← New Books Network
New Books Network
Peter Sparding, "No Better Friend? The United States and Germany Since 1945" (Hurst, 2024)
00:53:13
Loading summary
Transcript42 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [00:22]
B
Of $45 for a three month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network's busy. Taxes and fees extra.
- [00:29]
A
See mintmobile.com@blinds.com, it just about window treatments. It's about you, your style, your space, your way. Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right. From free expert design help to our 100% satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows. Because@blinds.com, the only thing we treat better than Windows is you. Visit blinds.com now for up to 50% off with minimum purchase plus a professional measure at no cost. Rules and restrictions apply.
- [01:00]
C
Hello everybody, this is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [02:07]
B
Hello everybody and welcome back to the New Books Network. I'm Jenna Pittman, a host for the network. Today, we'll be talking to Peter Sparting about his new book, no Better the United States and Germany since 1945, published by Hearst Publishers in 2024. Peter Sparting's no Better Friend examines the long history between the two countries and their peoples, the narratives and perceptions harbored by each nation concerning the other, and the evolution of diplomatic, economic and security ties. Appraising the complicated interplay between Germany and the United States vis a vis a rising China and the domestic challenges facing both countries, his book offers an outlook on how this all important relationship might function going forward. Peter, thank you for joining me today. Welcome to the show.
- [02:54]
D
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
- [02:55]
B
Yeah, so we were talking a little bit before we started recording this episode, but you have a really interesting background with your originally being from Germany and then coming to the United States a while ago. Right. It's been a few years. So I wonder if you could begin the episode telling us a little bit about yourself and kind of what brought you to write this book.
- [03:21]
D
Sure. So I, as you mentioned, grew up in Germany and born in Muenster, Germany, in the northwest of the country and grew up there. And my first kind of foray into anything America was when I became a exchange student in high school and spent a year in Kansas City, Missouri. And that year left a deep impression, I think on me. And meeting lots of Americans for the first time and experiencing the warm welcome I received really endeared me to the country, although I had long been interested in its culture and history, but from afar. But first I returned to Germany and finished high school and then went on to study political science in Berlin at the Freiht, spent a year in Copenhagen studying there for a while, but kind of kept an eye on US related issues throughout and took a lot of classes in that regard. And then after graduating I started working for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, which is a nonprofit, an American nonprofit, despite the name, dedicated to the transatlantic relations. I started working for them in the Berlin office before then a couple of years later moving on to their Washington D.C. headquarters where I worked in the economic policy program that they had. So I've been. That was 16 years ago now. So I've been in Washington D.C. since and have worked for the most part on transatlantic economic and foreign policy issues throughout. And of course given my background, always focused on the German American relationship in particular. And so a while back Hearst publishers reached out through a former colleague with the idea of writing a book on the relationship. And the question kind of that the Publisher Michael Dwyer asked me was whether there is a good English language book that is not a 600 page work, but maybe something more accessible to people who are interested in the relationship and have maybe an international affairs background and kind of follow the news in this regard. But I'm not maybe steeped in the German American relationship. So something that makes it accessible to them, but it has some substance in it. It's not a book that has no research behind it, but something that makes it readable and maybe have some characters and anecdotes burst into the material. So that's how that came to be. I should mention I have now for the last year and a half, worked at the center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, which is another think tank in Washington, D.C. and that's where I was when the book was finally published. It came out earlier this year in May in the US With Oxford University Press.
- [06:32]
B
Awesome. Thank you for that. Yeah. And I think that definitely comes through pretty clearly that it's very well researched. But this is definitely something that somebody who's not an expert on international relations and foreign affairs can definitely still enjoy. We were talking earlier, your wife's family, Correct. Is from the American Midwest. And we were laughing about how Midwesterners have this thing where even if they've never been to Germany, they'll say, oh, my family's German. And so there definitely is an audience just with that niche of the Midwesterners who love beer and bratwurst and saying that they're German.
- [07:12]
D
Okay, I encourage that audience to purchase the book.
- [07:14]
B
Yes, I will definitely, definitely encourage it to all of my Midwestern American Germans. But I think that there definitely is a very timely situation or context with this book. And given the relationship between the United States and Germany, it feels really timely. So since publishing this first last year and it coming out in the US this year, how do you think that this study continues to speak to the recent state of the diplomatic relations between the US And Germany?
- [07:45]
D
Yeah, I should emphasize. So I finished writing the manuscript in mid or early 2024. So before the US elections in November of 24 and then the German elections, which came as a surprise a bit earlier in February 25th. So obviously the developments since then are not covered in this book, although they are kind of hinted at maybe, and some of the underlying research, and I think for now it's still early going in the most recent developments. And we've had obviously by now the German chancellor visit Washington twice, actually already, once as part of a larger group of European leaders and Once by himself. And by all accounts that those meetings have so far gone well and there's not been a major disruption, but everybody is a little bit on edge, I think. Who cares about the relationship? Just because there's a lot of uncertainty now mixed in, given that the US Government now has taken a different approach to its long standing security relationships in Europe, which Germany depends on entirely. And also on economic matters with seen the approach on trade negotiations with the European Union. This obviously is followed closely in Germany. So there's a lot of immediate interest in just what happens in the coming months. But I think in the long term there is the question of what this might mean going forward and how stable this relationship will be. And I think for that we don't know yet. So as a reviewer of the book noted, there might be a need for a second volume at some point, which I would gladly then compose.
- [09:35]
B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I would agree. And I think that you've touched on a lot of the big themes of this relationship between the US and Germany. I recently had to order some books from Germany. They were so expensive and I'm like, maybe that was shipping. But also I was like, it feels more expensive than they were last year. I don't know.
- [09:57]
D
The thing is, you just don't know at this point, right? Because things change quickly that it's hard to know what it's what.
- [10:01]
B
Yeah, well, and I, I'm not an expert on like what are what our policies for importing things from Germany are, but I just know that I was like, ouch. That was €120 for three books. And one of them wasn't even new, it was literally used. I was like, oh my goodness, the Euro 30 shipping too. I was like, this is too much. I'm lower the taxes, my gosh. But kind of getting back to, to the book. So when you say the United states and German 1945, what does that specifically mean? Because there's kind of the division of Germany. So when we say Germany, are we talking about unified Germany? Are we talking about the FRG and the GDR, or are we talking about more US and Western Germany relations up until the 1990s?
- [10:52]
D
Yeah, that's a fair point. And maybe one of the points that I might myself say is a part that the book could expand on a bit more if I had more space. So I focused primarily on the relationship between the Federal Republic of Germany and the us And I mentioned that in the introduction at least that I won't be able to go deep on the relationship of the GDR and the US and the reason for that choice was beyond space and time constraints, was that the foundations of the relationship today between unified Germany and the United States are still based on the relationship primarily with West Germany and the United states, shaped after 1945. So the NATO relationship and so on. So that's why I chose to focus on this. I have a few points in there where I cover a little bit the aspects of the GDR and how it plays in. But yes, that is not an area that I have explored deeply. So maybe another point to cover in the sequel, because there is a lot out there for that. And one major point when writing a book like this, which is by default has to be shorter than all these expert books on individual topics of the relationship, you constantly have to make these tough decisions about cutting entire issue areas where there have been many smart people over many decades dedicating their entire careers on researching. And here I come and write one paragraph about it and claim to cover something in this. But at one point you have to accept that and feel bad about it, and then that's how you can produce a book that's not that long, I guess.
- [12:38]
B
Yeah, well, I think that's part of what makes this book. It makes the scope of it a little stronger, I almost think, because with the focus on economic policy, kind of the political relationship and how it feeds into what that political relationship is now and why that matters. I think I study East Germany. I'm interested in the US East German connection, but I think in the context of our political relationship right now, definitely the US West German relationship is a little bit. A little bit closer.
- [13:13]
D
So you see, I just left this for you to write.
- [13:16]
B
Yeah, no, I don't know about that, but I think it's still your expert area. But so you begin with this book with kind of a description of this long, long history of the German American relationship. And funnily, again, I read a lot on this, this type of thing, and I was like, wow, I never knew that Germany had entanglements in art, culture and politics dating back to the American Revolution. So there is a very long history of kind of an entanglement between these two nations. But I think most listeners and most people who might be interested in this book are really interested probably in the 1945 to now period. So what defined the pre1945 German American relationship? And how can this book maybe help readers gain a better understanding of the political dimensions after 1945?
- [14:14]
D
Right, thank you for that question. I wanted to focus on the post1945 era. But I realized early on, I think, that to really understand it, you have to at least gain some insights into two important aspects. One is just the history of the connection between the two countries, which stretched 150 years or more before 1945. And because the break of World War II and 1945 was so dramatic, it often is forgotten because that is the defining moment of the relationship as we know it. So it's not, as you pointed out, it's not as well known. And then the second part that I also have a chapter on in the book is I try to grapple with the kind of the narratives or the ideas that each country has of the other. And of course, that involves a lot of generalizing. And you can't speak of a narrative that one country has of another, per se, of course. But I was just trying to go back in time, even 200, 150 years ago, to see some of the views that many prominent people and also just citizens expressed at the time, because surprisingly, a lot of those visions and ideas still persist or at least form the backbone of a lot of the thinking that at least Germans, for example, have of the United States. So just to go back, maybe broadly, of course, in the first 100 years, as I point out in the book, I think the relationship the first hundred years after the founding of the United States was clearly dominated by German immigration to the United States. So as opposed to today, the influence of Germany on the shaping of the United States was actually, in my view, bigger than the reverse. Whereas arguably today we could say culturally the influence is much stronger from the US To Germany. But back then there's the numbers vary a little bit, but overall, it's estimated around 7 million or so Germans eventually made their way from many of the German states and principalities at the time to the United States. And as I point out in the book, just through some examples, they left quite an impression on their new country. There's a lot of prominent examples. Karl Schurz is always mentioned. He is a famous German American leader. But just by going through some of the names of famous American products or names in history, from Boeing to Pfizer or Presidents Eisenhower and President Trump all have German American backgrounds. And as I quip in the book, even in baseball, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig both have German background and reportedly spoke German when they grew up in their households. And so once you start digging this, you realize how broad this was and how many German American families existed and their influence. And this obviously waned already before World War I, as German migration slowed down. And then of course, the. The episode of World War I and World War II not only brought this to an end basically, but also, and this is when a lot of the German sounding names might have been changed for reasons that are understandable if you're an American. So I just wanted to point out that that relationship is actually much deeper than maybe understood. You mentioned that many people know this and have the deep family connection somehow, but might not realize how big this actually was for the country. And then the second part, and I'll be short here, is on the perception side of things. If you look at some of the German kind of thinkers of the time, from the Romantics early on in the 1820s, 1830s, 1840s and so on, some of the images they described having of the United States, while at some point admiring the country because they also sought more liberty and democracy in Germany. There are already some of the sentiments that one finds often now that have a more anti American slantom, often related to a German feeling of cultural superiority. There's this sense that Americans don't have a deep culture and so on. So it's interesting to me when researching this, how old some of these thoughts are. And then of course, once you look at the other way, initially German immigrants, there's famous quotes from Benjamin Franklin, who did not appreciate German immigrants at first coming to Pennsylvania. And those are mostly farmers. So they did not impress him much initially and he thought they were a little, maybe in reverse, not very cultured. But there are some images that the Americans early on created of the Germans that then changed over time. First there was a lot of appreciation for German culture and German scientific achievement and so on. A lot of American academics traveled to Germany. And then as time grown in Germany changed after German unification in 1870, 71, there's more of a militaristic view and negative views of Germany chime in. And then of course, with World War I, that took over for a long time.
- [19:54]
B
Yeah. And I think that kind of perception of Germany is present in the American mind, but it's definitely switched a little bit just in the past years with Germany's really Europe in general. I think it's been present in our political discourse just recently about the relationship, the military relationship between the US And Germany. I guess kind of looking at this in chunks of time, I kind of think of there's the first half of the kind of Cold War and then there's the second half. So from 1945 to 1965 to 70 what defined that German American relationship? And then in the period from maybe 1965, 1970 until about 1990, 2000, what kind of defines those two kind of big halves of this relationship?
- [20:53]
D
Yeah, I think that might actually be a good way of looking at it, although I don't specifically do it in the book. But there is a change for sure, in that timeframe that you pointed out. So the first couple of decades after the war, first of all, there's the occupation time, of course, where Germany is not even a state of its own. And then as the Cold War started, there's the absolute dependence of the West German state on the US for protection. First of all, a huge shift from just a few years earlier when the countries were enemies. And I point out in this book, I have a little anecdote in there about presidential visits. And maybe it's a good symbol of this change, because if you think of the presidential visits in the time that you just described, so the first one that I found was President Eisenhower in 1959 coming to Bonn, and there were 300 and some thousand Germans lining the roads and cheering. And this is the general that led, only a few decade and a half earlier, an army against that same area. And now he's being welcomed as a hero and protector, and rightfully so, because this was at that point a reality, that German population was seeing the US President as their security provider, ultimately. And that, of course, most famously is the JFK visits in 1963, where, I mean, we all know the images and the quotes, and in Berlin, especially in West Berlin, where there's by some reports a million people or so out on the streets. And then compare that to some later visits. And I have one in that Jimmy Carter came in the. There's barely a mention. It's not that many people because the relationship had taken a different turn, although still important, obviously, but different. So the first few decades is kind of Germany was West Germany. The government had the goal of security first and foremost and kind of reestablishing itself as a power in Europe and being readmitted to the circle of nations. And the US obviously was the key interlocutor, as the then German leader, Conrad Adenauer identified quite early, understandably, given that the other Western nations, Allies, France and uk, had for longer and more dramatically fought Germany and in the war and in France's case had been occupied. So their memories were different than the American ones. And the power imbalances between the Allies, with the US now the clear leader out of the three, meant that a lot of the German efforts were immediately focused on Washington as the most helpful of the three Western allies in the goal of re emerging from this self enforced, self caused downfall, so to speak. And in that I think the United States plays the key role. I mean we have of course the examples of the Marshall Plan and so on, but also in terms of when it came to admitting Germany into NATO in 1955 and rearming Germany and so on, always relied on support from Washington at this time, although there were already signs always in the entire relationship of some difficulties and always some infighting. But overall I think that was clearly the goal of what Adenauer then what was called Westbindung, mainly a focus on the United States and in the back of their mind always a fear that there might be an abandonment of that the United States at one point might kind of reverse its policy and maybe leave Europe or in this case Germany and stop its protection. So I think that's kind of the first part where you have this huge imbalance and very clearly need for Germany to gain a close relationship. And then this kind of changes a little bit as Germany also recovers economically in this time in the 50s and 60s, it becomes a a little more established, it's rearmed, it's still dependent entirely for security reasons, but it now has its army, the Bundeswehr, that is growing in strength. So still the dependence, but now it's in the mid-60s, it's once again one of the major economic powers. And that's where first conflicts also arise at this time as I described in this book. And then of course the 70s, which was a tough time for many Western countries in economic terms, lead to some of the major clashes in this relationship with the United States itself undergoing for the first time Since World War II, some major economic crises, but also internal domestic political crises after Watergate and then the Vietnam War fallout. So there was already maybe some self doubt also on the US side. And then there were clashes mainly on economic policy at first and then also later on on the security issues, as was made clear when the NATO double track decision came into play in the late 70s, which initially the German side was also kind of helping to push for Helmut Schmidt, the Chancellor then, but which turned quickly in Germany into a controversial issue, especially in the population and saw some widespread demonstrations now really for the first time in the relationship that had a bit of an anti American slant to them against the deployment of further American weapons in West Germany. And then especially once Ronald Reagan became president, who was not always well liked in some parts of the West German population. There were some quite significant demonstrations against it. So I think that kind of traces the shift a bit. But I think that the break that you also identified is indeed, once Germany becomes a bit more, you could say, self confident, it's now an established economic power again, it can allow itself maybe to be a bit more forceful in its relationship with the US and given the overall weakening of the economic situation at that time, it was maybe preordained to lead to some conflict.
- [27:47]
B
Yeah, I think that definitely makes sense. And I kind of like how you articulated that point about once Germany becomes a little bit less economically dependent, they're a little bit stronger in their stance towards American politics or policies towards Europe and Germany. So I think that's a good point. And you kind of started to touch a little bit on the power imbalances between the US And Germany. We'll come to that maybe in a moment. But I think that that kind of brings us to really the last 30 years, so 1990 until now, and the relationship between Germany and the US just since the reunification of Germany and that whole kind of change to the German political structure. So how might we understand the nature of the German American relationship in post Cold War, post Reunification decades?
- [28:46]
D
Yeah, yeah. I think the way I describe it or try to describe it in the book is that with unification, which by the way, is another point after the 1950s and as I point out in the book also in the 1920s already, where Germany or German leadership relies heavily on American influence among the Western allies for support, the unification process was supported strongly from Washington under the leadership of George Bush Sr. At that point in American diplomacy helped usher this in. So there's, I think by now a good understanding that this was key given that some of the European allies at the time, again, somewhat understandably, were a bit more skeptical of reunification, or at least quick reunification in case of France and the UK So once again, first, strong play towards Washington for support in this and successful support. But then once the kind of the structure of the Cold War, which had defined the relationship for the 40 years very clearly, despite the changes that I just described. But the overall structure was very clear under that framework. Once that falls away, I think not at first, but the way I see it over the last 30 years, that's why we have seen more volatility in the relationship, because in the 90s, Germany there was initially the offer from then President Bush Sr. For Germany to become a partner in leadership is often quoted part of a speech that the president gave in Mainz in 1989. And maybe already a hint of what we now often see of the American demands for Germany especially to step up and take on more responsibility and also more of the cost and the burden, maybe so that the US Would not have to play as active a role, especially in Europe and in the surrounding areas. But as you as a student of German history know, this is difficult for many German leaders and also is not something that they were maybe used to. And you can see this process of where now, without the immediate threat of the Soviet Union, the German leadership kind of still values the transatlantic relationship and still tries to adapt to these demands and tries to step up some of its burden taking. And you see this in some military deployments very slowly at first to Somalia and then in the Balkans, and then some actual combat deployments in Kosovo and, and then finally the biggest one to Afghanistan. These are all kind of in line with this idea that Germany should ramp up its efforts and take on more of this burden. But at the same time, the big immediate threat to Germany itself has disappeared with the Soviet Union. So this role of the United States as its immediate security ganter doesn't play the, this immediate, maybe psychological role anymore. And then I think there is a key breaking point that I've also pointed out in the book is the Iraq War experience that at least for another generation, maybe not as steeped in the Cold War, this is a defining experience where the American drive towards war with Iraq or the invasion of Iraq is, is really a point where a lot of German population is no longer following along with these demands. And those who have always been critical of US Demands now see or now view this as confirmation that they had been right to be critical. Those that had supported it were in a tough position because they may not have supported the Iraq war itself, but wanted to keep a strong relationship with Washington. And of course, famously, the then Chancellor Schroeder also used this conflict in an electoral effort in that year in the summer of 2002, which left a lot of a sour note in Washington, to say the least. And I think that's often not understood in Berlin, given that in hindsight now many people in the US Also agree that this was not a good decision to go into Iraq. So many Germans think, oh, so the German side was right in hindsight, but the way it was handled back then diplomatically may not have been the best way to go about it. And so that left quite a break, I think. And you can see this in some of the long term polling, even you have the Allensbach Institute in Germany that does this. These polls since the 60s or so, which asked which country do you consider your best friend or something like that in Germany, and since really in the 60s and even in the mid 90s, still there's over 50% of Germans say the United States. Despite all the protests in the 70s and 80s and despite a lot of the anti American rhetoric sometimes, and I didn't even mention this earlier when we talked about the other phase, the Vietnam War was obviously another huge breaking point for many on this particular political left in Germany. Despite all of that, still a vast majority in the 90s says the United States. And it doesn't even come close. The next country is France with, I don't know, 18 or something. So it's not even. Well, this is the point where this shifts for American people. So I think that is because there was no longer the framework of the Cold War, which usually kind of reined in how far any conflict could go and how far any negative views might slip. This is, I think, a big break. And although leaders were able to patch things up kind of, and there was a good working relationship between the various levels reestablished soon, I think that's in the psyche. That was a big breaking point. And remember at this point, still no outside threat perceived in Germany. So now that we have this again since probably at least around 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea, but even more so I think in this you could feel viscerally in Germany in 2022 with the full scale invasion of Ukraine. I think this is when a lot of Germans kind of, there was a bit of a shock moment that oh, there's actually an immediate threat still or again to Germany and we are still as Germans dependent on the United States for security. And I think that is kind of the, the point we're in now. And so you have this volatility because that framework was gone. So you could kind of say whenever the threat from the outside was not there and the dependence especially on security was not as much then, you know, Germans and German leaders could be more volatile in their approach and you could allow yourself to be a bit more independent maybe. But now that this is back, there's a lot of worry about this now. So I think that's the defining characteristic of this time is that we have clearly the 30 years since the end of the Cold War. That period is coming to an end, but we don't know yet what is coming next and we don't have a stable framework. And that's concerning and leaves people worried.
- [36:31]
A
Limu Gamu And Doug Limu and I always tell you to customize your car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. But now we want you to feel it. Cue the emu music. Limu, save yourself money today. Increase your wealth.
- [36:47]
B
Customize and save.
- [36:49]
A
We save. That may have been too much feeling. Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Ferry Unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts.
- [37:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's part of the reason why this book is so timely. And I think that was just a very, well, very good description of why this matters and why things seem kind of up in the air right now. Just that there's not a stable framework for what that relationship should look like. And so, yeah, definitely, very, very interesting point. Your chapter on security is really what we're talking about right now is kind of reminding me of that, but I guess kind of more on the economic side because the American kind of business interests and economic relationship between the two nations is so central. So going back to the immediate post war period, what role did the US and kind of US Business interests have in the reconstruction of post World War II West Germany? And then how does that economic relationship continue to kind of influence or shape the German American relationship today?
- [38:08]
D
Yeah, I think the role the United States played cannot be overestimated. I mean, it's, you know, there's the Marshall Plan, there's the direct help, so to speak, in rebuilding. But one thing that I think sometimes is forgotten in the, well, especially in Europe or in Germany, is that the role the United States also plays. And here I hark back to a security related issue. But not only did the United States protect Germany and Europe or help protect it from the external threat of the Soviet Union by remaining in Europe, it also alleviated worries among other European countries like France and the UK of any kind of revanchist or otherwise, you know, resurgent German nationalism and so on. So a lot of time, I think we view European integration, which is key to German economic development of the last, you know, 70 years. We view it as a great achievement of European diplomacy, which it was, but made possible, I think, by taking out of the equation the worry of any kind of internal military conflict, again as opposed to after World War I. So in that regard alone, I think the United States played a key role. And this is why, you know, starting in the 50s, a lot of European leaders could start to focus on what, you know, the precursors of what became the European Union and European integration. So a huge part of that was already is a huge influence on German economic recovery. Then you of course have, you know, Germany being readmitted into world trading networks, also driven in large parts by U.S. leadership and American investments in Germany. This is not charity, to be clear. I'm not suggesting this. This is economic, this is business. But clearly this was beneficial to both sides. And you can see this in the numbers. Germany had already been a big trading power and manufacturing power for a long time and it regains the status quite quickly. But it's remarkable how quickly it does so. And also until maybe the 60s and 70s or one could argue actually until today, it becomes an important factor in terms of monetary policy. Whenever you have conflicts in this regard, it's always the us, Japan, Germany and the UK who have to get together and hash things out. So I think the US is key in that role. And then as I said earlier, this is why I think it's not that surprising that it's in this area where there's some conflict. First of all, the stakes are high, but they're not security high. So you have more leeway if you're Germany or the US to have conflicts in this regard. And you do have them in the starting maybe in the 60s and then into the 70s, and they kind of sound familiar. I focused a lot in the last 15 years during the euro crisis, which I also describe in the book, where the American side kept pushing the Europeans and by Europeans they often meant the Germans to act more forcefully, which went against the German kind of economic philosophy. But you see similar things already in the 70s when also the then government, the US government under Jimmy Carter, kept urging the German government under Helmut Schmidt to step up its kind of investments or its spending to kind of, as they saw it then act as a locomotive for the world economy, thereby helping also the US and so on. So you see some of these relationships or the way the economic relationship works has long traditions. Meanwhile, just on a business level, there's basically been a trajectory of just more and more integration between the two countries ever since these days you have, I don't know, I don't have the numbers in front of me. But you have huge investments. German companies invested in the us the German car companies all have manufacturing facilities here now and so on. So this is a by now highly integrated economy, which makes this current moment we find ourselves in so tricky with the tariffs and so on. Yeah. One point I raise in the book is that there is a long standing disputes in the economic field. Some have to do with economic interests, some with cultural Aspects. So on the trade front, we had from 2013 on negotiations for a transatlantic trade deal. TTIP, which was to many surprisingly became a very critical debate in Germany, many Germans being against it. There were demonstrations that saw hundreds of thousands of Germans out on the streets against the trade deal, which surprising to some, although there were good questions to ask about the deal itself, but still nonetheless a little surprising that this is an issue that gets people so riled up. And I point out in the book that I think there's more underlying this. But interestingly, I looked a little bit further back and you find trade disputes of similar nature in the 1880s when there was a pork war between the two countries, which also had economic interest, but also some cultural aspects about different standards and so on. So some of these things are just ingrained in our relationship. So I think they might continue.
- [43:40]
B
Absolutely. Yeah. That's really fascinating that you mentioned the pork war because that is. It's weirdly become a big topic that's been reading on as well. So, yeah, for the listeners who have no clue what we're talking about, it was a thing and it is like a lens in which you can understand this really kind of multifaceted relationship between the standards and quality, standards and regulations between nations. And weirdly you start to see this really big aspect of just like policy between these two nations that kind of butts heads. I think that's really interesting. I don't know if you have anything else to say.
- [44:22]
D
Oh, no, I just thought there was a great. When you research some things like this, you find these great quotes. And there was a quote from the American ambassador back then, name I don't have right now, and said in the end the American pig runs through the Brandenburg Gate indicating that the American side won from his point of view. But I just thought that was a great book.
- [44:40]
B
Yeah, I am definitely going to be asking for what you've been reading on this because I'm looking for some new titles. But the porgwar is not the topic of. Or not really central to your. No better friend. But I am definitely interested in that as well. But I guess in the introduction to this episode, I mentioned this relationship within the context of a rising Chinese power or, you know, China as a nation, their power kind of increasing on the world stage. So where does the German American relationship situate within that?
- [45:20]
D
Yeah, you know, this is beyond the, you know, just transatlantic or German American framework that is uncertain at this point. I think we're also as well established, I think undergoing a huge change upheaval in Global politics and in the global order, obviously, with the rising China and how the US Is reacting to it, you know, we've now for what, 15 or even more years seen in Washington, most policymakers talk about, you know, Obama talked about a pivot to Asia. Obviously, President Trump is very focused on rising China into different degrees and in different emphasis. But the US as it shifts to the Pacific, where it sees its future interests more at risk, or where there's more gain, maybe also the question has become, what does Europe and in this case Germany do? And, of course, this also pertains to Germany's own economic interests. At first, Germany was one of the countries where German economic actors went heavily into China and helped this growth in China by supplying a lot of the manufacturing equipment and the tools and so on, that helped this economic boom. And now we have reached the point, though, where Chinese products are competing with German products, not only in third markets, but maybe it have the potential to cause problems for German manufacturers in their domestic markets. And this is why now in Germany, I think there is a realization also that there's not only economic opportunity that way, but actually a huge economic risk. And a lot of people have argued that whereas the US Was hit by maybe a China shock in the early 2000s when China entered the WTO, Germany might have a China Shock 2.0 in store for itself now that China has moved up the value chain and is competing in its fields. And obviously, the way China competes is not always fair. So that there are now questions of remedies against this and how Europe and the EU can protect its member states from this threat. At the same time, there was some hope that there might be a transatlantic kind of alliance on this, because we face the same issue and have the same concern about this. And that is still, I think, at least from European policymakers, I think, a goal and has been viewed as maybe a way that they could work also more with the Trump administration. That was for sure the case in the first Trump administration. That effort was made. But if at the same time, there are constant threats on tariffs against Europe itself or other measures that might be seen as against your own interests, and of course, there's this great worry about what the United States might do regarding Ukraine going forward. That puts Europe and Germany being one of the more important biggest countries, they're in a very difficult position right now having to balance between these two superpowers now that in different ways provide some challenges and of course, still much closer to the United States. And I hope and encourage that it stays this way. And given the security dependence, I don't see a way that it can't. But it's not always easy to maneuver this. And I think, as in many cases, some time had been wasted in Germany realizing these developments. Now, Germany, as you know, has in the recent government negotiations ramped up its military spending and so on, but all of this will take time. Similarly, the way Europe and Germany approaches China is still a negotiation within the country. And I think I'm a little worried that it's a bit late on that ground. But ideally this is a challenge that the transatlantic partners would manage together or at least try not to get into conflict about. But we'll see. Right now it's very difficult to make any predictions, so I can hope, but I'm not necessarily confident that this is how it will play out.
- [49:46]
B
Sure. Yeah, I think that's a pretty good note to kind of wrap up the discussion of your book about. I always like to ask what you're working on now. So this book you finished last year, are we diving into another project or what are you doing?
- [50:06]
D
Yeah, I mean beyond eventually maybe writing a second volume.
- [50:09]
B
Second volume, yes.
- [50:11]
D
Definitely not right now as everything's still moving. So we'll have to reach some kind of stability. Yeah. Something I don't know. So my main focus and my day to day job at the center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress is actually this field of kind of what we like to call geotechnological competition between the United States and China and how it plays into our relationship with allies, not only in this case with Europe and Germany, but the work I do is a lot focused on Japan as well and Asian allies. So of course I focus a lot on this, which is the. Where there's a lot of uncertainty at the moment. So it's not always easy to follow the ups and downs. But I do have and keep an eye on the German American relationship, which I have always done and continue to do very dear to my heart. It's a personal matter. So those are the two issue areas I focus on. I don't have a new book project yet, but it is actually something I'm thinking about. So stay tuned and I'll let you know.
- [51:17]
B
Yeah, that's awesome. I look forward to seeing what comes next other than the new volume, the second volume of this. So for our listeners, Peter Sparting's no Better. The United States and Germany since 1945 published by Hearst Publishers in 2024. And what was the U.S. publisher?
- [51:37]
D
Oxford University Press.
- [51:38]
B
Oxford University Press in the U.S. this year is available now. Peter, thank you so much again for being here today. I really enjoyed talking with you.
- [51:47]
D
Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was fun.
- [52:00]
A
Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to outdo your holiday, your hammocking and your pooling. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia made to travel.