Originally published in German, this brief biography examines the life of one of the transatlantic elite's lesser-known members: Guido Goldman (1937-2020), the Swiss-born son of Nahum Goldmann, founder and president of the World Jewish Congress, and Alice Gottschalk. It is an authorized biography, commissioned by the German Foreign Ministry to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the German Marshall Fund, one of the many transatlantic organizations Goldman was intimately connected with as a fundraiser and manager.

Martin Klingst, a former Die Zeit journalist and speechwriter for President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, openly admits to his initial reluctance to take on the project, “when I realized just how many contemporary witnesses there were, not to mention the rich and extensive collection of available historical documents” (xv). As it turns out, historical documents hardly play a role in this biography, nor does the existing (academic) literature. Instead, Klingst relies mostly on interviews, giving the book somewhat of a best-of-dinner-table-stories feel. Granted, some of these stories are interesting, since Goldman was an influential behind-the-scenes operator, who was involved in the creation not only of the German Marshall Fund (GMF) but also Harvard's Center for European Studies (CES) and the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies. His main talent seems to have been for fundraising, relying in part on the network of wealthy contacts established through his family connections while growing up in New York City. According to Klingst, Goldman “raised more than $100 million in donations” (6) over the course of his life. An impressive sum, indeed.

While working on a Ph.D. in History at Harvard University in the 1960s, Goldman befriended several colleagues with similar Jewish-European backgrounds. Together with two of them – Henry Kissinger and Stanley Hoffmann – Goldman helped set up West European Studies, the precursor to the Center for European Studies. As director of West European Studies and CES, Goldman recognized the importance of a special relationship between Harvard University and the Federal Republic of Germany. This special relationship was based in part on a mutually beneficent scenario: Harvard could provide honorary degrees and the perfect setting for a high-profile speech or commencement address; the Federal Republic (or its private and political foundations) could provide funding for CES, the German Marshall Fund, and a variety of Harvard fellowship programs.

Goldman first pulled this off in the summer of 1972, when he invited West German Chancellor Willy Brandt to give a speech at Harvard to announce the creation of the German Marshall Fund (based on a 150 million Deutschmark gift by the West German government), twenty-five years after Secretary of State George C. Marshall had used Harvard to announce the Marshall Plan. Many high-ranking German politicians would follow, including Helmut Schmidt, Richard von Weizsäcker, Helmut Kohl, and Angela Merkel. According to Klingst, Goldman even “pulled some strings” (144) to allow Walter Kohl, Chancellor Helmut Kohl's son, to spend time at Harvard in 1985. As Klingst wryly notes, “maintaining relationships definitely did not hurt. Eventually Kohl gave in, granting the German Marshall Fund a further hundred million marks” (145).

Klingst does an engaging job of telling these stories, but he is less interested in the institutional histories of CES or GMF, or in the inner workings of the transatlantic networks at the heart of them. Perhaps it would have been too much to ask for an in-depth study like Anne Zetsche's recent book The Atlantik-Brücke and the American Council on Germany, 1952-1974 (2021). As it stands, Guido Goldman: Transatlantic Bridge Builder serves mainly as an interesting short introduction to an important transatlantic “informal diplomat.”