The University of Central Arkansas will welcome Dr. Wolfram Hoppenstedt, director of the Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation in Germany, for a lecture Thursday, Sept. 29 at 4:30 p.m. in the Art Lecture Room in McCastlain Hall.
His lecture, titled “America, Europe and Germany – Bonds That Cannot Be Severed,” will focus on post-war transatlantic relations, cultural differences and the current crisis in Europe. He will also expound how former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt helped paved the way towards German reunification and the strengthening and enlargement of the European Union.
The program is open to UCA faculty, staff, students and the general public. Q&A and reception will follow in the Fireplace Room, also in McCastlain Hall.
Hoppenstedt studied at UCA as an exchange student in 1988 and 1991. He is a native of Conway’s German sister city, Quakenbrück.
In 1988 and again in 1991, Hoppenstedt was awarded a work-study assistantship thanks to a sister city agreement between Conway and Quakenbrück. He completed his master’s degree in 1992 and two years later obtained his doctorate at the University of Bamberg, Bavaria with his dissertation about the German-American economist Gerhard Colm (1897-1968), who inter alia served as economic advisor to President Harry Truman. In 1994, he started his career as an expert with the Federal Office for Refugees in Nuremberg. In early, 1996 he was appointed as founding director of the Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation.
The Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation is the non-partisan institution in Berlin, Germany that serves to commemorate the Social-Democrat politician, outstanding statesman and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. It is one of six memorial foundations for outstanding German statesmen the Federal Republic of Germany created to exercise the same task as a presidential library in the U.S. Not only in Germany, but all over Europe, the name Willy Brandt is synonymous with democracy and freedom, understanding between nations and peace, justice, solidarity and social responsibility.
As part of his trip to Arkansas, Hoppenstedt will also meet his colleagues at Clinton Presidential Library for an exchange.
