The Big Pond

Driven by a critical lack of skilled technicians, a group of largely German-owned manufacturers in Chicago have launched a new apprenticeship program based on German education models. This idea is now spreading to a number of American companies.

He is a soccer legend in Germany as player and as coach: Jürgen Klinsmann. After leading the German national team to a third-place finish in the 2006 World Cup, he also coached the U.S. men’s soccer team from 2011 to 2016. But now, Klinsmann is anything but retired: In the summer of 2018, he created the SilverLakes Cup, an international youth soccer tournament in Southern California.

Germany’s beer influence has spread around the world, and one of the epicenters of this trend is New York City. There are now more than two dozen beer gardens and halls in the city. And every year, Oktoberfest celebrations are held in all of the five boroughs, lasting several weeks.

Thomas Buergenthal saw the Nazi concentration camps through a child’s eyes. Luckily, he survived and later became a lawyer and eventually a judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice in The Hague in the Netherlands and the United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador.

Buffalo, New York, was at one time the world’s foremost grain port. More than a dozen enormous grain silos still attest to that fact: Awesome colossi made of wood, steel, and reinforced concrete. Their surreal quality also fascinated European pioneers of modern architecture, including Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe.

U.S.-American real estate developer Jake Nawrocki tells us about his vision for a revitalization for downtown Atlanta, with the help of German investor Olaf Kunkat.

German journalist Franes Schoenberger shares with us a personal and relaxed interview with John Lennon, recorded in 1975 and never published before.

In this episode, we hear three stories about things that were brought to the U.S. from other countries and what they mean to their owners.