When the new head of the American Consulate General in Munich speaks of a “historic event this week,” you immediately listen more closely. Kamala Harris? Donald Trump? Who will be elected US President? What are the forecasts and hopes? But James Miller, who has been the new top US diplomat for Munich and Bavaria since September and is based in the highly secure consulate general at the English Garden, says something completely different: It’s about the American football league NFL game in Munich next Sunday.
At the end of the week the New York Giants face the Carolina Panthers in the Fröttmaninger Arena. It’s a gigantic effort: the 53 members of a football team and their employees need their own plane, converting the arena including extending the lawn takes a few days, and then there’s the construction of everything around it, which includes merchandising shops and kiosks . The first of four NFL games in Germany two years ago was a huge success – from a commercial point of view, in order to expand the European sales market for football. And also from a fan culture perspective: nine million people saw the game live, around 1.6 million of them in Germany.
James Miller, a Cambridge and Harvard graduate who previously worked in the European Affairs Department at the US State Department and a Middle East expert with postings in embassies such as Baghdad, Tel Aviv and Tripoli, reflected on the pleasant side of his job on Monday. In the Brenner restaurant on Maximilianstrasse he and restaurateur Rudi Kull are presenting a so-called touchdown menu for NFL Week. This happens all week until the NFL game, because the transatlantic friendship ultimately depends on the mutual cultivation of culture. In this case, these are specialties from Carolina and the East Coast such as crabcakes, Manhattan clam chowder, prime filet mignon or pecan pie.
Culinary delights should definitely help the American community to overcome the nervousness before the election on November 5th plus the time difference. There are still some social surcharges before the election result is clear. And what are you saying? For example, at the traditional silver tea to which the German-American Women’s Club Munich invites you this Tuesday in the Kaisersaal of the Residenz. The new US Consul General will also be attending the charity event, as will State Chancellery Head Florian Herrmann, Justice Minister Georg Eisenreich and the Prime Minister’s wife, Karin Baumüller-Söder. All of them have been announced as guests of honor, and of course everyone wants to talk about the US election in some way, even though we don’t know anything specific yet.
Miller, ever the diplomat, of course has the right answer: “No matter what happens in Washington, my job remains the same. Whether Democrat or Republican, there will be no change.” By the way, voter turnout among US citizens living in Germany is usually very low. Only 25 percent of them voted in 2020. According to Miller, one reason for this is the complicated process for requesting postal voting documents. Each state has its own rules, nothing runs centrally. Here, in Munich, he could therefore give no assessment at all about voter turnout.
