Date and Time
April 5, 2007
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM

Availability
Open to Stanford faculty, students, staff, and visiting scholars

Speaker
Karsten Voigt - Coordinator of German-American Cooperation at the German Foreign Office

Co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Germany, San Francisco

Karsten D. Voigt has been the Coordinator of German-North American Cooperation at the German Federal Foreign Office since January of 1999. He majored in history and in German and Scandinavian studies at the Universities of Hamburg, Copenhagen and Frankfurt. Mr. Voigt became actively engaged in politics at an early age. In post-war times, he accompanied witnesses during the Auschwitz trial proceedings and took part in the Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations. From 1969-73, he served as Chairman of the German Young Socialists Organization. From 1984-95, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the German Social Democratic Party and from 1985-94, member of the Executive Committee of the Party of European Socialists. From 1976-98, he served as a Member of the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag) for the Social Democrats (SPD) and from 1977-98, as a Member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, of which he was President between 1994-1996.

Mr. Voigt's expertise is in the fields of foreign policy and security. From 1983-98, he was foreign policy spokesman of the SPD parliamentary group. Among his numerous other positions held, he is member of the Board of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in Berlin, and sits on the Board of Trustees of the Atlantik-Brücke and of the Aspen Institute Berlin.