Das Zerwürfnis: Helmut Schmidt, Jimmy Carter und die Krise der deutsch-amerikanischen Beziehungen [The Discord: Helmut Schmidt, Jimmy Carter and the Crisis in German-American Relations] (review)

During the chancellorship of Helmut Schmidt, a central irony shaped West German–American relations. Schmidt perhaps more than any other politician admired the United States and was regarded by many in Washington, DC as a friend of their country. Yet, some of the most serious strains in West German–American relations emerged during Schmidt's tenure in office.

This puzzle is at the center of Klaus Wiegrefe's book dealing with relations between the West German chancellor and U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Why did West German–American relations during this time deteriorate and produce a feeling of deep crisis, even though both politicians had come to office with the intention of continuing with the trusted relationship that had developed since the late 1940s? What were the reasons for their falling-out, and why were they unable to overcome it as smoothly as previous controversies had been settled? Was it personal idiosyncrasies or a misapprehension of the opposite number's motives that caused such frictions? Could the causes be traced to political miscalculations, diverging political priorities, or international events that affected the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the United States differently? Or was a contradiction between realpolitik and idealism at the root of the conflict, as often suggested by political scientists? Or were there still other motives?

Wiegrefe's analysis of West German–American relations from 1976 (the year Carter was elected) to 1980 (the year he lost his bid for reelection) raises these and other pertinent questions. A historian by training and a journalist by profession, Wiegrefe had access to a rich body of German and American source materials, including some of Helmut Schmidt's private papers, Schmidt's files in the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's Archiv der Sozialen Demokratie, and the voluminous U.S. records in the Jimmy Carter Library in Atlanta. The result is a carefully researched analysis of an important period in West German–American relations during the East-West conflict. Wiegrefe's findings point to a mixture of structural and idiosyncratic factors that caused the two men's difficult relationship.

Even more helpful than Wiegrefe's conclusions is his rich account of the relationship between the two men and how it turned sour. By connecting West German and American developments during this period, Wiegrefe is able to shed useful light on facts and interpretations that other authors have overlooked. He thus offers a new, multifaceted view on West German and American foreign policy, the two countries' room for maneuver, and their interdependence.

According to Wiegrefe, the discord was caused primarily by far-reaching structural changes in the relationship between West Germany and the United States. Since the early 1970s, the FRG had no longer been a ward that had to conform to America's example. This was the case not just in economic and financial policies but also in foreign relations. The introduction of Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik had given West Germany considerably greater room of maneuver in policy toward the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and reduced its dependence on Washington. To the extent that perceptions of an external threat diminished under conditions of East European–West European détente, domestic concerns gained in importance.

When the Carter administration took over in 1976, Schmidt expected a continuation of the close partnership developed by the Ford administration or at least a good deal of political cooperation on substantive issues. The problem, however, was that Carter had won the presidential election in part because he had promised a turn from both Richard Nixon's and Gerald Ford's discredited policies of realpolitik. The "peanut farmer" from Georgia moved to the White House with an optimistic, often idealistic view of the world. Instead of focusing on the East-West conflict and relying...