The call for America: German-American relations and the European crisis, 1921--1924/1925

This study examines German-American relations during the European general crisis of 1921-1924/5. After World War I, Germany's primary foreign policy goal was to engage the United States, whose assistance was seen as essential for the economic and diplomatic rehabilitation of Germany. America recognized that the rehabilitation of Germany was necessary for its long range goal of aiding peaceful European reconstruction through private loans and investments. Having failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, America had to establish bilateral relations with Germany. However the complex interplay of domestic and international politics in each nation resulted in a relationship which proceeded in a series of steps characterized by expediency imposed by the domestic politics of the United States. Following this pattern were the Treaty of Berlin of 1921 (which established a separate peace with Germany), the Mixed Claims Agreement of 1922 (which was created to resolve war claims), and the Commercial Treaty of 1924.; The American-German relationship was also central to the resolution of the complex international problem of war debts and reparations. Political conflict in Germany over distribution of the war's costs among various social and economic groups kept it from making credible reparations proposals and engaging the United States, which disengaged further in response to the January 1923 French/Belgian occupation of the Ruhr and Germany's reactive policy of passive resistance. Due to optimism over Germany's ending of passive resistance and institution of domestic economic reforms together with concern about the chaos in Germany caused by the occupation, American opinion shifted and the Coolidge administration called for an inquiry into the reparation problem by a committee of experts. The resulting 1924 Dawes Plan and the London agreements established a reparations settlement and modification the Versailles Treaty on Anglo-American terms. This opened the way for American financial underwriting of German reconstruction and the resolution of the European crisis.