After becoming seriously ill, Timothy Snyder experienced first-hand just how decrepit the American healthcare system is.

Snyder’s new book “Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary” goes into detail about his experience of receiving below-par care and clinging to life for months before finally getting better in spring of this year. 


With reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, he wrote that U.S. hospitals were “understaffed and undersupplied, buckling under waves of coronavirus patients … and the federal government made matters worse through willful ignorance, misinformation, and profiteering.”


His publisher has called the book an “impassioned condemnation of America's coronavirus response and an urgent call to rethink health and freedom.”


Timothy Snyder is an award-winning author and historian, and currently a Professor of European History at Yale University. He is also a Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

David Enrich is financial editor at The New York Times, after having worked for The Wall Street Journal for a number of years. He has a total of nearly 20 years of experience as a journalist, specialized in investigative work.

His most recent research has culminated in a book about some of the questionable practices of Deutsche Bank: “Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction.”

In our interview, Enrich describes how his years of research into Deutsche Bank serendipitously came together with the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump’s finances.

Daniel Hamilton is a highly-experienced expert on transatlantic relations. He served several Secretaries of State as well as the U.S. Embassy in Germany and currently holds a position as Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS.

In this episode he talks about the future of transatlantic relations. He explains why he sees the alliance of the past 70 years as a wonderful chapter - but one that is now over. He also talks about a potentially misleading narrative in Germany when it comes to China and says that the original idea of NATO will need to be rethought. Of course, he also discusses the upcoming U.S. presidential election and outlines various scenarios relating to the most controversial issues between the U.S. and the EU.

Daniel Hamilton explains why he thinks that Europe may be in for a rude awakening if it places all of its hopes for a renewal of transatlantic relations in Joe Biden. He notes that we cannot expect Biden to turn back the hand of time. It is time for a completely new era of transatlantic relations.

This episode’s interview guest is none other than Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth. He has been at the helm of the NGO for 27 years. Under his leadership, it has developed into an international organization with real impact. With Chelsea he talks about its biggest achievements and about the ongoing human rights violations in Syria, Hungary and China. He also discusses the deterioration of US leadership on issues of civil liberties and what this means for Europe.

Amy Stebbins is an American living in Germany. She is a writer and director for theater and opera. She says that there are extensive differences in the way the art industry is being affected by the lockdown in Germany and the United States.

A well-known name in the art scene, she holds a B.A. in History and Literature from Harvard University, an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Germanic Studies and Cinema & Media from the University of Chicago.

In this episode you will hear an excerpt from a house-recording of an opera called Mauerschau conducted by Oksana Lyniv. The music is by Hauke Berheide; the singers are Adriana Bastidas-Gamboa, Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Joshua Owen-Mills, Frederic Jost, Leela Subramaniam and Hanna Herfurtner. Another excerpt is from a piece called The Death of Orpheus. The song you will hear was written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse; the new arrangement is by Richard Whaling; the voice is Amy Stebbins.

The FDA approved the pill almost exactly 60 years ago, on May 9, 1960. It changed women’s lives dramatically. It was the first birth control method that was undetectable by a partner - and it also wasn’t an invasive procedure.

Now, after decades, we’re discovering that the side effects of this form of birth control may be farther-reaching than we thought. One of leading scientists in this field is Dr. Sarah E. Hill. She’s a Professor of Social Psychology at TCU in Fort Worth. There she heads an interdisciplinary research team which also investigates the effects of hormonal contraception. Some of the most compelling findings are in her newest book How the Pill Changes Everything, or in German, Wie uns die Pille verändert. What she has to say is eye-opening not only for women - but for men as well.

Susan B. Glasser is a correspondent in Washington, DC for The New Yorker. In my interview with her she talks about the brave new world we’re living in right now. She explains how the coronavirus pandemic is “the ultimate clarifying moment,” shining a spotlight on the weaknesses of American society – and of those leading the country.

Susan is known for her weekly column "Letter from Trump's Washington." A selection of her articles has now been published as a German-language book by Weltkiosk under the title "Briefe aus Trumps Washington."

She was born in the late 1960s in Montclair, a township in New Jersey, and graduated from Harvard University. Her parents are founders of a weekly legal newspaper and publishing company, and her grandfather supervised the field trials for the polio vaccine. She has been married to Peter Baker, Chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, for 20 years now. You may know her from the Washington Post, where

she spent a decade covering the Clinton impeachment and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She also served as Moscow co-bureau chief and is an expert on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Nicole Stott says that mankind needs to act like space station crew members in this crisis, working together. She is one of the very few female astronauts who have seen the world from outer space - and she is even a spacewalker. She worked at NASA for 27 years as an engineer in a number of positions. She completed two space flights in 2009 and 2011 and also spent time on the International Space Station.

Stott was born in Albany, New York, but she now lives with her husband and their son in St. Petersburg, Florida. There, Stott once started her extraordinary career at St. Petersburg College, studying aviation administration at the Aeronautical University. After that, she received her M.S. in Engineering Management from the University of Central Florida.

Warren Marine is head of the Country Practice USA at KPMG Germany. The multinational professional services network is one of the Big Four accounting organizations worldwide. Marine is also treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany. The organization strives to enhance global economic and trade relations built on a foundation of American and German partnership. Marine is an American-born transatlantic business expert who has been living in Germany for nearly 20 years.

Kimberly Marteau Emerson is an attorney and human rights advocate who moved to Berlin as a U.S. ambassador’s wife in 2013. Working on her memoirs, she currently resides in Germany while her husband and daughters are back home in Los Angeles.

She talks about the differences in the ways the German and U.S. governments are handling the corona crisis right now. She also delves into U.S. politics, female leadership and the challenges of being the partner of a diplomat.