PANEL TALK & BOOK PRESENTATION | SHAPING THE FUTURE: TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS IN THE SPIRIT OF GEORGE MARSHALL
On the occasion of its 70th Anniversary, the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation has sponsored a special book project, “The Marshall Plan Since 1947: Saving Europe, Rebuilding Austria” by Günter Bischof and Hans Petschar (Brandstätter Verlag 2017), to commemorate the importance of the 1947 Marshall Plan.
Please join us for a special book presentation by the authors followed by a panel talk between Dr. Karen Donfried, President of the German Marshall Fund, Washington DC and Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch, President of the Austrian Marshall Fund, Vienna, about the meaning of the Marshall Plan for our world today.
ABOUT THE MARSHALL PLAN
The Marshall Plan was key to restoring Europe following the devastation of World War II and ensured that the United States and Europe would stand together in the face of post-war Soviet designs on the continent, ultimately paving the way for the creation of the strongest economic and security partnership in history. Receiving almost $1 billion in US aid, Austria was one of the recipient nations. Austria profited not only from this initial financial aid but also from the “counterpart funds” that over the years invested more than 15 billion Euros into the Austrian economy. 70 years later, more than 500 million Euros are invested every year in furthering innovation in Austrian business and entrepreneurship. Hence, the Marshall Plan is still alive as well as a model foreign aid program and template for large-scale regional economic reconstruction.
www.marshallplan.at
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
Karen Donfried is president of The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Before assuming this role in April 2014, Dr. Donfried was the special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs on the National Security Council at the White House. In that capacity, she was the president’s principal advisor on Europe and led the interagency process on the development and implementation of the president’s European policies. Prior to the White House, Donfried served as the national intelligence officer (NIO) for Europe on the National Intelligence Council, the intelligence community’s center for strategic thinking. As NIO, she directed and drafted strategic analysis to advance senior policymakers’ understanding of Europe. Donfried first joined GMF in 2001 after having served for ten years as a European specialist at the Congressional Research Service. From 2003-05, she was responsible for the Europe portfolio on the U.S. Department of State’s Policy Planning Staff. Her second term of service at GMF was 2005-10, first as senior director of policy programs and then as executive vice president. Donfried serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. She was a member of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s Foreign Affairs Advisory Board from 2015-2017 and is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. From 2014-16, Donfried served as vice-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the United States; in 2016, she became a member of WEF’s Global Future Council on Regional Governance.
Wolfgang Petritsch is the President of the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation and Chair of the Herbert Kelman Institute for Interactive Conflict Resolution. He graduated from the University of Vienna and spent a post-doc Fulbright year at USC, Los Angeles. Dr. Petritsch was press secretary and deputy chief of cabinet to Austrian Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky whose bestselling biography he published in 2010. Mr. Petritsch was Austria’s Ambassador to Yugoslavia, and the European Union’s Special Envoy and Chief Negotiator at the Kosovo peace talks at Rambouillet and Paris. Between 1999 and 2002 Mr. Petritsch was the International Community’s High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was Austria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, the WTO and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. As President of the UN Mine Ban Treaty, Mr. Petritsch chaired the Nairobi Summit for a Mine Free World in 2005. From 2008 to 2013 Mr. Petritsch represented Austria at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In 2013/14 he was the Schumpeter Fellow at Harvard University; he is a guest professor at the universities of Vienna and Berkeley and a member of the European Leadership Network, London. Mr. Petritsch is the author and editor of over a dozen books numerous articles, op-eds and contributions to academic publications. He holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Klagenfurt and Prishtina. Mr. Petritsch is the 2006 recipient of the European Award for Human Rights. www.wolfgang-petritsch.eu
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Günter Bischof, a native of Austria, has taught at the University of New Orleans since 1989. He studied at the Universities of Innsbruck, Vienna, New Orleans and holds a Ph.D. in American History from Harvard University. He is the Marshall Plan Professor of History and the Director of “Center Austria: The Austrian Marshall Plan Center for European Studies” at the University of New Orleans. Next to many books on Austria and the Cold War, he is the co-editor of 3 books on the Marshall Plan: with Charles S. Maier “The Marshall Plan and Germany” (1991), with Anton Pelinka “The Marshall Plan in Austria” (1999), with Dieter Stiefel “Images of the Marshall Plan in Europe” (2009), and with Hans Petschar the author of the “The Marshall Plan Since 1947: Saving Europe, Rebuilding Austria” (Vienna 2017).
Hans Petschar is a historian and has been the director of the Photo Archives and Graphics Department at the Austrian National Library since 2002. In 2015/16 he served as the Austrian Marshall Plan Chair at the University of New Orleans. Dr. Petschar has curated several exhibits at the Austrian National Library, including Die junge Republik: Alltagsbilder aus Österreich 1945-1955 (2005), Altösterreich, Menschen, Länder und Völker in der Habsburgermonarchie (2011), Der ewige Kaiser. Franz Joseph I. 1830 – 1916 (2016), as well as The Marshall Plan (2017).
With the kind support of the European Institute at Columbia University