The model for the DGAP's foundation in 1955 was in many respects the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and the Chatham House in London.

[2] Prominent former and current members include former German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, former German President Richard von Weizsäcker, as well as Eberhard Diepgen, Klaus von Dohnanyi, Michael Glos, Friedbert Pflüger, Volker Rühe, Rudolf Scharping, Dieter Schulte, Manfred Stolpe, Rita Süssmuth, Günter Verheugen, Antje Vollmer, and Theodor Waigel.

In 2019, Microsoft announced that it had detected cyberattacks, which occurred between September and December 2018, targeting employees of the DGAP; they are believed to have originated from a group called Strontium.

[3][4] Internationally known as the "German Council on Foreign Relations", the DGAP sees itself as a practical think tank offering demand-driven policy advice on a scientific basis.

The Council provides: High-level guest speakers have in recent years included Angela Merkel (2006), Christine Lagarde (2012),[5] Ali Akbar Salehi (2013),[6] Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (2014), Mohammad Javad Zarif (2015), Paolo Gentiloni (2015), Volodymyr Groysman (2018), Nikos Kotzias (2018) and Nirmala Sitharaman (2019).