Zwischen Pax Americana und Pakt Atomica. Das deutschamerikanische Verhältnis während der EURATOM-Verhandlungen (1955-1957)

The relations between the United States and Germany during the negotiations for the European Atomic Energy Community have hardly been researched. The most important explanation for this is that the significance of the EEC was rated much higher than the one of Euratom. Another thesis is that the United States was not the omnipotent outsider within the cooperative framework of the states in Western Europe during the second half of the 1950s. This picture is not quite correct. The relations between the United States and Germany during the negotiations for Euratom were marked by strong and frequent diplomatic contacts. The State Department directly interfered with West German views. Its influence on the position of the Federal Republic was indirect, yet crucial. With their Radford-Plan the American government stirred a mistrust in Adenauer that was to play a decisive role. Adenauer's intention of bringing the West German position into line with the French standpoint in autumn 1956 was a direct consequence of his wish to obtain nuclear weapons for the Federal Republic of Germany.