People & Politics | 60 years of German-American relations

The presence of US occupation forces in western Germany after World War Two was a culture shock for Germans. The American occupation brought freedom of the press and a democratic constitution,it also introduced swing music,chewing gum,Wild West romanticism and CARE packages. But while the post-war German population may have loved the American way of life,many disapproved of the superpower's foreign policy. During the student revolts of the 1960s,rearmament of Europe in the 1980s,or the Iraq War in 2003,the US was always the main target of protests. Kurt Biedenkopf,a former premier of the state of Saxony,was one of the first German exchange students to go to the US in the late 1940s. John Kornblum,a former US ambassador to Germany,was able to help shape German-American relations. Our report talks with both about their impressions.

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[ValenciaMunich]

That they were people just like us!! Germans are the largest self-reported ancestry group in the United States

[capnjonas]

Interesting video, but it made no reference to the Morgenthau plan, or Operation Paperclip, which cost Germany trillions of marks, which the Marshall Plan was a drop i the bucket by comparison.

Also, the expulsions from Silesea, pomerania & Prussia (Accepted by America) were over looked.

And the fact that Bush violated international law (Iraq War, secret Prisons), but America faced no embargoes despite this. Germany is too forgiving to the US.

[wanksta444]

I think many people around here don't know that many names in america which seem to be english can be of german origin, too. During the world wars german families switched their names from Meyer to Mayer or Mayr, from Schmidt to Smid or Smith, from Mueller to Miller and the list goes on and on. Also germans became invisible and assimilated to the english, to show how american they are. British americans just dont come along with that fact.

[000000AEA000000]

@Tommyfungun nope. It does not. Names were anglified at large. Especially German names were changed into english names to avoid persecution.

[000000AEA000000]

*vomits from the american propaganda*

[TheLordZhufor]

@TtotheItotheM1 well the racistic theories declare that slavs are a lower race because they have merged with jews and other low races

in fact slavs are just an other cultural group

but racists dont care for facts

they are just mentally retarded

[quatroseven]

@Tommyfungun

The majority of british ancestory is german so....

[Tommyfungun]

@JohnRhysMusician Wow...you must of been doing some digging through records to get that far back..but fairplay to you, I have been meaning to check my ancestral records for a while.

I think many Americans don't know that they have British ancestry and just put down "American" on the Census...but I would put my mortgage on it that British is the biggest ancestry in America.

[JohnRhysMusician]

@Tommyfungun Exactly my point. I'm an American with British ancestry. My earliest ancestors entered through Virginia Colony in the 1600s.

[Tommyfungun]

@JohnRhysMusician British people have been in America since it was a colony! Some genealogists think the number is around 70,000,000 people who have British ancestry.

10 out of 10 of the top ten most common surnames in America are all British. says it all really.....

[Francesko263]

The first german community in US is german-jewish to be correct.