When the U.S. occupation troops arrived in Germany in 1945, they were clear about one thing: World peace and stability would return only if Germany was not only demilitarized and denazified, but permanently democratized. Today West Germany stands as one of the most stable and prosperous democracies in the world. Europe, if not the world, has enjoyed a longer period of peace in the last decades than ever before. Is this the result, perhaps the proudest achievement of American foreign policy in this century?

The question of the precise role of Americans in the democratization of Germany is still far from settled. There are three classic positions, which have been refined in various combinations over the years. The orthodox view that dominated in the postwar years and the Cold War was that the United States played a positive and decisive role in bringing democracy to Germany. Revisionists on both sides of the Atlantic have maintained since the late 1960s that the reverse was true, that Americans, intent on expanding U.S. capitalism, prevented or even consciously destroyed a strong German movement for a genuinely democratic society. Finally, disgruntled Americans have mused whether their efforts were not ultimately wasted. John Gimbel quotes the U.S. Military Government’s pessimistic report on the meager results of its grass-roots reorientation program, lamenting the “long uphill battle against the forces of tradition, political and social apathy, and post-war cynicism.”