‘Germany is our problem’

Rather than successfully integrating post-war (West) Germany into the western economic block, earning well (even very well), but without underestimating this Germany a third time – instead, the German apprentice has now become a serious competitor to its US master.

What differentiates the two, one from the other, is the military-political predominance of the USA, particularly in the field of nuclear weapons in Europe.

Berlin is intensively working to overcome this deficit. It can rely on appeasement and the collaboration of its European debtors – and on the patience of the European poor, bitterly footing the bill for this arms buildup.

In the hour of Germany’s capitulation, there were already warnings that it could come to this – that Germany could again pursue “world politics.” In the USA, President Roosevelt said at the time:

We should not leave the Germans “a single element of military power,” not even a single element “of potential military power”. And his Secretary of Finance, Henry Morgenthau wrote in 1945:

“Germany Has the Will to Try It Again”

“Germany Has the Means to Try It Again”

“Germany Is Our Problem.”