America's Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany

by Thomas Alan Schwartz

Overview

John J. McCloy was the "wise man" of the Cold War era who had the longest substantial American connection with Germany. A self-made man of great ambition, enormous vitality, and extraordinary tenacity, McCloy served in several government positions before being appointed High Commissioner of Germany in 1949.

America's Germany is the first study of McCloy's critical years in Germany. Drawing on deep archival research and interviews, Thomas Schwartz argues that McCloy played a decisive role in the American effort to restore democracy and integrate Germany into Western Europe. Convinced that reunification should wait until Germany was firmly linked to the West, McCloy implemented a policy of "dual containment," designed to keep both the Soviet Union and Germany from dominating Europe.

McCloy represented the best and the worst of the values and beliefs of a generation of American foreign policy leaders. He strove to learn from the mistakes made in the aftermath of the collapse of the Weimar Republic, when the West did not do enough to help German democracy survive. Yet his leniency toward convicted Nazi war criminals compromised the ideals for which America had fought in World War II.

America's Germany offers an essential history for those wishing to understand the recent changes in Germany and Europe. The book describes a unique period in the relationship between America and Germany, when the two nations forged an extraordinary range of connections—political, economic, military, and cultural—as the Federal Republic became part of the Western club and the new Europe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674432987
Publisher:	Harvard
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Edition description:	Reprint 2014 ed.
Pages:	417
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Schwartz Thomas Alan :

Thomas Alan Schwartz is Professor of History, Vanderbilt University.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. The Making of a High Commissioner

2. Changing of the Guard

3. Avoiding the Fate of Weimar: The Petersburg Protocols

4. Monnet and the Schuman Plan

5. The Dilemmas of Rearmament

6. Dealing with the Past: Moral Integration

7. Ties That Bind: Economic Integration

8. The Skeleton Key: Military Integration

9. How Free Should the Germans Be? Political Integration

10. The New Look: Eisenhower and Dulles, 1953-1955

Conclusions: European Unity, Dual Containment, and the American "Empire"

Abbreviations

Selected Bibliography

Notes

Index

Editorial Reviews

An impressive achievement in terms of both its scholarly quality and the breadth of its research effort...Schwartz's study is comprehensive and rich in detail. It presents a great deal of new material and casts fresh light on aspects of the German-American relationship in the 1950s.

The time is long overdue for a major study of McCloy. This is it. By focusing on Germany, which McCloy was so influentially involved for most of his life, the author makes a significant contribution to the study of U.S.-European relations in a crucial period.

From the Publisher

From 1949 to 1952, McCloy was Allied High Commissioner for Germany, and Schwartz contends that he represented the best of the ``wise men'' of that era of American foreign policy. McCloy contributed greatly to the birth of a West Germany integrated closely with the free world. If the Cold War did not lead to a ``United States of Europe,'' as many wished at the time, it was not McCloy's fault. Schwartz tells the story of West Germany's rebirth as a nation by examining developments during McCloy's era in such areas as politics, economics, and rearmament. If this timely, scholarly treatise has any flaws, it is that the separate treatment of each area fails to show their interrelationships adequately. Recommended for academic libraries.-- Pat Ensor, Indiana State Univ. Lib., Terre Haute

Library Journal

An impressive achievement in terms of both its scholarly quality and the breadth of its research effort...Schwartz's study is comprehensive and rich in detail. It presents a great deal of new material and casts fresh light on aspects of the German-American relationship in the 1950s.

V. R. Berghahn

The time is long overdue for a major study of McCloy. This is it. By focusing on Germany, which McCloy was so influentially involved for most of his life, the author makes a significant contribution to the study of U.S.-European relations in a crucial period.

Gaddis Smith