We only set what is needed. Technically necessary cookies keep the site working. Anything that measures how the site is used runs only if you agree, and you can change that at any time. Privacy
Got a problem? Someone has already solved it. Usually next door.
Democracies are currently more challenged, both at home and internationally, than in many decades. That is why we focus on strengthening their resilience.
Our key analytical tool to achieve that is cross-border learning. To overcome political standstill, we look for another democracy that has used a specific reform path to solve the political problem at hand. The case for adopting that solution then rests on evidence — rather than endless political arguments.
An established global voice
Our work has been published in leading national newspapers in Europe, North America and Asia — and featured on radio stations around the world. We have been publishing our online magazine The Globalist since January 2000.
But our analysis does not stop there. There are plenty of autocratic actors keen on undermining and even attacking Western democracies. Our Strategic Intervention Papers identify, analyze and explain such instances and build a playbook to counter their harm.
Everything we publish falls into one of two formats.
Flagship format
Strategic Intervention Paper
Tackles national policy problems, finds a country that has solved it successfully, and sets out what adoption requires, including specific steps to be taken.
A short, media-ready take on something that is currently moving the global agenda. It zeroes in on an overlooked angle, challenges conventional wisdom and explains who the people are with an interest in perpetuating it.
We prepare every Strategic Intervention Paper for publication and place it through media work: Opinion pieces, interviews, explanatory formats, broadcast. A paper that only reaches people who already agree has not intervened in anything.
One question runs through all six: Can democratic systems still decide and implement decisions? Or are we doomed to political standstill which erodes democracies?
Global Democracy
Openness and accountability of institutions. Transparency, cohesion and the future of Western democracies.
The GIC puts particular emphasis on four countries
DEGermany: Renewal is needed if Europe is to succeedEconomically successful for a long time, but that success has waned. Europe’s prosperity is in many respects proportional to Germany’s. Yet the willingness to learn from other nations is fading as politics turns inward.Germany on The Globalist →
USThe United States: Rejuvenating the transatlantic relationshipWhat began as “America First” has in many ways become “America Only.” Neither the benevolent-turned-malevolent framing nor the assumption of a return to normal is analytically sufficient.American Futures on The Globalist →
CNChina: The challenge the West has yet to faceCommentary still oscillates between dismissing Beijing’s structural deficits and cataloguing how it games the system. Both are escapism. China’s rise is a reality test Western democracies have not yet taken.China on The Globalist →
RURussia: Testing the West with the power of malevolenceA diminished power that still matters, because it exerts influence exclusively through negation. It also shows what happens when a former great power is captured by a kleptocratic elite.Russia on The Globalist →
The Global Ideas Center and The Globalist are structurally linked. The magazine is the GIC's principal publication channel but remains editorially independent. Foundations fund the papers, not the distribution around them.
A Strategic Intervention Paper changes the terms of reaching a decision.
Strengthening democracy starts with solving real problems. And when one country solves a specific problem, it creates a constructive precedent that other democracies may follow. Each Strategic Intervention Paper zeroes in on a political problem the country in focus has stopped trying to solve. We look for a country that did solve it, and turn that precedent into an evidence-based argument reform blockers have to answer. A SIP’s recommendations always include specific steps to be taken.
Three shifts in analytical perspective
From
To
What it changes
National frame
International comparison
The debate moves beyond what is possible in principle to introduce real change
Abstract dispute
Observable practice
Legislation, administration and institutions become the unit of argument
Cannot be done
Has been done
The burden of explanation moves to whoever wants to block a proposed reform
The core of it
In politics, if you are explaining, you are losing. A precedent that already works abroad forces the other side to explain why it would fail at home. Reformers then argue from evidence instead of intention.
Source: Global Ideas Center, “Strategic Intervention Papers: An Introduction”. Papers run 2,000–4,000 words and are published in full at The Globalist.
Format explainer
A Strategic Assessment Memo puts the missing angle into a debate while it is still running.
SAMs are short, media-ready takes about hot items on the global agenda. We write them for editors and correspondents who need a defensible counter-position.
The claimThe interestThe angle
1
Start from a claim, not a topic
A memo begins where someone in power has asserted something as self-evident. It rarely is.
2
Name the interest behind it
Positions promoted as unassailable wisdom tend to be self-serving and short-sighted. The memo says whose interest the framing serves.
3
Supply the overlooked frame
We supply the angle that has been left out, or a framework in which the same facts read differently.
Where it differs from a SIP
A SIP moves a decision over a reform cycle. A memo moves a debate this week.
Side by side
Strategic Intervention Paper
Strategic Assessment Memo
Purpose
Open a blocked policy path by showing a working precedent
Correct or widen a debate already under way
Starts from
A specific national problem
A specific public claim or event
Method
Comparative case analysis across countries
Assessment of an argument and the interests behind it
Ends with
Intervention points and short-term calls to action
The Global Ideas Center (GIC) is a non-profit, independent and virtual think tank. It operates a global network of reform-oriented practitioners, academics and civil society actors. Our goal is to apply their insights to critical issues of national and international concern in a solutions- and reform-oriented manner.
The Global Ideas Center often uses cross-border comparisons to model its analyses. The principal purpose is (1) to contribute to improving relations between countries and (2) to highlight specific lessons from individual countries that others might learn from and attempt to implement domestically.
The Global Ideas Center’s mission thus is to catalyze new solutions across countries and societies through “The Power of Comparisons.” The GIC tackles powerful interests and challenges conventional wisdom to drive an open, honest, educated and results-oriented debate.
Our theory of change
We live in an age during which individuals as much as nations are grappling with decreasing levels of certainty and an increasing number of challenges.
But even though today’s world is more globally connected and complex than ever, most nations still limit their national politics to historically familiar patterns. As a result, most nations are constrained by the political economy of their home country and have limited their ability to affect or react to far-flung processes that affect them intimately.
Populists have risen to political prominence around the world by offering false solutions and peddling mantra-like shortcuts to prosperity and success. Their approaches often tend to obscure, rather than help solve, the underlying real-world issues. Simply put, we live in a world that is shaped by so much complexity that the old faultlines of political ideology — the left and the right — are no longer adequate or useful.
A virtual think tank
The Global Ideas Center is an independent non-profit institution organized as a virtual think tank. The GIC does not rely on any physical infrastructure and keeps very little permanent staff in order to ensure the maximum possible amount of the financial resources made available to us is used for our content operations.
The GIC coordinates a network of international thought leaders including reform-oriented scholars and practitioners in politics, business and civil society. It serves this network as a dialogue-oriented project partner, helping its partners develop and publish content and manage outreach (“co-creation”).
Our analysts specialize in exploring often-overlooked links (“interferences”) between issue areas. We are firmly committed to reaching a broad audience and not simply “preaching to the converted.”
The GIC is multi-thematic in scope, operates in a media-oriented manner and publishes the online magazine The Globalist as its own independent think tank publication. Via its online magazine, the GIC has built up a global outreach network of media partners. Its articles have been published in more than 100 different publications — predominantly the leading national newspapers and magazines — in more than 50 countries.
A hybrid think tank
During a time of profound crisis in democratic legitimacy, think tanks must innovate to make our democracies more resilient. The Global Ideas Center organizes itself differently to produce that innovation.
Think tanks traditionally are organized to produce evidence-based findings that they primarily gear toward decision-makers and professional experts. This model is in urgent need of modification, because the public at large is losing trust in the ability of governments and political parties to solve problems. That loss of trust is profound enough to shake the belief in the institutional legitimacy of Western democracies.
In order to restore this trust, think tanks must respond much more strongly and directly to the legitimate information interests and needs of the broader public. The Global Ideas Center therefore consciously organizes itself as a hybrid think tank. Its activities do have a think tank character — they exercise thought leadership. But they aim less to influence professional audiences and more to provide a service to the public.
Our SIPs are always also communications projects
Every project the GIC undertakes is designed from the outset as a communications project. Part of that design is to always take into account the interests of the media that might distribute and amplify each project’s message.
However, the GIC is not concerned with corresponding to any media outlet’s pre-set political orientation or content-related expectations. Doing so all too often limits a message’s reach to a particular “bubble.” This definitely does not strengthen our democracies.
Instead, the GIC deliberately relies on the principle of establishing counterpoints to ossified arguments. It strives for originality of analysis and insight to generate lasting attention from the public and the media. In order to counteract think tanks’ tendency to be pigeonholed by policy theme and political orientation, the Global Ideas Center is deliberately organized in a multi-thematic fashion and does not adhere to any political ideology.
Intellectual openness and virtual travel
Our Strategic Intervention Papers, which by their very structure often involve cross-border comparisons, evoke a sense of virtual exploration or (mind) travel. After all, travel is a state of mind. When undertaking it, people are more receptive to observing and embracing fresh ideas than in their home environments.
People
GIC Fellows write the papers. The editorial team coordinates them.
Direction
SR
Stephan-Götz Richter
Director · Publisher, The Globalist
Founded The Globalist in 2000. Regular guest on ARD and ZDF; published in the New York Times, Financial Times, Le Monde and Der Spiegel.
Media
GIC in the media
Broadcast appearances, interviews and commentary. Where a piece draws on one of our papers, we link the paper alongside it.
Strategic Intervention Paper · September 2026
The Rise of the AfD and the Future of Germany’s Culture of Remembrance
J.D. Bindenagel
Implications for the Restitution of Nazi-Looted Artworks.
DEFrankfurter Allgemeine ZeitungAfD und NS-Raubkunst: Angriff auf die deutsche RestitutionspolitikReadPDF
—Further placementsEach appearance is listed here under the paper, not as a separate entry.
Further placements will be listed here as they appear.
Publications › Global Democracy › Germany’s Culture of Remembrance
SIPGlobal Democracy
Germany’s Culture of Remembrance
In the election in Saxony-Anhalt, a decisive element of Germany’s political culture is at stake. The culture of remembrance is an essential part of the preservation of human dignity in Germany. What do we have to do to protect it against hostility and undermining maneuvers from home and abroad?
J.D. BindenagelFellow, Global Ideas Center · former U.S. Ambassador
September 2026Strategic Intervention Paper≈ 16 minPublished in full at The Globalist
The paper as an object12 pages · PDF
Hover to fan →
Strategic Intervention Paper · 09/2026
The Rise of the AfD and the Future of Germany’s Culture of Remembrance
Implications for the Restitution of Nazi-Looted Artworks. By J.D. Bindenagel, Retired U.S. Ambassador.
The AfD dismisses Holocaust remembrance as a “cult of guilt” and moves against provenance research.
same pattern
The parallel
United StatesUS
The Trump administration recasts the Declaration of Independence in religious-nationalist terms.
Conclusions
The culture of remembrance is an essential part of preserving human dignity in Germany and a fundamental moral pillar of German post-war democracy.
The state election on September 6 in Saxony-Anhalt is being followed with concern nationally and internationally, because the AfD could take over the office of prime minister of a federal state for the first time.
The AfD is trying to discredit the culture of remembrance as a “cult of guilt” and to undermine provenance research and the return of Nazi-looted art.
The campaign focuses on the future of the German Foundation for Lost Art in Magdeburg, which recently returned its 10,000th work of art.
New structures — the US HEAR Act, the new German arbitration court and the Bavarian Commission — reaffirm state commitment to the Washington Principles of 1998.
The campaign against remembrance has a transatlantic dimension. In the United States, the Trump administration reshapes the universalist core of the Declaration of Independence in favor of religious nationalism.
The AfD and the Trump administration are united in replacing liberal universalism with an illiberal ethnonationalism that limits human dignity to a particular group.
Rejecting the culture of remembrance weakens the principle of “never again”, which rests on the belief in universal human dignity.
A realignment of transatlantic relations is essential, supported by parties of the democratic center, civil society, culture and academia.
This matters more because the West is already challenged by autocratic regimes and by structural change in the global economy.
Disclosure
For the sake of transparency, I would like to point out at the outset that I have been personally involved in this issue for over a quarter of a century. On behalf of the U.S. government, in 1998, I negotiated the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art. Subsequently, President Clinton appointed me U.S. Ambassador and Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues in 1999. I negotiated agreements on compensation payments for forced labor during World War II, as well as for unpaid insurance policies, Nazi-confiscated art, property restitution and Holocaust-related education, research and remembrance, and the establishment of the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future. The agreement for survivors of forced and slave labor awarded six billion US dollars from Germany.
Far more than “just” a state election
That is why I am concerned about the German culture wars, which have flared up again in the run-up to the state elections on September 6 in Saxony-Anhalt.
Although this is a state election in a state that is only the eleventh largest state in Germany with its 2.12 million inhabitants, the event is being followed with great concern nationally and internationally. It could be the first time the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party classified as right-wing extremist, has won a majority in a state parliament and could take over the office of prime minister.
In my professional life, I have been able to observe precisely that Germany’s handling of the Holocaust is a fundamental moral pillar of German post-war democracy. I have also come to appreciate the fact that the two topics of German reunification and German historical responsibility have always gone hand in hand within the culture of remembrance.
But now these achievements, as well as the necessary and deeply impressive phase of mature social reflection, are suddenly exposed to a growing danger from right-wing extremist political forces.
The attack
By trying to dismiss the memory of the Holocaust as a mere “cult of guilt”, the AfD is attacking the moral foundations of Germany’s post-Holocaust self-image in a direct and elemental way.
By trying to dismiss the memory of the Holocaust as a mere “cult of guilt”, the AfD is attacking the moral foundations of Germany’s post-Holocaust self-image in a direct and elemental way.
The far right’s rejection of provenance research
As a former negotiator and staunch supporter of the Washington Principles on Nazi-confiscated art, I am particularly outraged that the AfD aims to undermine the German culture of remembrance in order to justify the non-return of works of art stolen by the Nazis.1
A widespread misconception in this context is that historical failures of the post-war period prevent Germany from dealing comprehensively with its past. Dealing with history is certainly not a panacea against National Socialism, and it is not surprising that völkisch-authoritarian racism persists and has resurfaced in the AfD.
However, current demands for an end to the culture of remembrance must not undermine the promise of “never again”. Its goal is to counteract the resurgence of right-wing extremist ethnonationalism.
Although the movement to identify and return stolen artworks is gaining momentum nationwide, all indications suggest the AfD is focused on blocking these efforts.
As part of its election campaign in Saxony-Anhalt in the fall, the AfD is pleading for an end to what it calls the “unfounded general suspicion of all museum holdings2” and the “artificial maintenance of feelings of guilt.”3
As part of this campaign, the foundation “Foundation for Lost Art” (DZK), which is partly financed by the state government in Saxony-Anhalt, has become a target.
While this budget-focused strategy may not come as a surprise, it allows the AfD to signal a far more radical political intent.
As far as I can tell, the main goal is to perpetuate anti-Semitic stereotypes about wealthy Jews who are supposedly always out to amass wealth (and now want to regain it through restitution). This supposedly amounts to stealing national cultural heritage. In doing so, the AfD is proceeding in a very clever way with its infamous insinuations, which can be denied, at least on a purely rhetorical level.
The future of the German Foundation for Lost Art
The campaign in Saxony-Anhalt focuses on the future of the German Foundation for Lost Art (DZK), based in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt. It is responsible for restituting looted cultural assets and recently reached an important milestone: the 10,000th artwork was returned to rightful owners or their descendants.
More than 80 percent of these restitutions have occurred in the last 25 years.
Nazi art theft as a violation of international law
The restitution of Nazi-looted art is now recognized as an ongoing problem that goes beyond the context of the post-World War II era.
Recently, three developments have created national dispute settlement mechanisms to not only reaffirm compliance with the 1998 Washington Principles, but to make their implementation more effective.
United States
HEAR Act
Classifies Nazi art looting as a violation of international law and extends its scope to collections outside the United States.
Germany
Court of arbitration
A federal body to settle disputes over the return of Nazi-looted art.
Bavaria
Independent Commission
Determines the focus of Bavarian provenance research.
These new structures are directly directed against the view of the AfD, which tries to defame the overdue legal consolidation of restitution efforts as manifestations of a “cult of guilt”.
In any case, the AfD’s rejection of provenance research effectively perpetuates National Socialist looting.
The comparison at the heart of this paper
Two countries, one method
Germany DE
United States US
What is attacked
The culture of remembrance and the constitutional promise of human dignity
The universalist core message of the Declaration of Independence
The vehicle
Remembrance recast as a “cult of guilt”, provenance research defunded
An executive order on American history, the Declaration recast in religious terms
Who carries it
The AfD, in a state campaign with national reach
The administration, through federal instruments
What replaces it
Human dignity restricted to “bio-Germans”
Rights grounded in religious nationalism rather than secular equality
Birthright citizenship affirmed by the Supreme Court
Drawn from the sections above. Russia follows the same method against the memory of Stalin’s victims.
The AfD in Putin’s footsteps
What makes the AfD’s position even more disconcerting is the fact that its strategy in dealing with the dark pages of German history mirrors that of Vladimir Putin and his approach to whitewashing Soviet history.
The parallel
Both the AfD and Putin firmly reject any confrontation with collective guilt or responsibility for murderous, state-directed actions in the past of their respective countries.
Both the AfD and Putin firmly reject any confrontation with collective guilt or responsibility for murderous, state-directed actions in the past of their respective countries.
Thus, Putin refuses to engage in any serious way with the commemoration of Stalin’s victims. Instead, their suffering is deliberately downplayed, their history manipulated by distorted facts, and their memory suppressed. Memorials are being demolished, and any further work by Memorial, the Russian human rights organization that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, was banned in April 2026.
The situation is similar withAfD historical revisionism, as practiced by Björn Höcke and Alexander Gauland, two leading representatives of the AfD.4 They resolutely reject any discussion of the question of collective guilt for Germany’s past. Particularly infamous is the thesis that the Nazi regime is only a “birdshit” in the thousand-year history of Germany.
With suchassertions , the AfD is trying to lower public discourse in Germany to the level of more than 40 years ago. In 1985, Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker acknowledged German responsibility for the crimes committed during the Nazi era in a speech that was groundbreaking for Germany’s post-war historical remembrance.
Von Weizsäcker did so by stating that May 8, 1945 should not be regarded in the history books as the day of Germany’s defeat, but as the day of liberation from the Nazi regime.
Joined at the revisionist hip: The AfD and the Trump administration
On the one hand, developments over the past quarter century are positive. The negotiation of the Washington Principles aims to put an end to Nazi looting, so that the stolen works of art do not indirectly perpetuate the crimes of Nazism.
Today, as the right to return looted art to its rightful owners is reaffirmed, it is recognized that Holocaust-era restitution is not yet complete, and that the passage of time must not prevent the pursuit of justice.
However, regarding the parallels between the anti-democratic activities of the AfD and the Trump administration in the USA, the AfD’s current campaign against the culture of remembrance has a very disturbing, until recently unimaginable, dimension of transatlantic cooperation.
While some AfD politicians in Germany have long actively questioned whether German identity is still linked to the legacy of the Holocaust5 and thus want to unhinge German history, Trump’s government, for its part, has begun a similar project. In its historical revisionism, the Trump Administration is concerned with reinterpreting the core message of the US Declaration of Independence, according to which all human beings are created equal.
But instead of affirming this core statement, there is now an insidious attempt to religiously charge the main statement and reinterpret it to mean that Americans are “all created in the image of an almighty God”. Of course, this sentence is not part of the American Declaration of Independence, but a Bible verse from the Book of Genesis. And above all, it contradicts the country’s deliberate constitutional separation of church and state.
That didn’t stop Donald Trump from claiming in his speech on the occasion of the recently celebrated 250th anniversary of the USA on July 4: “And as our Declaration of Independence tells us, we are all created in the image of an almighty God. And a communist will never say that. That’s for sure.”6
What the rewrite achieves
It detaches the justification of the overriding importance of human rights from the universal, secular equality of all human beings and links it directly to a form of religious nationalism.
The purpose of this deliberate misinterpretation is obvious: It detaches the justification of the overriding importance of human rights from the universal, secular equality of all human beings and links it directly to a form of religious nationalism.
The American version of the culture wars as a “cousin” of the AfD
The U.S. version of launching a culture war also appears in official documents such as the Executive Order of March 2025 on the “Restoration of Truth and Reason in American History.”7 In the document, the president laments that “the remarkable achievements of the United States” have been undermined by “putting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.”
Trump also criticizes earlier federal efforts to eliminate systemic inequalities. And he classifies movements that advocate for racial equality and gender justice as “destructive ideologies” and “historical reinterpretations” that divide the nation.
While there have indeed been some exaggerated efforts in recent decades to portray U.S. history as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise insurmountably flawed,” remarkably, the president’s executive order does not merely express his intention to abandon these efforts.
Instead, Trump is using this recent past to legitimize a broad movement in exactly the opposite direction, calling into question the need for appropriate corrective action.
The definition of culture wars in our societies
As early as the 1990s, Samuel P. Huntington described his concept of a cultural conflict, in which culture would become the main cause of global conflicts, trumping ideology and economics.
In a striking update of this approach, promoted by U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance, the civilizational struggle between Christianity and secularism is now taking place — within the West.
The contrast between the two approaches is primarily philosophical and not geographical. The central question is whether societies strive for a liberal, universalist future or pursue an illiberal, ethnonationalist and exclusionary approach.
Universalism against ethnonationalism
In fact, the universalism expressed in the American Declaration of Independence is a radical Enlightenment idea. It states that all human beings “are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
In a similarly radical form, the German Basic Law emphasizes the inviolability of human dignity and prescribes that the state must ensure respect for it as a matter of priority. This philosophical concept underlines that human dignity applies equally to all people, regardless of their origin or background.
In contrast, ethnonationalism views the nation as a community passed down through family, religion, and cultural customs. It emphasizes the importance of politics in protecting this heritage from supposed civilizational erasure.
Its appeal lies in fostering a sense of rootedness and ethnic identity, but it tends to limit democracy to individuals who share a certain, often artificial, sense of identity or heritage.
In this sense, important U.S. civil rights laws passed in the 1960s, such as the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, represent concrete expressions of the specific culture of remembrance in the United States.
Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that aim to overturn these laws are not only legally irresponsible and socially destructive. They are also the constitutional implementation of historical revisionism similar to what the AfD is striving for in Germany, in terms of preventing adequate recognition and reappraisal of the dark phase of Germany’s past.
The most legally potentially far-reaching part of this ethno-nationalist reinterpretation effort was Donald Trump’s vehement effort to repeal the “jus soli” birthright in force in the United States. This principle — that all people born within the U.S. jurisdiction become U.S. citizens, regardless of the nationality of their parents — was recently affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States.
This is particularly pleasing because the court otherwise complies with Trump’s legal policy wishes in almost all of its decisions.
The interim conclusion is that while the Trump administration is undermining the principles of the US Declaration of Independence, the far right in Germany is opposing the constitutional commitment to human dignity by dismissing the German culture of remembrance as a “cult of guilt”.
Culture of remembrance as a “cult of guilt”?
The German culture wars inspired by the AfD are in line with J.D. Vance’s idea of tribal supremacy. The AfD’s goal is to reshape German identity in terms of ethnic purity.
The acceptance of the culture of remembrance and the principle of “never again” are both rooted in the belief in universal human dignity. The AfD and its US heroes, Musk and Vance, firmly reject this.
Where this leads
That we are witnessing the erosion of this promise, which was originally made by survivors of Buchenwald and other Nazi concentration camps, starting from the USA of all places, is as worrying as it is shameful.
The fact that we are witnessing the erosion of this promise, which was originally made by survivors of Buchenwald and other Nazi concentration camps, who believed in the universality of human dignity, starting from the USA of all places, is as worrying as it is shameful. It is diametrically opposed to the consistent propagation of human rights by the American side, especially at the international level.
The AfD’s stance against provenance research and looted art restitution is likely to have an impact on other post-communist countries, as they too increasingly have to deal with looting in connection with the Holocaust and perspectives from the pre-1990s period.
Implementation of the Basic Law and respect for human dignity
The AfD’s approach to reshaping German politics not only calls into question Germany’s politics of remembrance, but also aims far beyond it.
By restricting the concept of human dignity to “bio-Germans” — i.e. mainly white Germans — the party pursues two goals: First, it wants to weaken or devalue the concept of human dignity so that it no longer serves as a cornerstone of the Basic Law.
Second, it aims to undermine the moral foundation of the Western view of the post-Holocaust world legal order, which is fundamentally based on the belief that human dignity is universal and empathy is indispensable.
These basic principles are now under scrutiny, as Elon Musk, for example, questions the value of empathy, claiming that it is the biggest mistake of Western civilization. At the same time, right-wing extremists look at history through a kind of tribal lens and see supporters of universal Human dignity as tyrannical. As regrettable as this view is, it is not unexpected among high-ranking Trump officials.8
For example, Vance reinterprets the Christian concept of “ordo amoris” (order of love) and suggests that one’s own group should take precedence over others, which is contrary to traditional Christian teaching.
“Never again” and the memory of the Holocaust
Mere knowledge of the Holocaust does not guarantee that “never again” will occur. A central problem is that many people, especially younger generations worldwide, lack sufficient historical knowledge and are increasingly attracted to ethnic or nationalist policies.
Basically, this illustrates more comprehensive deficits in the education system and problems of social development, also in Germany.
Despite the ongoing political upheaval that is shaking the transatlantic alliance, which is primarily based on values, it is crucial to remember one thing. Most people on both sides of the Atlantic still share fundamental interests rooted in values such as freedom, democracy, economic freedom, the rule of law, and human rights.
Realignment of transatlantic relations?
While political differences in the priorities of the United States and Europe are inevitable, the current disruption of the international order, which is only partly due to rising geopolitical tensions and instability, is self-harming. The simple fact is that, at a time of sustained rise of autocratic regimes, the democratic world cannot afford to be increasingly divided on key issues, especially on issues of values.
Europe continues to recognize the importance of the transatlantic partnership. However, its future prospects should receive greater attention in the American media, which is increasingly focused on purely domestic politics, including scandals and misconduct.
If the West is to have a chance for the future as a community of values, the US media in particular must ensure that they contribute more to a strategic dialogue and a constructive rapprochement in order to counteract Trump’s undermining attacks that he is constantly directing against Western democracies.
This realignment is essential, especially as Canada is inevitably shifting from its constructive transatlantic bridging function to a stronger focus on European relations. After all, this shift in U.S.-Canadian relations reflects the fact that transatlantic relations are no longer as strongly aligned with the US as they have been for decades.
Moreover, defending common democratic values on the other side of the Atlantic increasingly depends on civil society networks and local engagement, in addition to traditional diplomacy and statecraft.
What is crucial is the courage to maintain relations in a way that supports democracy.
The courage required to defend democracy should be supported by a clear understanding of the global strategic environment, which is changing dramatically. Since we live in a hostile world, military and economic strength is also required to ensure our security.
At the same time, rebuilding connections between the U.S. and Europe should focus on local, personal, and community efforts. The future of the transatlantic partnership depends not only on national governments and political leaders, but also more than ever on bilateral relations between State and local officials, sister city programs, and student/labor exchange programs. In cooperation with local foundations, citizens’ initiatives and regional actors, the aim is to involve all social forces that value democratic values, have probably already benefited from them and are also fundamentally committed to protecting them.
It is essential to strengthen relations between societies on both sides of the Atlantic through exchanges, civil society, grassroots movements, culture and science. At the same time, we need to improve the resilience of these relationships so that they can withstand potential disruption from political changes.
The simultaneous efforts of the AfD in Germany and the Trump administration in the USA to undermine a shared values consensus are a warning for us.
In Germany, the AfD’s action against the culture of remembrance is about no longer relying on continued respect for human dignity. In the United States, the Trump administration is pursuing an ethno-nationalist attempt not only to unhinge the universal character of the American Declaration of Independence, but to deny it through “Christianization.”
Ultimately, both are similar forms of historical revisionism that seek to destroy not only their respective national communities of values, but also those of the entire West. All this is taking place at a time when the West is already challenged by autocratic regimes and structural changes in the global economy.
The AfD and the connection to East Central Europe
Today, as the right to return looted art to its rightful owners has been widely reaffirmed internationally, it is also recognized that Holocaust-era restitution is not yet complete and that the quest for justice remains a topical task.
What is particularly worrying about the current situation in Germany is that the attitude of the AfD, which has clearly positioned itself against provenance research and restitution, also has implications for post-communist countries.
For they, too, are increasingly confronted with the question of the return of looted art objects in connection with the Holocaust and with the trivializing view that prevailed in these countries before 1990.
The main barrier to returning Nazi-stolen art in Central and Eastern Europe is also political. Restitution, especially when works are held by public museums, requires governments to confront histories of local collaboration. Several countries, notably Belarus, Hungary, Poland, and Russia, are examples of states that on the one hand advocate the return of national property abroad, but have themselves returned comparatively little property from their national property.
The Soviet Union considered art captured in the Second World War as “spoils of war.” In the 1950s, the Soviets distributed some of them to the satellite states, which considered them public property. Restitution, even when clearly of Nazi-looted art, is a struggle. To give a concrete example: In Hungary, after 1945, David de Csepel’s family began its struggle over 80 years for the return of their historic art collection of paintings, tapestries and Renaissance furniture, which had been stolen by the Nazis. These works are publicly owned by public institutions in Hungary — three museums and a university in Budapest.
Where the same question is unresolved
Restitution in East Central Europe
BelarusAdvocates return of national property held abroadLittle returned
HungaryDe Csepel collection held by three museums and a university80 years unresolved
PolandAdvocates return of national property held abroadLittle returned
RussiaWartime art treated as spoils of war, redistributed in the 1950sLittle returned
The barrier is political rather than legal: Restitution requires governments to confront histories of local collaboration.
Conclusion: What is at stake in the Saxony-Anhalt election
At stake on 6 September
It will help decide whether Germany will remain committed to one of the successful chapters of its democratic history and culture of remembrance.
On 6 September, Saxony-Anhalt will therefore not only decide on a state government. It will help decide whether Germany will remain commited to one of its successful chapters of its democratic history and culture of remembrance — or whether it will allow a right-wing extremist party to declare the return of looted art a symbol of alleged “guilt cult” policy, which would probably also have negative consequences for the rest of Europe.
Appendix: The Washington Principles and their impact in practice
The Washington Principles of 1998 are eleven internationally agreed, legally non-binding guidelines for the detection and return of Nazi-looted art.
They build on the history of cultural property confiscation during the Holocaust to prevent similar acts of violence based on identity. Their focus is on the return of artworks stolen by the Nazi regime to their rightful owners.
All signatories to the Washington Principles recognized the Holocaust as one of the most serious crimes of identity-based violence, which included plans to attack the property rights of those who were to be expelled or killed.
The “Times of London” reports that works of art looted by the Nazis have once again thrown Germany into turmoil. In fact, the looting went far beyond art and included many everyday cultural items such as porcelain, crystal, silver cutlery, jewelry, carpets, and family heirlooms that shaped Jewish culture. This included household items such as clothing, bedding, household appliances, pots, pans, and light bulbs.
Given the scale of the looting, the Washington Principles have always been about more than just the return of cultural property, as a full return to the original owners or families was unlikely for a variety of reasons.
In particular, much of the property was too unspecific to be identified. Nor was European law designed to reverse the consequences of the Holocaust, and postwar governments were generally unwilling to do the arduous work of restitution, even when the facts were still fresh.
In a podcast recorded together with the Münchner Stadtmuseum (“Time Loops: The Restitution Files”), the museum acknowledged the importance of justice for the rightful owners when returning a silver service. The restitution contributes to Germany’s responsibility and culture of remembrance.9
J.D. Bindenagel
Fellow, Global Ideas Center
J.D. Bindenagel is a fellow at the Global Ideas Center in Berlin. He has been personally involved in restitution for over a quarter of a century. On behalf of the U.S. government he negotiated the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, and was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1999 as U.S. Ambassador and Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues. In the course of his diplomatic career he was also deputy head of mission at the U.S. embassies in East Berlin and Bonn, and U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Germany in the mid-1990s.
References
Moody, Oliver, “The works of art stolen by the Nazis that are now catching up with Germany again”, The Times of London, 23 May 2026.
Ibid., The Times of London.
Ibid., The Times of London.
Bigalke, Silke, “Russia will suppress the culture of remembrance”, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18 August 2026.
Bohr, Felix, “This is how the AfD makes politics with fake history”, Der Spiegel, 16 May 2025.
Trump, Donald, speech, 4 July 2026.
Trump, Donald, Executive Order on restoring truth and reason in American history, 27 March 2025.
Chua, Amy and Vance, J.D., “Can Americans Resist the Pull of Tribalism?”, MPR News, 1 August 2018.
Bindenagel, James, in Prinz, Regina and Scholz, Anna (moderation), “Time Loops. The Restitution Files”, Münchner Stadtmuseum.
The Global Ideas Center and Strategic Intervention Papers
The Global Ideas Center is a non-profit, independent and virtually operating think tank. It works in the function of a catalyst with a global network of practitioners and civil society actors in the mode of “co-creation”.
The aim is to make their insights on critical issues of national and international importance visible in the media, politics and the wider public in a solution- and reform-oriented manner, and to strengthen the resilience of our democracies through a well-founded, open and honest as well as result- and value-oriented debate.
Our Strategic Intervention Papers address concrete challenges in a country and seek to overcome the political stalemate by expanding the space of thought and possibility. In this way we want to initiate a public debate in order to find a constructive, future-oriented solution to the accumulated problems.
The Strategic Intervention Papers published by the Global Ideas Center are often based on “The Power of Comparisons”, that is, learning impulses based on cross-border comparisons. The main purpose is to contribute to the improvement and optimization of relations between countries and to identify lessons from other countries that can be used as a constructive impetus for problem solving at home.
In doing so, the GIC regularly questions powerful status quo interests and conventional wisdom, which, in addition to the increasing dysfunctionalities of politics, often bear great responsibility for the current increase in political sclerosis.
Our work has been supported by a variety of major foundations in the United States and Europe. We are currently exploring funding relationships for our new initiative to strengthen the resilience of Western democracies through the public release of Strategic Intervention Papers.
Legal form
Global Ideas Center (GIC) gGmbH is an independent tax-exempt non-profit entity under German law, equivalent to 501(c)(3) status in the United States, recognized as charitable by Finanzamt Berlin-Charlottenburg under §§ 51 ff. AO.
Our partners
Our work has been supported by a variety of major foundations in the United States and Europe. We are always interested in exploring new collaborations.
We seek partners to advance the following themes.
Democracy & Cohesion
Climate-resilient society
Digitalized Society
Europe in the World
Cross-sector networking. These four thematic areas are also core competencies of the GIC. Our distinctive contribution is exploring the interferences between diverse policy areas rather than treating them separately.
For foundations
Fund a paper series
A defined set of papers on one problem area. Media placement is included and reported on.
Constructive Globalism redefines what globalism is and how it works. It starts from the empirical observation that the modern world is globalized, not any ideological belief that it should be. “Globalism” is no longer a normative term that defines a mindset, but a descriptive term of reality that redefines the space for finding solutions.
Constructive Globalism is a bold, future-oriented approach that strengthens national democracies and the ties between democracies by offering dynamic solutions to chronic problems in politics and society.
Read moreShow less
At a time when the world agenda is overshadowed by great-power competition, globalism has become more relevant than ever before. Guided by the twin principles of mutual learning and cross-border learning, it offers the antidote to neo-nationalism and anti-capitalist nostalgia.
The real choice facing nations today is not between “globalism” and “sovereignty,” but between managed interdependence and unmanaged vulnerability. Constructive globalism relies on networks of overlapping and issue-specific coalitions among nations. Participation in any such coalition is voluntary, but a commitment, once made, should be real.
Constructive globalism starts from two simple facts: First, the defining risks of the 21st century are all structurally global in character. Second, virtually all nations face them.
Three design principles. First, constructive globalism is solutions-oriented, not ideology-driven. Meaningful cooperation begins with identifying concrete challenges at the national, regional and global levels and then moves to build the coalitions, standards and institutions needed to tackle them. Second, it is variable in geometry. Not every country must sit at every table. Third, for constructive globalism to have real traction, there must be powerful mechanisms to contest overreach of or noncompliance with binding rules.
What it keeps, what it rejects
WHAT IT KEEPS
The practical value of managed interdependence
Cooperation for common good
Tackling transboundary challenges no country can solve alone.
Effectiveness over ideology
Prioritizing results and problem-solving over imposing values.
Rules that enable cooperation
A rules-based order ensuring predictability, fairness, accountability.
CONSTRUCTIVE GLOBALISM
Effective global problem-solving through inclusive, legitimate, balanced cooperation.
WHAT IT REJECTS
The pitfalls of today’s liberal international order
Hidden rule by the economic elite
A system that serves the few and privileges the powerful.
Instrumentalization by the West
Abuse of institutions to advance narrow national or Western interests.
Intrusiveness and double standards
Overreach and selective rules undermining legitimacy.
A CALL TO THE WEST
Take a rules-based order seriously. Lead by example through humility, fairness, and respect for others’ legitimate interests.
A CALL TO THE REST OF THE WORLD
Do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Reform and adapt the existing system rather than reject its valuable foundations.
Constructive globalism preserves the practical strengths of managed interdependence to solve shared global problems. It throws out the intrusiveness and inequalities of a liberal international order perceived as a vehicle for the global economic elite.
Cross-border learning
Cross-border learning is the strategic hinge between most countries’ domestic reform capacity and constructive globalism. It is an important instrument to manage global risks.
Cross-border learning enables states to overcome internal stalemates, identify viable external models and convert those models into the building blocks of overlapping, problem-driven coalitions. For middle powers in particular, this readiness to learn across borders is a key requirement in the new global environment.
Read moreShow less
Cross-border learning involves the systematic evaluation of experiences and policy approaches made by other countries in their attempts to deal with pressing global issues, and, based on that effort, their translation into domestic reform through means such as policy transfer, diffusion or convergence.
The common objection to this approach is that such learning is technocratic or even consciously depoliticizing. On the contrary, cross-border learning is a deliberate strategy to politicize the effective pursuit of constructive solutions by confronting entrenched domestic interests with the fact that viable policy alternatives exist beyond the given nation’s borders.
Cross-border learning expands the range of legitimate options in domestic democratic debates, exposes prevailing forms of status quo bias, and, above all, forces political actors to justify why national routines should prevail when comparable democracies have solved the problem more effectively in a different manner.
The democratic dimension of this undertaking is central. If democracies continue to promise what constrained budgets and weak growth cannot deliver, public trust will erode further. Cross-border learning increases the chance that reform agendas are grounded in tested solutions rather than domestic wishful thinking.
What counts as a Strategic Intervention Paper
Strategic Intervention Papers (SIPs) are designed to identify a specific problem facing a nation or set of nations and to launch a broader, future-oriented public debate aimed at solving it. Two essential features distinguish a SIP from ordinary commentary.
01
An explicit comparison
Either between two countries in the same period, or between a contemporary country and an earlier version of itself.
02
A specific lever of constructive action
Usually a reform to adopt. Strategic interventions may also identify a solution to destructive actions designed to undermine Western democracies from without, and complicity with such attempts from within.
SIPs: Added value for foundation partners
Within this context, SIPs add value in four ways.
01
Strengthening public resonance
Concrete examples, such as from France or Singapore, are grasped faster than abstract theory.
02
Strengthening political relevance
The SIP concept always concerns the analysis of a current social or political problem.
03
Strengthening the implementation perspective
SIPs make a concrete contribution to solutions for decision-makers.
04
Strengthening the thought-leadership role
Democracy thrives on the continuous infusion of new, inspiring perspectives.
SIPs: Also for everyday topics
SIPs are also for everyday topics that directly affect people’s daily lives.
01
Public backing for democracy is closely tied to solving everyday problems
02
It is highly negligent to dismiss these tasks as mere “deliverism”
03
We take up the example of countries that have already solved the problem
04
Constructive Globalism in action creates a vital impulse for public discussion
Placing an argument in a leading outlet does five things at once.
01
Translation
Guest contributions condense technical complexity into a readable, pointed form and make it accessible to a broad audience.
02
Early public warning
They make risks and turning points visible before these dominate day-to-day politics, insofar as politics does not deliberately neglect them.
03
Democratic connection
Citizens increasingly depend on the knowledge of scholars and experts in order to judge relevant developments.
04
Agenda-setting in leading media
A contribution in a major daily still has an effect beyond the individual case, because other media, political actors and multipliers react to it.
05
Strengthening civil society
Such contributions help supply civil society with the knowledge it needs for engagement, criticism and participation.
Four areas of special interest to the GIC
The GIC puts particular emphasis on four countries.
DEGermany: Renewal is needed if Europe is to succeedEconomically successful for a long time, but that success has waned. Europe’s prosperity is in many respects proportional to Germany’s. Yet the willingness to learn from other nations is fading as politics turns inward.
USThe United States: Rejuvenating the transatlantic relationshipWhat began as “America First” has in many ways become “America Only.” Neither the benevolent-turned-malevolent framing nor the assumption of a return to normal is analytically sufficient.
CNChina: The challenge the West has yet to faceCommentary still oscillates between dismissing Beijing’s structural deficits and cataloguing how it games the system. Both are escapism. China’s rise is a reality test Western democracies have not yet taken.
RURussia: Testing the West with the power of malevolenceA diminished power that still matters, because it exerts influence exclusively through negation. It also shows what happens when a former great power is captured by a kleptocratic elite.
The Global Ideas Center is an independent non-profit institution organized as a virtual think tank. The GIC does not rely on any physical infrastructure and keeps very little permanent staff in order to ensure the maximum possible amount of the financial resources made available to us is used for our content operations.
The GIC coordinates a network of international thought leaders including reform-oriented scholars andpractitioners in politics, business and civil society. It serves this network as a dialogue-oriented project partner, helping its partners develop and publish content and manage outreach (“co-creation”).
The GIC is multi-thematic in scope, operates in a media-oriented manner and publishes the online magazine The Globalist as its own independent think tank publication.
We are dedicated to the high-profile presentation of reform ideas in the media, thereby influencing policymakers and the public debate.
Thematically, we are focused primarily on the areas of Global Democracy, Global Economy, Global Politics and Global Governance. Under those headings, we focus on many sub interests, including climate resilience, digital society, democracy, transparency, governance and social cohesion, Europe’s role in the world and the future of Western democracies.
Our analysts specialize in exploring often-overlooked links (“interferences”) between these issue areas. We have a long track record over many years of proactively demonstrating our commitment to exploring these issues. We are firmly committed to reaching a broad audience and not simply “preaching to the converted.”
The GIC spotlights cross-border learning to demonstrate what countries can learn from one another. Our trademark publication format, the Strategic Intervention Paper (SIP), often focuses on “The Power of Comparisons” to strengthen narratives about the impact of cross-border learning.
Via its online magazine, the GIC has also built up a global outreach network of media partners. Its articles have been pubished in more than 100 different publications — predominantly the leading national newspapers and magazines — in more than 50 countries.
The GIC Knowledge Binder
Ten documents on how the Global Ideas Center thinks and works.
In preparing a Strategic Intervention Paper, the GIC applies the comparison in one of five ways, in order to frame the strategic relevance and pinpoint the specific purpose of the intervention. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and two forms that sit between them.
Why comparison, and not just analysis
The real choice facing nations today is not between globalism and sovereignty. It is between managed interdependence and unmanaged vulnerability. Constructive globalism is the strategy for the first: a dense set of issue-specific, voluntary but credible coalitions, organized around concrete problems rather than ideology, with variable geometry rather than universal participation.
That strategy cannot work without a mechanism that lets states discover, compare and adapt successful approaches across jurisdictions. That mechanism is cross-border learning, and it is what our papers are built to supply.
Learning is a political act, not a technocratic one
The standard objection is that comparative work is technocratic, or that it quietly depoliticizes a conflict. The opposite is true. Cross-border learning confronts entrenched domestic interests with the fact that viable alternatives already exist beyond the national border. It widens the range of legitimate options in a democratic debate, exposes status quo bias, and forces political actors to justify why national routines should prevail when a comparable democracy has solved the problem more effectively.
Refusing to learn is not a cost-neutral act of democratic self-defense. It has a price, and someone pays it.
Why middle powers in particular
Middle powers do not have the scale of the United States or China, and cannot secure prosperity or strategic autonomy through domestic market size or coercive leverage. Their power is measured by their ability to aggregate capabilities with partners. Under conditions of superpower unilateralism, those that refuse to learn across borders struggle to keep their autonomy. Those that institutionalize it gain a better chance to shape standards, pool capabilities and strengthen democracy through credible delivery.
Europe is the clearest test case, and the hardest one. A union that wants to hold its own against the United States and China can afford less every year to remain stuck in 27 separate reform logics. Its problem is rarely diagnosis. It is the political capacity to move from diagnosis to reform.
1 · The Good2 · The Bad3 · The Ugly4 · In-Between5 · In-Between
Type 1 · The Good
Our base case: Cross-border learning
We look out for a policy solution another democracy has already adapted to solve a given political problem.
Use cross-border learning as a tool for a needed or overdue act of domestic policy reform
Strengthens the resilience of democracy
= Constructive globalism in action
ExampleOhler · CCC
Type 2 · The Bad
Coercion (cross-border or domestic)
We expose raw-power intimidation aimed at narrowing a democracy’s freedom of maneuver.
Aims to strengthen the resilience of a democracy or a set of democracies
= Destructive globalism in action
ExampleNo published example yet
Type 3 · The Ugly
Connivance (cross-border or domestic)
We expose patterns of collusion, both from within democracies as well as from abroad, aimed at undermining Western values.
Counters explicit or hidden attacks on the resilience of a democracy or a set of democracies
We name a case, domestic or cross-border, where a democracy is clinging to an assumption that will not hold.
Protects against undermining the resilience of democracy from within
= Overcomes insufficient attention to the need for constructive globalism
ExampleRichter · EU–China · Richter · The Alps
Type 5 · In-Between #2
Insufficiently imaginative thinking
We challenge a constraint a democracy has accepted as fixed, when it is not.
Exposes or highlights a constellation where a democracy bases national and international strategy on an unwarranted assumption or acceptance of constraint
Protects the resilience of democracy by overcoming that blockage
= Frees the power of constructive globalism
ExampleSchmieding · China · Zürn · The AfD
A single SIP is rarely a pure type. Depending on the policy context or the countries involved, an individual paper can reflect a mix of these five framings. The typing exists to sharpen the purpose of a paper while it is being scoped, not to sort finished work into boxes.
Sources: Stephan-Götz Richter, “The GIC and its Five Types of Strategic Interventions,” internal memo, 25 August 2026; the strategy papers linked above. Example papers are cited as named by the author; four of the five are not yet drafted and are marked as placeholders throughout the site.
Imprint
Legal · Impressum
Impressum
Angaben gemäß § 5 DDG
Global Ideas Center (gic) gGmbH
c/o Stephan-Götz Richter
Keithstraße 10 10787 Berlin Deutschland
Vertreten durch
Stephan-Götz Richter, Geschäftsführer
Ist ein Geschäftsführer bestellt, so vertritt er die Gesellschaft allein. Sind mehrere Geschäftsführer bestellt, wird die Gesellschaft gemeinschaftlich durch zwei Geschäftsführer vertreten.
Eintragung im Handelsregister
Registergericht: Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, Hardenbergstraße 31, 10623 Berlin
Registernummer: HRB 229270 B
Tag der Eintragung: 10.05.2021
Stammkapital: 25.000,00 EUR
Gemeinnützigkeit und Gegenstand des Unternehmens
Die Gesellschaft verfolgt ausschließlich und unmittelbar gemeinnützige Zwecke im Sinne des Abschnitts „Steuerbegünstigte Zwecke“ der Abgabenordnung. Zweck der Körperschaft ist die Förderung der Erziehung, Volks- und Berufsausbildung (§ 52 Abs. 2 Nr. 7 AO), internationaler Gesinnung, der Toleranz auf allen Gebieten der Kultur und des Völkerverständigungsgedankens (§ 52 Abs. 2 Nr. 13 AO) sowie des demokratischen Staatswesens im Geltungsbereich der Abgabenordnung (§ 52 Abs. 2 Nr. 24 AO).
Anerkannt als gemeinnützig durch das Finanzamt Berlin-Charlottenburg.
Verantwortlich für journalistisch-redaktionelle Inhalte
Als Diensteanbieter sind wir gemäß § 7 Abs. 1 DDG für eigene Inhalte auf diesen Seiten nach den allgemeinen Gesetzen verantwortlich. Nach §§ 8 bis 10 DDG sind wir als Diensteanbieter jedoch nicht verpflichtet, übermittelte oder gespeicherte fremde Informationen zu überwachen oder nach Umständen zu forschen, die auf eine rechtswidrige Tätigkeit hinweisen. Verpflichtungen zur Entfernung oder Sperrung der Nutzung von Informationen nach den allgemeinen Gesetzen bleiben hiervon unberührt. Eine diesbezügliche Haftung ist jedoch erst ab dem Zeitpunkt der Kenntnis einer konkreten Rechtsverletzung möglich. Bei Bekanntwerden von entsprechenden Rechtsverletzungen werden wir diese Inhalte umgehend entfernen.
Haftung für Links
Unser Angebot enthält Links zu externen Websites Dritter, auf deren Inhalte wir keinen Einfluss haben. Deshalb können wir für diese fremden Inhalte auch keine Gewähr übernehmen. Für die Inhalte der verlinkten Seiten ist stets der jeweilige Anbieter oder Betreiber der Seiten verantwortlich. Die verlinkten Seiten wurden zum Zeitpunkt der Verlinkung auf mögliche Rechtsverstöße überprüft; rechtswidrige Inhalte waren zu diesem Zeitpunkt nicht erkennbar. Bei Bekanntwerden von Rechtsverletzungen werden wir derartige Links umgehend entfernen.
Urheberrecht
Die durch die Seitenbetreiber erstellten Inhalte und Werke, einschließlich der Strategic Intervention Papers, Strategic Assessment Memos und Grafiken, unterliegen dem deutschen Urheberrecht. Die Vervielfältigung, Bearbeitung, Verbreitung und jede Art der Verwertung außerhalb der Grenzen des Urheberrechtes bedürfen der schriftlichen Zustimmung der jeweiligen Autorinnen und Autoren beziehungsweise der Organisation.
Privacy
Legal · Datenschutz
Datenschutzerklärung
1. Verantwortlicher
Global Ideas Center (GIC) gGmbH, Keithstraße 10, 10787 Berlin, Deutschland. E-Mail: sgr@globalideascenter.org. Weitere Angaben im Impressum.
2. Ihre Rechte
Sie haben jederzeit das Recht auf Auskunft (Art. 15 DSGVO), Berichtigung (Art. 16 DSGVO), Löschung (Art. 17 DSGVO), Einschränkung der Verarbeitung (Art. 18 DSGVO), Datenübertragbarkeit (Art. 20 DSGVO) sowie Widerspruch (Art. 21 DSGVO). Sie haben zudem das Recht, sich bei einer Datenschutz-Aufsichtsbehörde zu beschweren; für Berlin ist dies die Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit.
3. Erhebung allgemeiner Daten beim Zugriff auf die Website
Beim Aufrufen unserer Website erfasst unser System automatisiert Daten wie IP-Adresse, Datum und Uhrzeit, verwendeter Browser, Betriebssystem sowie die aufgerufene Seite (Server-Logfiles). Rechtsgrundlage: Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. f DSGVO. Speicherdauer: [z. B. 7 Tage — mit dem Hoster klären]
4. Hosting
Diese Website wird bei [Hosting-Anbieter] gehostet. [Falls zutreffend: Es besteht ein Auftragsverarbeitungsvertrag gemäß Art. 28 DSGVO.]
5. Newsletter
Wenn Sie unseren Newsletter abonnieren, verarbeiten wir Ihre E-Mail-Adresse zur Zusendung. Rechtsgrundlage: Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. a DSGVO (Einwilligung, Double-Opt-in). Die Abmeldung ist jederzeit über den Link in jeder Newsletter-E-Mail möglich. Versanddienstleister: [Anbieter und Speicherort benennen]
6. Publikations-Downloads
Unsere Strategic Intervention Papers und die Grundlagenpapiere stehen ohne Registrierung und ohne Abfrage personenbezogener Daten zum Download bereit. Es werden hierfür keine Daten erhoben.
7. Spenden
[Derzeit nicht zutreffend. Sobald ein Zahlungsdienstleister eingebunden wird, ist hier zu ergänzen, welche Daten dort erhoben werden und welche wir zur Ausstellung einer Spendenbescheinigung erhalten. Rechtsgrundlage dann Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. b und c DSGVO.]
8. Cookies und Reichweitenmessung
Technisch notwendige Cookies halten die Website funktionsfähig. Nicht notwendige Cookies werden ausschließlich mit Ihrer Einwilligung gemäß § 25 Abs. 1 TDDDG in Verbindung mit Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. a DSGVO gesetzt. Ihre Einwilligung ist jederzeit über die Cookie-Einstellungen widerrufbar. Eingesetztes Analysewerkzeug: [benennen, z. B. Matomo]
9. Externe Dienste und Einbettungen
[Jedes Element einzeln aufführen, das von einem fremden Server geladen wird — Schriften, eingebettete Audiodateien, Videos, Karten. Jedes überträgt die IP-Adresse an den jeweiligen Anbieter. Empfehlung: Schriften lokal einbinden, dann entfällt der Punkt.]
10. Änderung dieser Datenschutzerklärung
Wir behalten uns vor, diese Datenschutzerklärung anzupassen, damit sie stets den aktuellen rechtlichen Anforderungen entspricht.
Stand: September 2026. Diese Fassung ist ein Entwurf auf Basis eines allgemeinen Templates und ersetzt keine Rechtsberatung.
Site structure
Proposed structure
Five areas, each with one name across menu, title and address. Clicking opens the corresponding demo page.
