The American Academy in Berlin celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary on the evening of May 21, 2024, at its historic Hans Arnhold Center. Roughly 200 longtime supporters, donors, trustees, and friends attended the event, which commemorated a quarter-century of fostering transatlantic relations through intellectual and cultural exchange.

Academy president Daniel Benjamin and chairwoman Sandra Peterson offered remarks about the Academy’s impact over the past twenty-five years and its role in shaping transatlantic discourse across a range of scholarly disciplines, the arts, journalism, music composition, and public policy. They — and their gathered audience — also looked towards the future with enthusiasm at the Academy’s hallmark Berlin Prize Fellowship and robust public program, two core activities that carry out the institution’s mission.

As the Academy’s founders foresaw in the early 1990s, the Atlantic world would not always remain as optimistic as it was at the end of the Cold War. Institutions of “slow diplomacy,” as Richard Holbrooke called the Academy’s fundamental task, would be necessary to keep transatlantic friendships close across political and non-political realms in an ever-evolving global landscape.

This milestone anniversary not only marks a significant achievement for the American Academy in Berlin but also reaffirms its commitment to fostering meaningful dialogue and collaboration between the United States and Germany for many decades to come.