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The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University has announced that Joschka Fischer, Germany’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1998 to 2005 and a member of the German national parliament, will join the School’s faculty for a year-long appointment beginning in September 2006 as the Frederick H. Schultz Class of 1951 Professor of International Economic Policy, with the rank of Lecturer of Public and International Affairs.

This fall Fischer, 58, will teach the undergraduate course "International Crisis Diplomacy" with Woodrow Wilson School lecturer Wolfgang Danspeckgruber. In spring 2007 Fischer will co-teach with WWS Diplomat-in-Residence Ambassador Robert Hutchings and Princeton University politics professor Andrew Moravcsik an international relations graduate seminar on Europe, America and future policy challenges facing the transatlantic alliance.

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Fischer will serve as a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School's Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, led by Danspeckgruber, and as a fellow at Princeton's European Union Program, directed by Moravcsik.

"The faculty and I and others around the University are very much looking forward to having Joschka Fischer join us," said Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School. "He combines a lively and perpetually curious intellect with a wealth of experience grappling with some of the most important issues of our time. Our undergraduate and graduate students will reap the benefits of studying under one of the key architects of European diplomacy in the post-9/11 twenty-first century and gain important insights into the processes and practice of European policy making and statecraft."

Fischer was appointed Germany's Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1998, fifteen years after joining that country's burgeoning Green party in 1982. Upon his appointment as Hessian Minister of the Environment and Energy in 1985, he was the first German Green to assume a government post. From 1987 to 1991, Fischer served in various capacities in the Hessian State Assembly; served from 1991 to 1994 as Hessian Minister for the Environment, Energy and Federal Affairs; and from 1994 to1998 he was Parliamentary Spokesman for the Green party in the German Bundestag, the national parliament.

"I am pleased and excited to join the faculty of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, the preeminent institution for the study of international relations in the U.S.," commented Fischer. "This is an excellent opportunity to begin important projects with my new Princeton colleagues in the areas of transatlantic and global politics, and collaborate with strategic institutions and individuals in Europe and America."

Fischer was Germany's foreign minister during the administration of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and earned international attention in 1998 when he urged that Germany should send troops to Kosovo during the NATO-led intervention there, a controversial decision domestically. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Fischer advised Chancellor Schröder to send German troops to Afghanistan. In 2003 Fischer advised against Germany supporting the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Viewed as a political maverick, he remains one of the most popular politicians in Germany.

Fischer previously visited the Woodrow Wilson School as foreign minister in September 2003, when he gave a speech on the state of U.S.-European relations. It was his first public address since the U.S. had invaded Iraq that previous March.

While a member of the Wilson School's faculty, Fischer will also have an appointment with the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.