Common Ground Berlin

In A.D. 321, an edict drawn up by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great appointed Jewish people to the Cologne town council . This decree is the oldest known document showing Jewish life thriving north of the Alps. But what does it mean to be Jewish in Germany today?  In this episode, guest host Stephanie Wolf speaks with Anti-Defamation League’s Assistant Director for European Affairs, Dalia Gr...

Today marks the birthday of Mildred Harnack, an American academic and spy who was murdered by the Nazis in Berlin and who is the subject of Rebecca Donner ’s New York Times bestseller “All The Frequent Troubles Of Our Days.” In this episode, Common Ground host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson talks to Donner about her great-great-aunt's life, the state of women in the Third Reich, and how sexism distorted h...

Tune in to a special episode of Common Ground on Sept. 15th, which is the birthday of the protagonist of Donner's new book about an American heroine in Nazi-era Berlin.

In this joint episode by the Common Ground and Out of Order podcasts, host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson and GMF Senior Transatlantic Fellow Sudha David-Wilp examine the struggle to elect the first new chancellor in 16 years and what Germany’s top three political parties in opinion surveys are doing about it.   Featuring: Tobias Hans of the CDU, minister president of Saarland; Katarina Barley, SPD Europe...

The pandemic has dramatically changed our lives for nearly 18 months now. The learning curve of how to deal with COVID-19 has been steep and definitive answers remain elusive. So were the experts right about the vaccines? What about booster shots? And should children be inoculated against the coronavirus? Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson speaks with German Ethics Council Chair Alena Buyx; Korinna Henni...

If you like music and dancing, Berlin has a club for you. At least it used to until the pandemic struck. But now that there’s light at the end of that tunnel, will the German capital’s culture of clubs return?  Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson hosted an on-air special on Aug. 13 at Germany’s top electronic music radio station, sunshine live , and spoke with DJs, club scene leaders and more. We bring you the...

Coming up on Aug. 13, Common Ground and Germany's top electronic music radio team up on air to bring you the latest on nightlife in the German capital, which continues to grapple with COVID-19. Tune in from 7 p.m to 10 p.m. CET Guests and DJs include United We Stream’s Robin Schellenberg, Berlin's Club Commission’s Lutz Leichsenring and Georg Kössler of the Green Party. (Find your local FM station...

This episode of Common Ground -- the last before our summer hiatus -- was recorded outdoors in the Berlin neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg, where host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson explores the mounting challenges facing cyclists with Andrew Bulkeley, who writes for Berliner Zeitung English Edition ; Dirk von Schneidemesser of Changing Cities , an initiative specializing in democratic sustainability trans...

Germany’s handling of the pandemic has sparked a debate about whether the country’s form of government still makes sense. Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson untangles the complex federal and state relationship with Bloomberg Opinion Columnist Andreas Kluth and Wolfgang Renzsch, professor emeritus at the University of Magdeburg, who has written extensively about German federalism. This show is produced by...

It’s been nearly six months since U.S. President Joe Biden took office, but has he repaired the frayed U.S. relations with Germany? Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson brings you an update from both sides of the pond with Bloomberg Opinion columnist Andreas Kluth; Sudha David-Wilp, senior transatlantic fellow and deputy director of the German Marshall Fund’s Berlin office and Brett Samuels, White House re...

It’s the first day of summer and #berlinreopens is trending, but are tourists coming back? And what about international travel? Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson explores how the pandemic has changed the way we vacation and the kinds of summer travel we can expect. Her guests are: Christian Tänzler, spokesman for visitBerlin, the city’s official tourism service; Volker Adams, head of government affairs...

As NATO leaders meet in Brussels, our episode features the second part of a special town hall Common Ground co-hosted with the German Marshall Fund of the United States about the future of Afghanistan once the alliance’s troops leave in the coming months.  Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson talks with:  Atia Abawi, award-winning foreign correspondent and children’s author. Kathy Gannon, award-winning New...

On May 27th, Common Ground and The German Marshall Fund of the United States co-hosted a special town hall with Afghan women, aid workers and analysts on three continents to talk about the future of the Central Asian Country after two decades of military and humanitarian intervention. This episode includes excerpts and interviews from that event. Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson talks with:  Atia Abawi...

What role will Germans between the ages of 18 and 35 play in choosing the next chancellor? Germany is often called a “pensioner democracy,” which has made it hard for young people to make a difference. That could change this year following a rare court victory and the surge of the Green Party and Annalena Baerbock, who could become the youngest chancellor in the history of the Federal Republic of...

Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson delves into why women struggle with fear despite wielding more political and economic power than ever before, with guests Anne Ruetten, social media manager of Plan International; Conny Vogt of Heimwegtelefon, a private initiative in Germany and Austria helping women feel safer when they walk home at night; and Sarah Riese, a researcher on violence prevention at the ind...

Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson explores what the end of the Berlin rent cap means for renters, landlords and the upcoming German federal elections with guests Wenke Christoph, state secretary in the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing; Economist Konstantin Kholodolin of the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin; and Kalle Kunkel, a Berlin activist with the Expropriat...

Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson explores the impact of changing attitudes, governments and the pandemic on people’s plans to retire, with guests llka Houben, head of pensions policy at the German Insurance Association; Michael Heuser, research director of the German Institute for Wealth Creation and Retirement Insurance and Megan Leonhardt, senior money reporter with U.S. broadcaster CNBC. This show i...

Tune in on Mondays for interesting insights about Berlin and beyond. Our next episode is coming up Apr. 26, 2021.

Common Ground’s Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson talks to Korinna Hennig, co-host of a top German coronavirus podcast and Stefan Gosepath, a German philosopher and professor at the Freie Universitat Berlin, about the growing exodus in search of inoculations.  We also hear from an American in Berlin who returned to the United States to get vaccinated and two others who are thinking of doing so. This show is...

Teaser: A Shot In The Arm -- A growing number of expats living in Germany are headed home for the COVID-19 vaccine, but is it ethical or safe for them to do so?

The Western allies’ coordinated sanctions on China this month for human rights abuses in Xinjiang are the first of their kind since the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. But do they signal a new, unified approach by Washington and Berlin toward China? Or will the transatlantic unison be short-lived? Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson talks with Noah Barkin, a senior visiting fellow with the German Mars...

Immigrants and their descendants account for a quarter of Germany’s population, but still have a hard time breaking into the political arena. Will any of that change this election year? Is the first-ever Syrian refugee candidate a good start? Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson talks with MP Aydan Özoğuz, a Social Democrat who was previously the federal commissioner for migration, refugees and integration...

What accounts for the slow digitalization of Europe’s economic powerhouse?  Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson explores Germany’s digital reality with Social Democratic MP Daniela Kolbe, who serves on the Artificial Intelligence Study Commission; MP Anke Domscheit-Berg, The Left party’s spokeswoman on the Digital Agenda parliamentary committee; and Philip Meissner, founder and head of the European Center...