USA - Chicago

Hamburg's connection to the USA - Chicago

Hamburg and Chicago show parallels in their economic structures, which provide a basis for co-operation and exchange. In both cities, future-oriented sectors are developing dynamically: life sciences, health care, biotechnology, novel food and quantum mechanics are gaining in importance.

Start-ups and innovation centres in both Hamburg and Chicago are helping to develop new technologies and business models and scale them up internationally. These industry overlaps open up concrete opportunities for cooperation, investment and the exchange of knowledge and best practices between companies, research institutions and urban innovation initiatives.

The two cities of Hamburg and Chicago have been twinned since 1994. The twinning agreement primarily provides for close co-operation on issues relating to the citizen-oriented administration of modern cities, urban development and monument preservation, as well as environmental protection, health and social services and crime prevention. Youth exchanges are particularly supported and promoted. Since the twinning programme began, numerous partnership agreements have been signed between Hamburg and Chicago universities, which have facilitated academic exchange with and about each other.

HamburgAmbassador Christoph Lichtenfeld

Born in Hamburg, J. Christoph Lichtenfeld moved to the USA in 1962 at the age of 20. He was a senior engineer at Electro Motive Division, GMC, one of the world's leading locomotive manufacturers. For twenty years, he worked as a project manager specialising in the development of new production methods and innovative machining systems before retiring in 2001.

Since 2000, Lichtenfeld has been actively involved in the Hamburg committee of Chicago Sister Cities International, including 17 years as co-chair. His project management and networking skills have enabled him to initiate numerous projects in favour of the Hanseatic city.

HamburgAmbassador Rolf Achilles

Rolf Achilles is an art and architectural historian. He has lived in Chicago since 1975. He studied in Frankfurt am Main, Rome, and Utrecht, and worked first at the University of Chicago, then at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago until 2020. Achilles has curated numerous international museum exhibitions, written several books and many articles about Chicago, served on several cultural committees of the City of Chicago, co-founded the Sister City Hamburg-Chicago in 1990, and co-founded the Chicago Christkindlmarket, which was initially closely associated with Hamburg.

Achilles is culturally active in many ways and is passionate about historic preservation, especially of churches and buildings in and outside of Chicago.

Expertise for Hamburg

Smiling elderly man in a suit with a colourful tie at a formal event with other attendees in the background. — HamburgAmbassador Christoph Lichtenfeld at the HamburgAmbassador Meeting 2022 in the Operloft

Lichtenfeld is valued for his expertise in networking, project management and engineering. He is passionate about connecting young people through student exchanges, sports and the arts and wants to facilitate more student exchanges and tree art projects in Hamburg. He values meaningful personal connections, cultural immersion and fostering lasting relationships.

In addition to student exchange programmes between Hamburg and Chicago, visits by HSV youth football teams to international tournaments and many other projects in the fields of sport, culture and education, his most outstanding project is the Hamburg-Chicago Marathon Exchange.

Both cities organise a marathon: Hamburg in spring, Chicago in autumn. This exchange, founded by Lichtenfeld in 2001, in which runners from the Hamburg police and fire services are hosted by Chicago families and vice versa, has since established itself as a flagship of the city partnership and was underpinned by a memorandum of understanding between the respective police and fire services. In co-operation with Dietrich Stegert from the Hamburg Chicago support group, 45 Hamburg runners have already been hosted by 22 Chicago families during a Chicago Marathon weekend. This is an expression of an enormous civic commitment.

Through exchanges between the two cities in the areas of sports, education, medicine and trades, Lichtenfeld has fostered lasting partnerships between Hamburg and Chicago. These efforts strengthen grassroots connections, complement official city collaborations and expand the reach of international cooperation.

Two men in suits having a friendly conversation at a table in a bright room. — HamburgAmbassador Rolf Achilles in conversation with his colleague Paul Nemitz

With an excellent background in art history, Achilles guides guests from Hamburg through Chicago and shows them the highlights of the Art Institute of Chicago. Together with his colleague Christoph Lichtenfeld, he supports young footballers from Hamburg who meet the directors of the Chicago Fire football club in Chicago. To mark the 30th anniversary of the city partnership between Hamburg and Chicago, he took part in a podcast about Chicago's architecture with Dirk Lohan, architect and grandson of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Rolf Achilles supports Christoph Lichtenfeld with his Hamburg Police and Fire Department connection and the Chicago Marathon.

in 2025, Achilles presents a travelling exhibition in Hamburg City Hall about the "Baltic University", which took in refugee students in Hamburg from 1946-1949. Further stops of the exhibition over the next 2-3 years will be Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn and Chicago.

Achilles gives lectures on Expressionist architecture for architects and architecture students in Hamburg as well as at the Art Institute of Chicago and Illinois Institute of Technology, and continuously shows and explains objects, paintings and glass windows from Hamburg museums and churches on several Facebook pages.