![]() ![]() The role of such groups is crucial in abrogating the artificial divide between public, state, and private structures. ![]() ![]() Both the Atlantik-Brücke and ACG thus operate as “hinge groups” that bring together elites from various sectors of society. The current board of the Atlantik-Brücke is made up of politicians from the Social Democrats (SPD), Christian Democrats (CDU), the Green Party, and the Free Democrats as well as representatives from multinational corporations and the German Trade Union Confederation. The Atlantik-Brücke in particular brought together employers and trade unions, as well as politicians, diplomats, former military officers, and media officials. The Atlantik-Brücke (Atlantic Bridge) and the ACG are both vital organs of transatlantic elite networking and coordination, although both played an important integrating function in domestic affairs in each country as well. My book focuses on the history of the Atlantik-Brücke and its US sister organization, the American Council on Germany (ACG), during the period from 1949 to 1974. She sat down with Colin Adams to discuss why the German-US partnership was anything but a natural development - and examines the role these organizations play in German and American politics today. Historian Anne Zetsche’s recent book, The Atlantik-Brücke and the American Council on Germany, 1952–1974, critically examines the political influence of both organizations in the first decades following World War II. Two important (and complementary) private organizations that played a key role in its development are the Atlantik-Brücke in Germany and the American Council on Germany in the United States. This postwar alliance was facilitated by a number of public and private institutions in both countries. It was not until Nazi Germany’s capitulation in 1945 and the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 that a true alliance between Germany and the United States was formed. Despite a history of mass German migration to the United States from the 1840s and the close cultural bond between the two countries, Germany and the United States were adversaries on the foreign policy front for decades. The two are also close partners in most international organizations, particularly NATO.īut that hasn’t always been the case. Despite Donald Trump’s threats to remove US military personnel from Germany, around forty thousand troops remain in the country. Aside from Germany’s refusal to join the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, (West) German support for US foreign policy has been practically nonnegotiable since 1945. Germany’s NATO membership and its close foreign policy cooperation with the United States today seem almost like natural developments. ![]()
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