11 - The German Political Parties and the USA

Summary

Translated by Eric Weinberger

The East-West conflict defined the terms of German-American relations until 1990, considerable fluctuations in the intensity of that conflict notwithstanding. West Germany's dependence on American protection determined where the country stood politically in the later decades of the Cold War, as it had before 1968, and colored the views the West German parties held of the relationship between their country and the United States. The Harmel Report issued by NATO in 1967 had called for equal weight to be given to defense and détente in the interests of European security. West Germany's political parties differed on security policy in large part because they placed different weight on defense and détente and, consequently, placed different value on relations with the United States. Moreover, positive attitudes toward the United States began to fade in the mid-1960s, when America became the focus of criticism - especially from the younger generation - for its methods of warfare in Indochina. The loss of faith in American politics, aggravated by the Watergate scandal, cast increasing doubt on taking America as a role model.

Beginning in the late 1970s, skepticism about the motives and goals of American policy began to spread within the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and among the Greens. The Reagan administration’s distinctive combination of a focus on American interests, Manichaean worldview, and sense of political mission helped spur the SPD and the Greens to question the wisdom of West Germany’s security dependence on the United States. Their unease would persist throughout the Reagan era. However, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) functioned as a domestic counterbalance to those critical of the United States.