9:30 a.m., Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008
Taylor Performing Arts Center
Admission: free

In the globalized world, the transatlantic relationship between the United States and Europe in general and the United States and Germany in particular assumes a role of even greater importance, but also greater complexity, than any time since 1949. What is the nature of the ties between Germany and the United States and how has that relationship developed in the years since the end of the Second World War, through the Cold War, Germany’s unification in 1990, and with the rise of the European Union? What are the political challenges to the very special German-American relationship that have arisen in light of the changing character of NATO, the European Union, and the Germany’s special relationship with its neighbors to the east? What are the economic implications of Germany’s position as the third-largest economy in the world and the European Union’s growing economic clout, especially in light of the historic rise of the euro against the U.S. dollar and in a world ever more hungry for scarce energy and food?

Wolfgang Drautz has served as the German Consul General in Chicago since September 2005. After serving as both a lawyer and a judge early in his professional life, Mr. Drautz joined the German foreign service in 1976 and has held many interesting posts at German embassies, including twice in Moscow (1980 and 1994), and later in London (1998). As his first posting in the United States in 1984, Mr. Drautz served as the Deputy Consul General in Atlanta. In 1989, he was appointed as Germany’s permanent representative to NATO in Brussels. Throughout his career, he has served on a variety of key federal foreign office desks in Bonn and Berlin, including head of the Department for Consular Assistance before arriving in his present Chicago post as Consul General.

The jurisdiction of the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Chicago covers 13 Midwestern states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The Consulate fosters economic, trade, and business cooperation between Germany and the U.S., develops an exchange of students and scholars, provides information about German cultural activities and programs, and fosters bilateral contacts between non-governmental and civic organizations.