Relations between the United States and the different German states was generally friendly in the 19th century. Americans gave strong support to the revolutionary movements of 1848, and welcomed political refugees when that liberalizing revolution failed. The German states supported the United States during the Civil War, and gave no support to the Confederacy. At the time tensions between the United States and France were very high, and Americans generally supported the Germans in their war against France in 1870–71.
German immigration to the United States For over three centuries, immigration from Germany accounted for a large share of all American immigrants. As of the 2000 US Census, more than 20% of all Americans, and 25% of
white Americans, claim German descent. German-Americans are an assimilated group which influences political life in the US as a whole. They are the most common self-reported ethnic group in the
Northern United States, especially in the
Midwest. In most of the
South, German Americans are less common, with the exception of
Texas.
1683–1848 The first records of German immigration date back to the 17th century and the foundation of
Germantown, now part of Philadelphia, in 1683. Immigration from Germany reached its first peak between 1749 and 1754, when approximately 37,000 Germans came to North America. The main settlements were in Pennsylvania, where they are known as the
Pennsylvania Dutch; nearby areas of upstate New York also attract the Germans in the colonial era.
1848–1914 In 1840-1914 about seven million Germans emigrated to the United States.
Farmers who sold their land in Germany bought larger farms in the
Middle West. Mechanics settled in the cities of
Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, and New York City. Few went to New England or the South, apart from a colony formed in
Texas. By 1890, more than 40 percent of the population of the cities of
Cleveland,
Milwaukee,
Hoboken and
Cincinnati were of German origin. By the end of the 19th century, Germans formed the largest self-described
ethnic group in the United States and had a strong German—speaking element. They were generally permanent settlers; few either returned to Germany or showed a loyalty to the mother country. Some were
political refugees; others were avoiding the
universal conscription. They generally spoke the
German language until the US entered World War I in 1917 although the younger generation was bilingual. The failed
German Revolutions of 1848 forced political refugees to flee. Those who came to the US were called the
Forty-Eighters. Many joined the new anti-slavery
Republican Party, such as
Carl Schurz, a nationally important politician. In the late 19th century Germans were active in the
labor movement. Labor unions enabled skilled craftsmen to control their working conditions and to have a voice in American society.
Since 1914 A combination of patriotism and
anti-German sentiment along with civil strife during both world wars caused most German-Americans to cut their former ties and assimilate into mainstream
American culture with disbanding of German cultural groups. There was a collapse in teaching the German language in schools and colleges. German-related placenames were also changed. In 1937, during the
Hindenburg's 63rd voyage, which had long been the preferred mode of rapid transatlantic travel between the United States and Germany, a tragic incident occurred as it met its unfortunate end in a catastrophic crash in Lakehurst, New Jersey, USA. In the wake of this devastating event, rumors and speculations circulated among some German citizens, suggesting the possibility of sabotage orchestrated by elements within the United States government. While these suspicions did arise, their impact on diplomatic relations between the
United States and
Nazi Germany in 1937 remained relatively limited. During the
Third Reich (1933–1945) a wave of
German Jews and other political
anti-Nazi refugees left, but restrictive immigration policies blocked many of them from entering the U.S. Among those who did enter were
Albert Einstein and
Henry Kissinger. Today, German-Americans form the largest self-reported ancestry group in the United States, with California and Pennsylvania having the highest numbers with German ancestry.
Education and culture German culture was an important inspiration for American thinkers before 1914.
Philosophy The influential literary, political, and philosophical movement of
Transcendentalism emerged in New England in the early 19th century. It centered around
Ralph Waldo Emerson and derived from European
Romanticism, German
Biblical criticism, and the transcendental philosophy of
Immanuel Kant and
German idealism. In the late 19th century German
Hegelianism was taught by
Friedrich August Rauch as well as
William T. Harris and the
St. Louis Hegelians. It represented an extreme idealism in opposition to pragmatism.
Education Upon becoming the secretary of education of Massachusetts in 1837,
Horace Mann (1796–1859) worked to create a statewide system of professional teachers, based on the
Prussian model of "common schools." Prussia was developing a system of education by which all students were entitled to the same content in their public classes. Mann initially focused on elementary education and on training teachers. The common-school movement quickly gained strength across the North. His crusading style attracted wide national support, providing a German roots for the school systems in most states. An important technique which Mann had learned in Prussia and introduced in Massachusetts in 1848 was to place students in grades by age. They progressed through the grades together, regardless of differences of aptitude. In addition, he used the lecture method common in European universities, which required students to receive professional instruction rather than teach one another. American adopted the German
kindergarten. German immigrants brought gymnastics and physical education through the
Turner movement. Over 15,000 American scholars and scientists studied at German universities before 1914; 8% were women. They returned with PhDs and built research-oriented universities based on the German model, such as Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Chicago and Stanford, and upgraded established schools like Harvard, Columbia and Wisconsin. Flush with dollars, they built research libraries overnight, often by purchasing major collections in Europe. Syracuse University purchased the research library of Germany's leading historian
Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886).
Music In the colonial era, the Pennsylvania German sects brought their love of music. Moravian music proved widely influential. In the mid to late 19th century, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Cincinnati, Chicago and other musically inclined cities created symphony orchestras which featured German classical music; prominent German conductors were hired, along with performers and teachers.
Theodore Thomas (1835–1905) was the most influential figure, introducing modern European composers and orchestral technique to New York, Cincinnati and Chicago. In return, Matthias
Hohner brought the harmonica to Germany in 1857, where hooty-tooty became popular.
Science and medicine Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843) was a German physician who created pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine called
homeopathy. It was
introduced to the United States in 1825 by Hans Birch Gram, a student of Hahnemann. It became popular in the U.S. well before it caught on in Germany. Physicians in Germany learned about narcotics for anesthesia from the U.S.
Diplomacy and trade 1775 to 1870 During the
American Revolution (1775–1783), King
Frederick the Great of Prussia strongly hated the
British. He favored the
Kingdom of France and impeded Britain's war effort in subtle ways, such as blocking the passage of
Hessian mercenaries. However, the importance of British trade and the risk of attack from
Austria made him pursue a peace policy and maintain an official strict neutrality. After the war, direct trade was minimal. What existed ran between the American ports of Baltimore,
Norfolk, and Philadelphia and the old
Hanseatic League free cities of
Bremen,
Hamburg, and
Lübeck grew steadily. Americans exported tobacco, rice, cotton, and imported textiles, metal products,
colognes,
brandies, and
toiletries. The
Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) and increasing instability in the
German Confederation states led to a decline in the modest trade between the United States and the
Hanse cities. The level of trade never came close to matching the trade with Britain. It further declined because the US delayed a commercial treaty until 1827. US diplomacy was ineffective, but the commercial consuls, local businessmen, handled their work so well that the US successfully developed diplomatic ties with the
Kingdom of Prussia. The
Kingdom of Prussia under
Friedrich Wilhelm III took the initiative in sending trade experts to Washington in 1834. The first permanent American diplomat came in 1835, when
Henry Wheaton was sent to Prussia. The American secretary of state (foreign minister) said in 1835 that "not a single point of controversy exists between the two countries calling for adjustment; and that their commercial intercourse, based upon treaty stipulations, is conducted upon those liberal and enlightened principles of reciprocity... which are gradually making their way against the narrow prejudices and blighting influences of the prohibitive system." The
German revolutions of 1848–1849 were celebrated in the U.S., which was the only major country to bestow diplomatic recognition on its short-lived National Assembly in Frankfort. When the revolution was crushed, thousands of activists fled to the United States. The most important were
Carl Schurz,
Franz Sigel and
Friedrich Hecker. The exiled Germans became known as the
Forty-Eighters. As the German element grew in Illinois,
Abraham Lincoln worked to secure their support in the 1850s, including sponsoring a German language newspaper. However apart from the 48ers, most were Democrats. During the
American Civil War (1861–1865), all of the German states favored the northern
Union but remained officially neutral. They did not support France's takeover of Mexico. Immigration flows continued and large numbers of immigrants and their sons enlisted in the Union Army. In St Louis, pro-Union German provided decisive support to suppress Confederate supporters. U.S. Consul General William Walton Murphy, based in Frankfurt on the Main, neutralized attempts by Confederates to borrow money. He solicited medical supplies, sold American bonds, facilitated German purchases of cotton seized by the U.S. Army, and promoted support for Lincoln's war goals in the German press. After the war Washington was neutral but favored Prussia in its wars against Denmark and Austria and felt that consolidation under Prussia was a good idea. Prussia was planning a major war against France and cultivated American support.
After 1871 Washington was neutral in the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, but public opinion favored the German cause. Relations with the new
German Empire started on a high note. German men who immigrated to the U.S. then returned home were liable for military service, but that was a minor irritant and was largely resolved by treaties negotiated by American minister
George Bancroft in 1868. In 1876, the German commissioner for the
Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia stated that the German armaments, machines, arts, and crafts on display were of inferior quality to British and American products. Germany industrialized rapidly under Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck in 1870–1890, but its competition was more with Britain than with the US. It imported increasing amounts of American farm products, especially cotton, wheat and tobacco.
Pork war and protectionism In the 1880s, ten European countries (
Germany,
Italy,
Portugal,
Greece,
Spain,
France,
Austria-Hungary, the
Ottoman Empire,
Romania, and
Denmark) imposed a ban on importation of American pork. They pointed to vague reports of
trichinosis that supposedly originated with American hogs. At issue was over 1.3 billion pounds of pork products in 1880, with a value of $100 million annually. European farmers were angry at cheap American food overrunning their home markets for wheat, pork, and beef; demanded for their governments to fight back; and called for a boycott. European manufacturing interests were also threatened by growing American industrial exports, and were angry at the high American tariff on imports from European factories. Chancellor Bismarck took a hard line, rejected the pro-trade German businessmen, and refused to join in scientific studies proposed by President
Chester A. Arthur. American investigations reported that American pork was safe. Bismarck, because of his political base of German landowners, insisted on protection and ignored the leading German expert, Professor
Rudolf Virchow, who condemned the embargo as unjustified. American public opinion grew angry at Berlin. President
Grover Cleveland rejected retaliation, but it was threatened by his successor,
Benjamin Harrison, who charged
Whitelaw Reid, minister to France, and
William Walter Phelps, minister to Germany, to end the boycott without delay. Harrison also persuaded Congress to enact the Meat Inspection Act of 1890 to guarantee the quality of the export product. President Harrison used his Agriculture Secretary
Jeremiah McLain Rusk to threaten Berlin with retaliation by initiating an embargo against Germany's popular
beet sugar. That proved decisive for Germany to relent in September 1891. Other nations soon followed, and the boycott was soon over.
Samoan crisis Bismarck himself did not want colonies, but he reversed course in the face of public and elite opinion that favored imperialistic expansion around the world. In 1889, the US, Britain and Germany were locked in a petty
dispute over control of the
Samoan Islands, in the Pacific. The islands provided an ideal location for coaling stations needed by steamships in the South Pacific. The issue emerged in 1887 when the Germans tried to establish control over the island chain and President Cleveland responded by sending three naval vessels to defend the Samoan government. American and German warships faced off. Suddenly both sides were badly damaged by the
1889 Apia cyclone of March 15–17, 1889. The two powers and Britain agreed to meet in Berlin to resolve the crisis. Chancellor Bismarck decided to ignore the small issues involved and improve relations with Washington and London. The result was the
Treaty of Berlin, which established a three-power protectorate in Samoa. The three powers agreed to Western Samoa's independence and neutrality. Historian George H. Ryden argues that President Harrison played a key role by taking a firm stand on every issue, which included the selection of the local ruler, the refusal to allow an indemnity for Germany, and the establishment of the three-power protectorate, a first for the U.S. A serious long-term result was an American distrust of Germany's foreign policy after Bismarck was forced to resign in 1890. When unrest continued, international tensions flared in 1899. Germany unilaterally pulled back the treaty and established a control over Western Samoa. It was seized by New Zealand in the First World War.
Caribbean In the late 19th century, the
Kaiserliche Marine (German Navy) sought to establish a coaling station somewhere in the
Caribbean Sea area. Imperial Germany was rapidly building a
blue-water navy, but coal-burning warships needed frequent refueling and so needed to operate within range of a
coaling station. Preliminary plans were vetoed by Bismarck, who did not want to antagonize the US, but he was ousted in 1890 by the new emperor,
Wilhelm II, and the Germans kept looking. Wilhelm did not publicly challenge Washington's
Monroe Doctrine but his naval planners from 1890 to 1910 disliked it as a self-aggrandizing legal pretension and were even more concerned with the possible American canal at
Panama, as it would lead to full American hegemony in the Caribbean. The stakes were laid out in the German war aims proposed by the German Navy in 1903: a "firm position in the
West Indies," a "free hand in South America," and an official "revocation of the Monroe Doctrine" would provide a solid foundation for "our trade to the West Indies, Central and South America." By 1900, American "naval planners were obsessed with German designs in the Western Hemisphere and countered with energetic efforts to secure naval sites in the Caribbean." By 1904, German naval strategists had turned its attention to
Mexico, where they hoped to establish a naval base in a Mexican port on the Caribbean Sea. They dropped that plan, but it became active again after 1911, the start of the
Mexican Revolution and subsequent Mexican Civil War.
Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903 Venezuela defaulted on its foreign loan repayments in 1902, and Britain and Germany sent warships to blockade its ports and force repayment. Germany intended to land troops and occupy Venezuelan ports, but President
Theodore Roosevelt got all sides to enter arbitration, which ended the crisis. In the short run in 1904 Roosevelt issued the
Roosevelt Corollary, telling Europe when European nations had serious grievances in the Caribbean, the United States would intervene and resolve the crisis for them. Years later in 1916, when Roosevelt was energetically campaigning for the U.S. to enter World War I against Germany, he claimed that in 1903 he issued an ultimatum threatening war with Germany, forcing Berlin to back down. There is no record of any stern warning in the archives in Berlin or Washington, nor in the papers of any top American official dealing with foreign or military policy, nor anyone in Congress. No observer in Washington or Berlin had ever mentioned the supposed ultimatum. According to historian
George C. Herring in 2011:No evidence has ever been discovered of a presidential ultimatum. Recent research concludes, on the contrary, that although the Germans behaved with their usual heavy-handedness, in general they followed Britain's lead. The British, in turn, went out of their way to avoid undermining their relations with the United States. Both nations accepted arbitration to extricate themselves from an untenable situation and stay on good terms with the United States.
American images of Germany before 1917 By 1900 American writers were criticizing German aggressiveness in foreign affairs, and warned against German militarism. Books on anti-German topics including politics, naval power, and diplomacy reached educated audiences. German-Americans stayed neutral and largely ignored Berlin; indeed many of them had left as young men to escape the German draft. The
Venezuela episode of 1903 focused American media attention on Kaiser
Wilhelm II, who was increasingly erratic and aggressive. The media highlighted his militarism and belligerent speeches and imperialistic goals. Meanwhile, London was
becoming increasingly friendly toward Washington. However, when the U.S. was neutral in the First World War, Hollywood tried to be neutral. No one expected a war in 1914 until the
July Crisis suddenly saw a major war between the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary) and the Allied Powers (France, Britain and Russia), with smaller nations also involved. The US insisted on neutrality. President Woodrow Wilson's highest priority was to broker a peace and he used his trusted aide,
Colonel House on numerous efforts. For example, on June 1, 1914, House met secretly with the Kaiser in his palace, proposing that Germany, the United States, and Britain unite to ensure peace and develop Third World countries. The Kaiser was mildly interested but Britain was in a major domestic crisis over Ireland and nothing developed. Apart from an
Anglophile element of British descent, America public opinion at first echoed Wilson. The sentiment for neutrality was particularly strong among
Irish Americans,
German Americans, and
Scandinavian Americans as well as poor white southern farmers, cultural leaders, Protestant churchmen, and women in general. The British argument that the Allies were defending civilization against a German militaristic onslaught gained support after reports of
atrocities in Belgium in 1914. Outrage followed the
sinking of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania in 1915. Americans increasingly came to see Germany as the aggressor who had to be stopped. Former President Roosevelt and many Republicans were war hawks, and demanded rapid American armament. Wilson insisted on neutrality and minimized wartime preparations to be able to negotiate for peace. After the
Lusitania was sunk, with over 100 American passengers drowned, Wilson demanded that
Imperial German Navy U-boats follow international law and allow passengers and crew to reach their lifeboats before ships were sunk. Germany reluctantly stopped sinking passenger liners. However, in January 1917, it decided that a
massive infantry attack on the
Western Front, coupled with a full-scale attack on all food shipments to Britain, would win the war at last. Berlin realized the resumption of
unrestricted submarine warfare almost certainly meant war with the United States, but it calculated that the small American military would take years to mobilize and arrive, when Germany would have already won. Germany reached out to Mexico with the
Zimmermann Telegram, offering a military alliance against the United States, hoping that Washington would divert most of its attention to attacking Mexico. London intercepted the telegram, the contents of which outraged American opinion.
World War I: United States vs Germany Wilson called on Congress to declare war on Germany in April 1917 in order to make the world "safe for democracy" and defeat militarism and autocracy. Washington expected to provide money, munitions, food, and raw materials but did not expect to send large troop contingents until it realized how weak the Allies were on the Western Front. After the collapse of Russia and its exit from the war in late 1917, Germany could reallocate 600,000 experienced troops to the Western Front. But by summer, American troops were arriving at the rate of 10,000 a day, every day, replacing all the Allied losses while the
German Army shrank day by day until it finally collapsed in November 1918. On the
home front, the German-American community quietly supported the American effort, but there was much suspicion otherwise. Germany was portrayed as a threat to American freedom and way of life. Inside Germany, the United States was treated as just another enemy and denounced as a false liberator that wanted to dominate Europe itself. As the war ended, however, the German people embraced Wilson's 14 points and promises of the just peace treaty. At the
Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Wilson used his enormous prestige and co-operated with British Prime Minister
David Lloyd George to block some of the harshest French demands against Germany in the
Treaty of Versailles. Wilson devoted most of his strength to establishing the
League of Nations, which he felt would end all wars. He also signed a treaty with France and Britain to guarantee American support to prevent Germany from invading France again. Wilson refused all compromises with the
Republicans, who controlled Congress, and so the United States neither ratified the Treaty of Versailles nor joined the League of Nations. , part of the
7th Division, celebrate the news of the
Armistice with Germany, November 11, 1918. German dominance in chemicals and pharmaceuticals meant they controlled critical patents. The Congress abrogated the patents and licensed American companies to manufacture products such as
Salvarsan, a major new German drug that could cure
syphilis. In similar fashion the German drug company Bayer lost control of its patent—and its very high profits—on the world's most popular drug,
aspirin.
Interwar period 1920s Economic and diplomatic relations were positive during the 1920s. According to Frank Costigliola, Washington and Wall Street sought a prosperous and stable Europe; they felt success depended upon a prosperous Germany. Key players included Wall Street bankers
Charles G. Dawes and
Owen D. Young, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the first postwar ambassador,
Alanson B. Houghton (1922–1925). New York banks played a major role in financing the rebuilding of the
German economy. The policy worked after 1923, but depended upon a continuous flow of dollars. That flow largely ended with the start of the
Great Depression in 1929. Washington rejected the harsh anti-German Versailles Treaty of 1920, and instead signed a new peace treaty that involved no punishment for Germany, and worked with Britain to create a viable Euro-Atlantic peace system. Ambassador Houghton believed that peace, European stability, and American prosperity depended upon a reconstruction of Europe's economy and political systems. He saw his role as promoting American political engagement with Europe. He overcame US opposition and lack of interest and quickly realized that the central issues of the day were all entangled in economics, especially war debts owed by the Allies to the United States,
reparations owed by Germany to the Allies, worldwide inflation, and international trade and investment. Solutions, he believed, required new US policies and close co-operation with Britain and Germany. He was a leading promoter of the
Dawes Plan. The
high culture of Germany looked down upon
American culture, The
German right was suspicious of modernity, as represented by imported American ideas and tastes. However the younger German generation danced to American
jazz. Hollywood had enormous influence on all age groups, with captions in German; after 1929 they flocked to sound films dubbed in German.
Henry Ford's model of industrial efficiency attracted attention. German influence on American society and culture was limited after 1914. The flow of migration into the United States was small, and American scholars rarely attended German universities. The public generally ignored German culture. The American musical elite, according to Geoffrey S. Cahn, was sharply negative toward the atonal and serial compositions of
Arnold Schoenberg,
Alban Berg, and
Paul Hindemith. They denounced it as dissonant and sterile.
Nazi era 1933–41 Public opinion in the US was strongly hostile towards
Nazi Germany and
Adolf Hitler, but there was a
strong aversion to war and to entanglement in European politics. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt was preoccupied with implementing domestic
New Deal policies to handle the
Great Depression and was unfocused on
foreign policy. The Roosevelt administration publicly hailed the
Munich Agreement of 1938 for avoiding war but privately realized it was only a postponement that called for rapid
rearming. Adolf Hitler in the 1920s expressed favorable views of the United States because of immigration restrictions and mistreatment of
African-Americans and
Native Americans. Historian Jens-Uwe Guettel denies there were any real links between American west and Nazi Germany's eastward expansion. He argues that Hitler rarely mentioned the American West or the extermination of Indians and "the Nazis did not use the settlement of western North America as a model for their occupation, colonization and extermination policies." After he gained power in 1933 Hitler increasingly identified the United States as his main enemy, and became convinced that Jews controlled Roosevelt. According to Jeffrey Herf, "Nazi attitudes towards FDR and the United States went from dubious assertions of common interests, during the New Deal, to growing hostility and then rage." Formal relations were cool until November 1938 and then turned very cold. The key event was American revulsion against
Kristallnacht, the nationwide German assault on Jews and their institutions on 9–10 November 1938. Religious groups which had been pacifistic also turned hostile. While the total flow of refugees from Germany to the US was relatively small during the 1930s, many intellectuals escaped and resettled in the United States. Many were Jewish, including
Albert Einstein and
Henry Kissinger, but Washington's restrictions on immigration kept out most of the Jews who wanted to come.
Catholic universities were strengthened by the arrival of
German Catholic intellectuals in exile, such as
Waldemar Gurian at the
University of Notre Dame. The
American major film studios, with the exception of
Warner Bros. Pictures which had a strongly anti-Nazi policy, censored and edited films so that they could be exported to Germany.
World War II 's Declaration of war on The United States Speech (December 11, 1941) When
World War II began with the
German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the US was officially neutral until December 11, 1941, when
Germany declared war on the US and Washington followed suit in The Aftermath of Japan's attack on
Pearl Harbor.
Roosevelt's foreign policy had strongly favored Britain and France over Germany in 1939 to 1941. In 1940–1941, before the US entered the war officially, there was a massive buildup of American armaments, as well as the first peacetime draft for young men. Public opinion was bitterly divided, with isolationism strong at first but growing weaker month by month. German-Americans rarely supported Nazi Germany, but most called for American neutrality, as they had done in 1914–1917. The attack on Pearl Harbor evoked strong pro-American patriotic sentiments among German Americans, few of whom by then had contacts with distant relatives in the old country. Roosevelt was determined to avoid the mistakes made during the First World War. He made deliberate efforts to suppress anti-German-American sentiments. Private companies sometimes refused to hire any non-citizen, or American citizens of German or Italian ancestry. This threatened the morale of loyal Americans. Roosevelt considered this "stupid" and "unjust". In June 1941 he issued
Executive Order 8802 and set up the
Fair Employment Practice Committee, which also protected Blacks, Jews and other minorities. President Roosevelt sought out Americans of German ancestry for top war jobs, including General
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz, and General
Carl Andrew Spaatz. He appointed Republican
Wendell Willkie as a personal representative; Willkie, the son of German immigrants, had been his Republican opponent in the 1940 election. German Americans who had fluent German language skills were an important asset to wartime intelligence, and they served as translators and as spies for the United States. The US played a central role in the defeat of the
Axis powers and Hitler was bitterly anti-American. Berlin attacked American participation with extensive
propaganda value. The notorious
"LIBERATORS" poster from 1944, shown here, was a revealing example:
It depicts America as a monstrous, vicious war machine seeking to destroy European culture. The poster alludes to many negative aspects of American history, including the Ku Klux Klan, the oppression of Native Americans, and the lynching of blacks. The poster condemns American capitalism and says America is controlled by Jews. It shows American bombs destroying a helpless European village. Roosevelt was cautious about propaganda. The Nazis were targets, not the German people. In sharp contrast with 1917, atrocity stories were avoided.
Cold War Following the defeat of the
Third Reich, American forces were one of the occupation powers in postwar
Germany. In parallel to
denazification and "industrial disarmament" American citizens fraternized with Germans. The
Berlin Airlift from 1948 to 1949 and the
Marshall Plan (1948–1952) further improved the Germans' perception of Americans.
West Germany meeting with
Richard von Weizsäcker, in Bonn, May 2, 1985. The emergence of the
Cold War made the
Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) the frontier of a democratic
Western Europe and American military presence became an integral part in West German society. During the Cold War, West Germany developed into the largest economy in Europe and West German-US relations developed into a new
transatlantic partnership. Germany and the US shared a large portion of their culture, established intensive global trade environment, and continued to co-operate on new high technologies. However, tensions remained between differing approaches on both sides of the Atlantic. The
fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent
German reunification marked a new era in German-American co-operation.
East Germany made Indian living history quite popular in communist East Germany Relations between the United States and East Germany were hostile. The United States followed
Konrad Adenauer's
Hallstein Doctrine, which declared that recognition of East Germany by any country would be treated as an unfriendly act by West Germany. Relations between the two German state thawed somewhat in the 1970s, as part of
Détente between East and West and the '
Ostpolitik' policies of the
Brandt government. United States recognized East Germany officially in September 1974, when
Erich Honecker was the leader of the ruling
Socialist Unity Party.
Reunification (1989–90) President George H. W. Bush (1989–1993) played a large part by his constant support of unification, and several US historians argue that Bush had a significant role in ensuring the unified Germany committed to
NATO. While Britain and France were wary of a
re-unified Germany, Bush strongly supported West German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl in pushing for rapid
German reunification in 1990. Bush believed that a reunified Germany would serve U.S. interests, but he also saw reunification as providing a final symbolic end to World War II. After extensive negotiations, Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to allow a reunified Germany to be a part of NATO under the condition that the former territory of the German Democratic Republic would not be remiliterised, and Germany officially reunified in October 1990. This was a situation previously considered unthinkable, given the previous status of the Soviet Union, but it was made feasible by the time of the fall of the East German regime. Bush paid attention to domestic public opinion. Serious doubts about reunification were voiced by the
Jewish-American and
Polish-American communities—whose families had suffered immensely from
Nazism. However, the largely positive public opinion towards German unification in the United States generally corresponded to the sentiments of the usually passive German-American community.
Reunified Germany During the early 1990s, the reunified Germany was called a "partnership in leadership" as the US emerged as the world's sole
superpower. Germany's effort to incorporate any major military actions into the
European Union's slowly-progressing
Common Security and Defence Policy did not meet the expectations of the U.S. during the
Gulf War of 1990–1991.
Since 2001 with German President
Joachim Gauck in Berlin, June 2013 After the
September 11 attacks in 2001, German-American political relations were strengthened in an effort to combat
terrorism, and Germany sent troops to
Afghanistan as part of the NATO force. Yet, discord continued over the
Iraq War, when German Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder and Foreign Minister
Joschka Fischer made efforts to prevent war and did not join the US and the UK, which both led
multinational force in Iraq.
Anti-Americanism rose to the surface after the
attacks of 11 September 2001 as hostile German intellectuals argued there were ugly links between
globalization,
Americanization, and
terrorism. 's
mass surveillance, Berlin, June 2013 In response to the
2013 mass surveillance disclosures, in which it was revealed that the
NSA may have wiretapped major German institutions, including the phone line of Chancellor Merkel, Germany cancelled the 1968 intelligence sharing agreement with the US and UK. New cases of spying on Germany by US agents are subsequently revealed. Longstanding close relations with the United States flourished especially under the
Obama Administration (2009–2017). In 2016 President
Barack Obama hailed Chancellor
Angela Merkel as his "closest international partner." However relations worsened dramatically during the
Trump administration (2017–2021), especially regarding NATO funding, trade, tariffs, and Germany's energy dependence upon the
Russian Federation. In May 2017, Merkel met
Donald Trump, the paternal grandson of German immigrants. His statements that the U.S. had been taken advantage of in trade deals during previous administrations had already strained relations with several EU countries and other American allies. Without mentioning Trump specifically, Merkel said after a NATO summit "The times when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent, over," This came after Trump had said "The Germans are bad, very bad" and "See the millions of cars they are selling to the U.S. Terrible. We will stop this." In 2021 talks and meetings with Merkel and other European leaders, President
Joe Biden spoke of bilateral relations, bolstering
transatlantic relations through NATO and the European Union, and closely coordinating on key issues, such as
Iran,
China,
Russia,
Afghanistan,
climate change, the
COVID-19 pandemic and multilateral organizations. In early February 2021, Biden froze the Trump administration's withdrawal of 9,500 troops from U.S. military bases in Germany. Biden's freeze was welcomed by Berlin, which said that the move "serves European and transatlantic security and hence is in our mutual interest." Merkel met Biden in Washington on July 15, 2021, with an agenda covering COVID-19 pandemic, global warming and economic issues. Trump's opposition to the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline remained an unresolved issue under Biden. On February 15, 2025,
Olaf Scholz slammed
JD Vance’s calls to end political "firewalls" against the far-right
Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, condemning U.S. interference in Germany's democracy. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, he argued that supporting the AfD contradicted lessons from Germany's Nazi past. Vance, who met AfD candidate
Alice Weidel but not Scholz, criticized Europe's establishment and called for stricter migration policies. With Germany's election a week away, center-right frontrunner
Friedrich Merz also told Vance to back off and criticized Donald Trump for banning AP from White House coverage. == Perceptions and values in the two countries ==