Founded in 1982, the Marshall Memorial Fellowship (MMF) was created by the German Marshall Fund of the United States to introduce a new generation of European leaders to America's institutions, politics, and people. In 1999, GMF launched a companion program to expose future U.S. leaders to a changing and expanding Europe. Over the past 26 years, the MMF program has attracted over 1,500 of the best and brightest from all sectors, including politics, media, business, and nongovernmental organizations.

Beginning with the four original countries - Denmark, France, Germany, and the Netherlands - Fellows now come from across the United States and from 22 European countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, the Slovak Republic, Spain, and Turkey). GMF works closely with partners in more than 60 cities on both sides of the Atlantic to make the MMF program possible.

The Marshall Memorial Fellowship provides a unique opportunity for emerging leaders from the United States and Europe to explore societies, institutions, and people on the other side of the Atlantic. The MMF program, now in its 26th year, draws Fellows from  European countries and the United States for a three- to four-week traveling program.

GMF awards more than 100 Marshall Memorial Fellowships each year to leaders in politics, government, business, media, and the nonprofit sector committed to strengthening the transatlantic relationship. More than 1,400 Fellows have participated in the program since its inception creating a diverse network of transatlanticists who remain engaged through annual conferences, meetings, online communications, and involvement in other GMF program areas.

American and European Fellows each visit five or six cities per trip. They meet formally and informally with a range of policymakers and prominent members of the business, government, political, NGO, and media communities. GMF works closely with partner institutions and individual consultants in each city, providing Fellows with an invaluable local perspective on the transatlantic and domestic issues on the agenda.

In 2007, three groups of American Fellows visited 24 European cities, including Belgrade, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Lisbon, Ankara, Amsterdam, Thessaloniki, Warsaw, and Turin. European Fellows’ itineraries took them to 31 American cities and towns, including Denver, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, Madison, Lincoln, Boise, Cleveland, and Washington, DC. Along the way, each Fellow has the opportunity to explore his or her own professional interests beyond the group programs, which focus on a range of domestic and international policy areas.