scholz responded by holding a historic speech at a special session of the Bundestag where he outlined a new blueprint for German foreign and security policy. But, how has the new government fared during its first 100 days?
Join us on March 18 for an assessment of the new government 100 days into office with journalists Johannes Leithäuser, Political Correspondent in Berlin for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Dr. Anna Sauerbrey, Foreign Editor, DIE ZEIT.
Johannes Leithäuser is Berlin Correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, where he covers politics.
After graduating from high school, he wanted to become a captain in the navy, but he left after his mandatory service. A newspaper internship turned him on to journalism. He studied History, Economics, and Political Science in Heidelberg and Hamburg. Mr. Leithäuser joined the political section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 1988 and moved to Berlin in the summer of 1990. He reported on the end of the GDR, the transition in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the move of the federal government to Berlin. Later he covered German domestic and foreign policy – except when he was correspondent in London from 2007 to 2012.
Dr. Anna Sauerbrey is the Foreign Editor at the weekly DIE ZEIT. Previously, she headed the opinion pages of Der Tagesspiegel and Tagesspiegel Causa, the paper’s online magazine.
She studied History, Political Science, and Journalism in Mainz and Bordeaux. From 2005 to 2009, she was a research assistant in the History Department at the University of Mainz. She worked as an intern at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and ZDF, among others, and as a freelancer for the Mainzer Rhein-Zeitung for several years. In 2009, Dr. Sauerbrey completed a traineeship at Der Tagesspiegel and became a staff member of its opinion/editorial department. In 2013, she was an Arthur F. Burns Fellow at the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2018, she was awarded an Anna-Marie and Stephen M. Kellen Fellowship for Berlin-based journalists by the ACG to conduct research on the role religion plays in American politics.
