Description
While America's relationship with Britain has often been deemed unique, especially during the two world wars when Germany was a common enemy, the American business sector actually had a greater affinity with Germany for most of the twentieth century. American Big Business in Britain and Germany examines the triangular relationship between the American, British, and German business communities and how the special relationship that Britain believed it had with the United States was supplanted by one between America and Germany.
Volker Berghahn begins with the pre-1914 period and moves through the 1920s, when American investments supported German reconstruction rather than British industry. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to a reversal in German-American relations, forcing American corporations to consider cutting their losses or collaborating with a regime that was inexorably moving toward war. Although Britain hoped that the wartime economic alliance with the United States would continue after World War II, the American business community reconnected with West Germany to rebuild Europe’s economy. And while Britain thought they had established their special relationship with America once again in the 1980s and 90s, in actuality it was the Germans who, with American help, had acquired an informal economic empire on the European continent.
American Big Business in Britain and Germany uncovers the surprising and differing relationships of the American business community with two major European trading partners from 1900 through the twentieth century.
Chapter
7. The Cultural Difficulties of Operating in Foreign Markets
II Cooperation, Peaceful Competition, and the Specter of War, 1902–1914
2. American Foreign Direct Investments in Britain and Germany
3. Facing British and German Competition and Cooperation
4. Prince Heinrich’s Mission and German-American Relations in the New Century
5. American Big Business in Britain and Germany at Mid-Decade
6. The Threat of Deteriorating Political Relations
7. Comparing the Peculiarities of the American and German Industrial Systems
8. American Big Business and the Question of Political Participation
9. American and European Businessmen and the Specter of a Major War
III From the Outbreak of War in July 1914 to the Genoa Conference, 1922
1. The Military-Political Origins of World War I
2. The International Business Community and the Outbreak of War in 1914
3. The Ambiguities of American Neutrality
4. The American Economy and the Moves to Enter the War
5. The American Entry into the War and the Dilemmas of Peacemaking
6. American Big Business and European Reconstruction
7. The Idea of an International Loan for European Reconstruction and Its Failure
8. The State of the American, British, and French Economies in the Early 1920s
9. American Big Business and the Postwar Crisis in Germany
10. American Big Business, Washington, and the Question of European Loans
11. The Origins of the Washington System in the Far East
12. Britain’s Rival Attempt to Spearhead a European Recovery Plan
IV The North Atlantic Triangle: Economic Reconstruction and Collapse, 1923–1933
2. German Reparations and the Harding Administration
3. American Big Business and the Crisis of 1923
4. Political Stabilization through the Locarno Pact
5. The American Business Community and the Dawes Plan
6. American Big Business and the British Economy
7. American Investments in Weimar Germany and Their Risks
8. The Problem of International Cartels, Trusts, and Cooperations
9. The Instabilities of Weimar Politics and American Business Optimism
10. Parker Gilbert’s Pessimism and American Business Gullibility
11. America’s Domestic Boom and the “Wild” Years of 1925–1929
12. The Great Slump and Its Consequences in International Politics
V Nazi Germany, Appeasement, and Anglo-American Big Business, 1933–1941
2. Hitler’s Ideology of Conquest and Ultimate War Aims
3. Hitler’s Foreign Policy in the 1930s
4. The Underestimation of Hitler and British Appeasement
5. American Foreign Policy in the 1930s
6. American Big Business and the Roosevelt Administration
7. Stimulating American Industrial Production
8. American Views of the Hitler Dictatorship
9. Hitler and German Industry
10. Doing Business in Nazi Germany
11. The U.S. Auto Industry and Mass Motorization
12. British and American Business and the Preservation of Peace
VI British and German Business and Politics under the Pax Americana, 1941–1957
1. Hitler’s Quest for Victory in the East
2. Planning for Victory and Henry Luce’s “American Century”
3. Cartels and the “German Question”
4. The Role of American Big Business in Postwar Planning
5. The Start of the Cold War and Anglo-American Relations in Occupied Germany
6. The Politics of Decartelization
7. The Response of West German Industry to America’s Recasting Efforts
8. Britain and the Difficulties of Economic Reconstruction
9. The Origins of the European Coal and Steel Community
10. American Big Business and Otto A. Friedrich
11. Modernizing Phoenix A.G. and Erhard’s Anti-Cartel Bill
12. The Reluctant Modernization of British Industry
13. America and the Suez Crisis
American Big Business in Britain and Germany
：A Comparative History of Two "Special Relationships" in the 20th Century
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