18 - Berlin - Catalyst and Fault Line of German-American Relations in the Cold War

Summary

Throughout the Cold War, Berlin played a pivotal role in German-American relations. The American defense and material support of the Western sectors of the old German capital against the most unremitting Soviet assaults at the front lines of the Cold War forged the earliest and strongest bonds between Americans and Germans. These battles also created a strong American identification with West Berlin, which weakened isolationist tendencies in the United States. The severest of the Berlin crises even contributed significantly to a reshaping of American policies toward Germany and Europe. Yet, the city also put a burden on German-American relations. During the peak years of the Cold War, the Berlin issue was more vulnerable than any other to a creeping mistrust and divergence of interests that could not be allowed to break into the open because both the Americans and the West Germans had toomuch invested in Berlin as a symbol - of their Cold War leadership for the former and of their exclusive claim of national representation for the latter.

Even though the Soviet and American World War II allies clashed first in Berlin, the basic shift in postwar American policy toward Germany was not caused by the confrontation in that city.1 But it was in Berlin that a deeper sense of common purpose was built, which became essential for the German-American relationship. Here, the Cold War first became a concrete reality for American administrators, as the confrontation lines within the Four Power Allied Control Council for Germany and the Berlin Kommandatura increasingly ran between the Soviets on one side and the three Western Powers on the other.