American Academy in Berlin

Each year, the Academy's independent search committee nominates circa twenty fellows from among hundreds of applicants to pursue semester-long research projects at the Hans Arnhold Center, a historic villa on the shores of Lake Wannsee.

In addition to its fellowship programme, the Academy fosters dialogue on current issues by hosting Distinguished Visitors—thought-leaders from the United States in public policy, law, business, finance, journalism, the humanities, and the arts.

During their visits of a few days to a few weeks, they engage with the public and their professional counterparts in Berlin and throughout Germany on topics ranging from constitutional law and immigration policy to museum practice and art criticism.

The Wannsee villa that houses the American Academy in Berlin, designed in 1886 by architect Johannes Otzen, was once the home of chemist Franz Oppenheim and, later, the Dresden-born banker Hans Arnhold and his wife, Ludmilla, and their two daughters, Ellen Maria and Anna-Maria.

There, it was designated for various uses, including as a home for refugees from communist Eastern Bloc countries and, for the last decades of the Cold War, a U.S. Army recreation center, until the departure of American military forces from reunified Berlin, in 1994.