People in Germany and the United States appear to have very different ideas about the state of relations between their countries. Germans see Berlin and Washington increasingly at odds, but Americans are more positive.
Image: imago/Seeliger
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A study published on Monday by the Pew Research Center found that Americans and Germans were "worlds apart" in how they viewed their countries' relations with one another.
While most Germans said current ties were at something of a low point, a comfortable majority of Americans viewed relations positively.
In the US, only a quarter of people surveyed said they felt relations were bad, compared with 73 percent of Germans.
That figure represents a sharp upturn in negative assessments of the situation compared with 2017, when 56 percent of Germans said relations were poor. However, despite their generally gloomy appraisal, only one in 10 Germans said the relations were "very bad."
On the level of cooperation between the countries, Germans were also more circumspect. Seven in 10 Americans said they would like to see the countries collaborate more, while only 41 percent of Germans were keen to see closer cooperation.
Foreign policy partnerships
Although Americans seemed to have a rosier perception of relations than Germans, very few rated Germany as one of the US's most important partners when it came to foreign policy. Here, the United Kingdom rated highest — on 37 percent — while Germany came in at a distant seventh place, on 9 percent.
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Germans rated France as one of the two key foreign policy partners for Berlin, on 61 percent. However, more than a third — 35 percent — also saw the US in this light.
Germans said they felt the relationship with the US was too close, wanting greater independence, while Americans felt they wanted the countries to be closer on foreign policy. Correspondingly, more Germans wanted their own country and European allies to spend more on national defense budgets than when the survey was carried out last year, a rise from 32 percent to 43 percent. For Americans, European defense spending was less of an issue than it was in 2017.
Attitudes to NATO had stayed the same in both countries, and were broadly positive.
US President Donald Trump's "America First" platform and his attitude to NATO has rankled with some European allies. The president has suggested he might be willing to pull the US out of NATO if member countries in Europe don't significantly boost their defense spending.
Germans keen on retaliatory tariffs
The survey, based on telephone interviews in September by the Pew Research Center in the US and the Körber Stiftung research group in Germany, also included a section on tariffs.
Participants in the US were asked if they supported Trump's imposition of tariffs on aluminum and steel against European allies. There was overall opposition to the move, although it was close, with 51 percent opposing the tariffs and 44 percent in favor.
A significant majority of Germans who were asked about retaliatory tariffs imposed by Brussels on the US said they supported the measures. Of those asked, 78 percent said they were in favor.
From Wilhelm von Steuben to Diane Kruger: Germans who've influenced the US
Wilhelm von Steuben, Carl Laemmle, Marlene Dietrich and Levi Strauss: From the very beginning, German immigrants have influenced culture and life in the US. Often, however, their German roots aren't well known.
Image: Imago/Hollywood Photo Archive/C. Slater
A German Helen in Hollywood: Diane Kruger
Her real name is Diane Heidkrüger and she was born in Germany in 1976. The film "Troy" with Orlando Bloom made her famous in 2004. She became a US citizen in 2013. Other influential Germans in the US film industry today include "Troy" director Wolfgang Petersen, and Roland Emmerich, who shot "Independence Day," the ultimate in patriotic blockbusters.
Image: imago/United Archives
Organized the army in the Colonies: Prussian General von Steuben
It was also thanks to the former Prussian officer Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben that the militarily inexperienced Colonist army was able to defeat the world power Great Britain in the Revolutionary War. With discipline, drill and order he made a powerful troop out of the guerrillas. He described his training methods in a book which became a standard military work.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Painted the most famous picture in the US: Emanuel Leutze
The painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware" is located at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. It depicts a decisive moment in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), when the Colonists under General Washington, who had so far been unsuccessful, launched a counterattack on the British. It was painted by Emanuel Leutze (1816-1868), who emigrated to the US from Germany as a child.
Image: ullstein bild - histopics
A model for Scrooge McDuck: America's first millionaire, John Jacob Astor
His descendants founded the world-famous Waldorf Astoria Hotel, but this was still unfathomable to the butcher's son Johann Jakob Astor from Walldorf near Heidelberg when he moved to the US in 1784. He became America's first multimillionaire through fur trading and real estate sales — and was the inspiration for literary legends Ebenezer Scrooge and Scrooge McDuck.
Image: Imago/United Archives International
Advocate of women's rights: Mathilde Franziska Anneke
With her husband Fritz, Mathilde Franziska Anneke fled Westphalia to Milwaukee, Wisconsin after the democratic revolution in the German states failed in 1848. She worked as a journalist, published a women's magazine and fought for women's suffrage and equal educational opportunities — and thus became one of the leading US feminists.
Image: Gemeinfrei
Created the cult fashion item: Levi Strauss
Löb Strauss, a young Jew from Buttenheim near Bamberg, emigrated to the USA in 1847 at the age of 18 with his mother and sisters. The Gold Rush drew him west, where he wanted to sell tent tarpaulins to gold prospectors — and saw that they needed robust trousers. Thus were "jeans" born — making Levi Strauss, as he was then called, and his business partner, Jacob Davis, rich.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Hollywood pioneer from the start: Carl Laemmle
Born in 1867 as the son of a Jewish cattle dealer in Laupheim, Germany, Karl Lämmle emigrated to the US at the age of 17. For 20 years he survived by doing odd jobs. In 1906 he visited a small movie theater — and it sparked an idea. He opened his own cinema, started a successful film distribution company and founded Universal Studios in 1915 — one of Hollywood's first big dream factories.
Image: picture-alliance/Imagno
From Berlin to Hollywood: Marlene Dietrich protested the Nazis by singing
The 1930 movie "The Blue Angel" made Marlene Dietrich a world star, catapulting her to Hollywood with director Wilhelm von Sternburg, where she ended up staying. When the Nazis seized power in Germany in 1933, she supported Jews who had fled and other exiled Germans. She also sang "Lili Marleen" to cheer up US troops — probably the most famous song of the Second World War.
Image: Imago/Hollywood Photo Archive/C. Slater
Expelled by the Nazis: philosopher Hannah Arendt
Arrested and expatriated by the Nazis, Hannah Arendt fled to New York in 1941. The 35-year-old journalist and philosopher quickly learned English and became an American citizen in 1951. As a writer, she reported on the Eichmann trial and coined the much-discussed term "banality of evil." One of her goals in life was to explain how the Holocaust could occur.
Image: Leo Baeck Institute
First Nazi engineer, then space travel idol: Wernher von Braun
Engineer Wernher von Braun constructed the V-2 rocket, which was built by forced laborers for the Nazis. After World War II, Americans had him come to the US. He was among over 1,000 German scientists who were never held accountable for their work for the Nazi regime. As the father of rocket technology, Wernher von Braun became a space travel idol in the US when NASA astronauts landed on the moon.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Persecuted as a Jew in Germany: Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
Born in Fürth, Franconia in 1923 as Heinz Alfred Kissinger, he emigrated to New York in 1938. During the Second World War he returned to Germany as a soldier — then as an American. After studying and teaching at Harvard, he advised politicians. The highlight of his career: Under President Nixon, the Nobel Peace Prize winner was US Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977.
