German foreign policy was run by two people, Bernie. Fischer and Schroeder. A lot of damage was done during Fischer's tenure as Foreign Minister.

Schroeder was worse no dount. but Fischer was there when the decision were made, and Fischer stayed there while various jackanapes in the SDP compounded an already tense situation.

He could have resigned but did not. Therefore he has to accept a share of the responsibility.

What I'm saying is that Fischer's sins were mostly of omission, Bernie. As Foreign Minister he was supposed to have control of foreign policy - and he didn't. If I were in his shoes I probably would have resigned several times. I would have demanded the head of the clown of an environment minister (was he a Green?). The one who told the world that Hurricane Katrina occured because Bush didn't sign the Kyoto treaty. I probably would have resigned when Schroeder started beating on the US during the 2002 election campaign.

Fischer seemingly had little control over anything - even in his own ministry. There were those reports about German diplomats spouting off about their contempt for Bush. And the 'interview' a diplomat gave which vented his contempt for 'middle America'. No forced resignations that I ever heard of, or summary transfers to the Fijii embassy.

This is not how one treats a friend or even an enemy which is of any importance. Put that together with the German-led effort to sell arms to the Chinese government, and I could make a case that the US was not of major importance to the Schroeder-Fischer administration! China and any number of other countries were treated with more respect than they treated the US!

Jeorg: "Is the US Secretary of State in control of foreign policy or does the US President make the final decisions?"

The President makes the final decisions.

Me: "Fischer seemingly had little control over anything"

Jeorg: "Colin Powell could not do much about Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld either, although Powell was supposed to be in charge of foreign policy."

I don't recall Cheney and Rumsfeld being terribly offensive. The most offensive Rummy quote I can recall was the one about distuinguishing between 'Old Europe' and 'New Europe'. You will recall that US 'reporters' were making flying visits to Brussels, talking to a few French and Germans, and reporting that 'Europe' was against the Iraq war. Rummy pointed out that there was more to Europe than France and Germany - which is true. And it certainly wasn't personally directed at anyone.

One could construe 'Old Europe' as an insult: but remember the climate and the rhetoric of the times. During that period I was hearing Bush described as a 'fascist' and a 'war criminal' on a regular basis. Not only from the European press but from more or less official figures in the EU, German, and French governments. It's hard to tell who is and isn't important in the EU and even within the German government, particularly when you don't live there and cannot read the press.

Herta Daeubler-Gmelin's quoted comments were part of a pattern. This was the period when a serious attempt was made in Belgium to indict US military officers for war crimes in Afghanistan, to which Rumsfeld responded by offering to withdraw US funding for a new NATO headquarters in Brussels on the perfectly reasonable grounds that a country where this is possible is not suitable to be NATO headquarters.

In the context of all that 'Old Europe' and what I can recall of Cheney's comments were downright restrained by comparison to the attacks being launched on Bush and the US. Yes even Colin Powell was fiercely attacked. Remember? I do!

What specifically and most importantly Fischer had no control over was the mouth of his Chancellor, Gerd Schroeder.

The 2002 German election was a shearing point between people like myself in the US and Germany and Germans for three reasons: Schroeder made Bush and the US into a major election issue, it was highly publicised in the US, and because it worked. Schroeder was re-elected despite an incredibly uninspired first term as chancellor - and despite the Daeubler-Gmelin thing. Germans clearly seemed to agree with the chancellor and probably with the (ex) Justice Minister.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2269514.stm

Absent the Daeubler-Gmelin comments comparing Buch's 'methods' with those of Hitler I think there would have been a crisis but the effects would have been shorter lived. As it was - it got very very personal. And it was burned into my brain - to the point where I still don't know what to make of German public opinion.

I remember my thoughts at the time. I recalled the speech Schroeder's first Defense Minister had made about how Jews run the US political system. This link isn't to the original column, which was by William Safire in the NY Times, but it contains the gist of Scharping's remarks:

http://www.centerforcatholicjewishstudies.org/Content/news/commentary_09_27_02.htm

I put that together with the Justice Minister's comment, and concluded that the German government seemed to largely be made up of unreconstructed 68'ers who hadn't visibly revised their views with the passing years. Schroeder's campaign tactics seemed to fit, and the German public seemed to approve. They re-elected him. QED...

Now it doesn't seem as cut and dried. I'm not certain (or not) whether Germany is a friend of the US; I observe....

"Your narrow self-serving focus on how one has to treat friends gets in the way of seeing the bigger picture."

Fischer has been very much willing and actively trying to work with his counterpart and with every Bush administration official to get something done in the Middle East. His plans for the Greater Middle East, in fact, were gladly usurped by the Bush administration. Then nothing followed from that. The US chose to disengage from everything Middle East bogged down and occupied with Iraq.

"Wanna reinvigorate transatlantic relations? You have calls from Schröder (2005) and Merkel (2006) alike to make NATO more relevant and not just a tool for cleaning up after US-led military invasions. To have a real strategic debate. Nothing followed from the US side. Rather it's dismay and preferences for coalitions of the willing and cherry-picking of allies who are willing to serve the US. Yeah, that's a common perception. That allies are there to serve. Let's debate and see where our interests converge. Then we can work together."

NATO is a treaty which has lost it's mission; on that much we can agree. NATO was created to defend Europe against an agressive, dangerous appearing USSR. Seen any such lately? I haven't.

I might even agree that NATO has been stretched far beyond it was designed to accomplish in the years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The abuse has not originated uniquely with the US or France/Germany etc.

Redesign NATO? I doubt it is possible. I think it's possible to start anew, but the best thing may be to dissolve NATO.

May I point out that history doesn't stop while one redesigns NATO. September 11th happens, Hamas happens, suicide bombing offensives happen, Hitzbolah happens.

They won't wait 10 or 15 years while we slowly and carefully work out a new mission for NATO - one which retains the partnership without putting the US or Germany/France/UK in a straitjacket; which is increasingly what is being attempted.

Joerg, I simply could not figure out German foreign policy. It seemed as if every time Bush tried to do something the Germans denounced it or tried to veto it. In one case (the NATO vote on supporting Turkey) they succeeded in their veto. There was heavy & often nasty criticism and worse both from the German 'quality press' and from governmental circles. Some of it at the highest levels of the government but even members of the German diplomatic corps did not trouble to hide their utter disdain for the Bush administration. And (I'm afraid on one occasion) a German 'diplomat' told a US reporter of his utter personal disdain for the US and Americans.

On policy matters the German government under Scroeder was almost invariably the most difficult to negociate with - seemingly far more intractible than even the Russians and Chinese!

This was very strange behavior from a 'friend', Joerg. Even the French were friendlier in manner. They opposed but for the most part refrained from personal attacks on either Bush the man or the US generally.

I was looking for a theory which fit the behavior and decided it was very possible that Germany and Germans had decided that they no longer valued the US friendship. That in fact they were either direct adversaries or on the way to becoming so. Perhaps without concious decision the German government (and from what I read, the people) were behaving like adversaries. Sooner or later you become what you behave like.

I deliberately use the term adversary as opposed to enemy - which is a much more serious word.

@Marian,

"I'm not that pessimistic re anti-Americanism. In my perception, most of the Germans simply don't care about the U.S. Sure, sometimes they disgorge something media outlets like STERN and SPIEGEL fed them with, but I wouldn't go so far to call that deep rooted hostility or something."

Marian, I was writing about my own state of mind, not yours. I wouldn't presume to do that to you, though I'm not above doing it to certain others.

I have lived in Europe for years and I know it fairly well.

I would say that prior to 9/11 there was deep hostility to the US in France in almost every part of the political spectrum, and marked hostility in certain parts of the German and British political spectrums, but mostly benign attitudes over the rest of the German political spectrum.

Post 9/11 the signals I saw from Germany were much different. At the time I was a participant on a large internet BB named 'World Crossing'. I was on several BB's including a largely German one which nonetheless mostly posted in English. What I saw there was a devastating revelation.

I was told 'You had it coming, you richly deserved it' by most of the Germans posting there, who nonetheless protested their friendship. codswallop. It was bullshit then and remains so.

Bush was 'Hilter' (or worse than Hitler) and when I defended what Bush was doing I was a 'fascist'. Multiply that by 50 or 100 times to appreciate the true effect. The US were 'war criminals' and we were going to 'Murder millions!'. 'Genocide' was also trotted out - routinely.

All this while discussing Afghanistan. The heat went up another order of magnitude after the 'Axis of Evil' speech when Iraq began to become a topic, and I dropped out - with enduring memories of what 'Real' Germans were actually like.

I also learned what 'Germans' thought of Israel at the time of the Jenin 'massacre'.

They were slightly concerned about the daily suicide bombings - but only slightly. It had passed out of their heads the next morning. Israel 'had it coming' after all!....

Later on I joined Medienkritik, which has a different atmosphere. But I wasn't completely comfortable there after a time. The venom of Medienkritik was appropriate to the level of venom from the German 'quality' press circa 2003/2004, but as the intensity of the venom dropped in the German press Medienkritik's intensity did not much. The venom was coming from the commentors more than from the moderators by then, but even so....

I think the problem for the moderators is that the premise of the blog was perfectly appropriate to 2002 - but the German MSM has learned something from Mediencritik (as have many Germans) and the coverage has tightened and improved since then. But Medienkritik hasn't shifted with it which is why I rarely comment over there any more.

The other reason is that I saw some Germans being subject to the same sort of thing I had experienced on World Crossing, and while I can understand why I can't condone it.

"More and more countries ask Germany to take on a bigger role and there are people who argue that Schroeder's and Fischer's offense were just the result of trying to find the limits of a truely independet foreign policy."

Independent of whom? The US obviously, but also independent of the the EU?

I would suggest that the way to pursue an independent foreign policy it to just do it - without slamming the leader of an ally in your election campaign. Or comparing him to Hitler.

Germany has followed an independent foreign policy since 1970 or so unless you believe that the opening to the east that Brandt pursued wasn't independent.

What Germany hadn't done until Schoeder was pursue an openly foreign policy to the US. No German leader had behaved as Charles DeGaulle did in the 60's. Unfortunately Gerhard Schroeder is no Charles DeGaulle and apparently didn't get the effect he wanted.

DeGaulle pursued his policy out of political strength; Schroeder did so from weakness, pandering to anti-US sentiments to get himself (barely) re-elected.

Yes I know about the floods. But Schroeder was so weak politically that he had to have both the flood releief and the open US-bashing in order to win.