In the realm of urban affairs, the nature of German-American relations during the first twenty-five years of the Cold War is best characterized as ambivalent. American attitudes toward and attempts to influence the character of German cities after 1945 shifted radically at the beginning of the period of postwar occupation from a policy of discouraging to one of encouraging urban recovery. Although the Germans themselves mostly abhorred American urban development and did not seek to emulate American cities, at times they also found American models worthy portents of the future.

It is worth recalling that theories of urban planning, housing, and architecture were all part of an international discussion throughout this century, a discussion only suspended by World War II. Through professional publications, international conferences, and individual visits, Germans and Americans remained well informed of developments on both sides of the Atlantic, so the direction of influence was never simply one-sided. For example, the architects Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and other Bauhaus pioneers brought German modernist ideas of planning and architecture with them when they immigrated to the United States in the 1930s. They became Americans, and their ideas gained international currency. Does one consider their influence on Germany after 1945 to be somehow American, a return of German ideas, or both? By the same token, their influence on modern architecture and planning in the United States cannot be denied, but it had nothing to do with postwar German or German-American relations.

American policy toward the rebuilding of the bombed German cities was far less dramatic than the policies that dealt with the political rehabilitation of West Germany, its rearmament and integration into NATO, or even its economic recovery. There was no consistent, high-level American policy on what, if anything, to do about helping the Germans repair the damage left by the war. In the end the Americans developed only what amounted to a relatively modest position on housing construction, though at moments the Americans seemed to be reaching for something grander, such as an attempt to connect urban reconstruction with democratization. Certainly the Germans themselves expected something far greater in the way of American leadership and help than what the Americans finally offered.

Moreover, the modesty of American policy on urban reconstruction is interesting because it clearly contradicts so much popular wisdom. American aid is part of the founding myth of West Germany. Whether one asks Germans or Americans today, it is a common belief that American aid was enormously important in physical reconstruction, just as CARE packages were important for providing food and clothing. There is great symbolic worth in the image of rebuilding what one has destroyed, and there was at least one attempt, unsuccessful at that, to galvanize private support in the United States to aid reconstruction.