3 - Partners in Defense - America, West Germany, and the Security of Europe, 1950-1968

Summary

When Nazi Germany was defeated in 1945, the United States, like the other victorious Allied powers, embarked on a demilitarization campaign designed to keep the Germans totally disarmed for the foreseeable future. Yet, a few years later, in the wake of the collapse of the wartime alliance and Germany's division along the Iron Curtain, America began urging the new West German state to contribute to the military defense of Western Europe. During the next five years, the United States took the lead among the occupation powers in the protracted diplomatic efforts to rearm the Germans. When the Bundeswehr finally appeared in 1956, it was widely seen as a child of the Cold War coupling between Washington and Bonn. As the young West German army struggled in subsequent years to become a viable military organization and to make its mark in NATO, America continued to play a critical nurturing role. However, from the very beginning of the rearmament process to the emergence of the Bundeswehr, Bonn did not simply cower in the shadow of its powerful new ally, nor was the Bundeswehr a clone of the U.S. Army. America and the Federal Republic became firm partners in the arena of European security, but their military partnership, like all genuinely sound marriages, was never without its creative tensions.