In a sign that efforts are slowly but surely underway to repair the tattered transatlantic relationship, the White House confirmed this week that Secretary of State Colin Powell is planning a visit to Berlin in mid-May. Though the German Foreign Ministry has emphasized that no concrete date has oficially been set for Powell’s visit, sources have told leading German newspapers he'll be arriving around May 14.

German Chancellor Schröder’s spokesman, Thomas Steg, underscored the importance Berlin is attaching to Powell’s when he said in Berlin earlier this week that Powell is "welcome in Berlin anytime." Steg added that the chancellor would use Powell’s trip to hold extensive talks with him. "We’d be happy even if he decided to come earlier," Steg said.

Transatlantic ties damaged

Powell is the highest-ranking Bush administration official to pay a visit to Germany since ties between Washington and Berlin soured at the peak of national elections here last September.

Schröder was reelected last autumn at least partially on the basis of his strident anti-war stance and his refusal to involve Germany in any kind of U.S-led military action in Iraq. But his use of the pacifist card in the campaign was seen by many in Washington as blatant electioneering and his rhetoric accusing the Bush administration of "military adventurism" over Iraq angered U.S. officials.

Amid talk of "poisoned relations" and "lasting damage to the U.S.-German relationship," transatlantic ties suffered another setback when Schröder’s justice minister compared President Bush’s political tactics with those of Adolf Hitler. Schröder’s failure to remove the minister immediately from her cabinet post resulted in further antagonizing an already incensed Washington.

German anti-war stance frustruates U.S.

In recent months, Schröder’s partnership with France, Russia and China to form an anti-war axis against the U.S.-led military operations in Iraq, which has seen the U.S. and Britain going to war without a U.N. resolution, has further strained ties between Berlin and Washington.

It's not just what they (the Germans) did, but how they did it," Jeffrey Gedmin, director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin and an outspoken critic of the German government's Iraq policy told DW-WORLD last week. "What does it mean when … an ally like Germany is not just prepared to abstain but to actively, energetically and systematically … contribute to the failure of our mission? It makes people ask if that's the way an ally functions."

Berlin changes tack after Iraq war

But the end of the Iraq war has seen a marked change in German foreign policy priorities. Chancellor Schröder has shown himself to be eager to mend fences with the U.S. "No matter what the difference of opinions were before, it goes without saying that healthy transatlantic relations are necessary and we'll work towards that aim in the future," Schröder said after meeting with British Premier Tony Blair earlier this month.

Germany's main opposition parties, which stood against Schröder’s anti-American line during the election, have also welcomed Powell’s visit.

Wolfgang Schäuble -- the foreign policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, in parliament -- said Powell's decision to visit Berlin did not surprise him. "I’ve always considered the Bush administration’s politics to be much more clever than they are occasionally portrayed here," he said on Monday.

"I have the impression that the German government has realized in the past months that they committed a grave foreign policy mistake. Now they are correcting it," Schäuble said.

Washington ready for talks

The White House, too, has signaled it is ready to resume cooperation with Berlin. "We’re more than happy to work together with the German government in fields where we have common interests," a source told the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper on Monday.

The U.S. government, according to media reports, is expected to call on Germany to help with the reconstruction of postwar Iraq. "It’s really up to Germany to decide, how they want to participate," the source said.

Foreign policy experts are also underscoring the importance of Powell’s visit at such a sensitive time. James Lindsay, a member of the National Security Council under former President Clinton and a member of the independent think-tank Brookings Institution told the Financial Times Deutschland Germany should support the U.S. in the Security Council when it comes to lifting the sanctions on Iraq and should avoid criticizing U.S. policies in Iraq

"Just the fact that we’re treating this visit as big news shows how bad the situation is," he said.