Rüdiger Lentz

Co-Chairman of the AESG

He serves as Co-Chairman of the AESG.


Rüdiger Lentz is the Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Germany. Between 2009 and September 2013, he served as the Executive Director of the German-American Heritage Foundation and Museum in Washington.

From November 1998 until December 2009, he was the Washington Bureau Chief and Senior Diplomatic Correspondent for Deutsche Welle. Prior to his assignment in Washington, he served as Deutsche Welle’s Brussels Bureau Chief. Before joining Deutsche Welle, Lentz worked as a correspondent for the German news magazine Der Spiegel, after having served in the German Armed Forces for eight years and as a TV commentator and reporter at ARD/WDR, Germany’s largest public TV and radio station.

Lentz has also held various positions including that of Editor in Chief at RIAS-TV Berlin from 1990-1992. As the Executive Director of German TV from 2002-2005 he was responsible for the branding and market entrance plan of German TV in the US. He has been a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University, the School of Foreign Service in Washington and a regular guest on CNN and C-Span. Lentz was born 1947 and studied international relations, history and economics at the University of Hamburg.

He is a long time member of the Atlantik-Bruecke and a founding member of the German American Business Council (GABC) in Washington.