4 - Transatlantic Networks: Elites in German-American Relations

Summary

Translated by Richard Sharp

More lies behind international relations than the machinery of ministries and diplomacy, formal structures, and institutions. Foreign policy is also developed and influenced by people who can draw upon personal and informal relationships that enable them to pursue their aims outside their official contacts. Informal contacts and networks of this kind, stretching back to the interwar period and of growing in importance in the decades since World War II, have and still today greatly influence German-American relations. There has been a group of influential decision makers in Germany and the United States that has been of crucial importance in bilateral relations. Drawing its members from the fields of politics, business, and culture, this group made up what can be seen as the transatlantic elite, and this chapter will examine how this elite formed and operated. Although researchers lay great emphasis on the role of elites in shaping foreign policy, little concrete evidence as yet exists on their interactions outside of official channels. This chapter suggests some new directions for future research by comparing the origins of German and American elites and their influence on both their respective countries' foreign policy. This history points to certain conclusions about the transatlantic dimension of their activities.

What is an elite? Elites are groups of individuals whose hold on power, positions, and potential resources provide them with opportunities for influence that enable them to play a decisive role in shaping policy, economics, and culture in transatlantic relations. Here, the term is used above all for the power elite whose members have held prominent positions in diplomacy, joint economic bodies, business, and many other institutions. The concept of “value elites” is also important for understanding transatlantic elites and their role in German- American relations since 1945. In traditional usage, which this chapter will adopt, the term means “minorities recognized as having a particular social, moral, and intellectual aptitude (value elites).” Originally this referred to the privileged segments of early bourgeois society, but the term can also be applied to an analysis of German-American relations.