How to Repair a "Badly Bruised" Relationship

The two couldn’t have been happier.

With arms on each other’s shoulders Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his Green Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, announced the continuation of their red-green coalition government in the wee hours of the morning in Berlin on Monday. Their informal speeches were punctuated by cheers and whoops from the raucous crowd gathered outside of the Social Democratic Party headquarters, who had stayed to watch the two claim victory in Germany’s cliffhanger election.

The reaction in Washington has been more subdued. Since coming out strongly against American policy on Iraq and since a newspaper alleged one of his cabinet members compared President George W. Bush’s Iraq strategy with Hitler’s, Schröder and his government have become persona non grata inside the Beltway.

Bush has yet to call Schröder to congratulate him on his victory and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (photo) renewed his accusation on Monday that the relationship had been “poisoned.”

Relationship "intact," says chancellor

With the heat of the tightest election battle in Germany’s postwar history behind them, Schröder and Fischer have now begun trying to ease the tension that has increased between the historically-close transatlantic neighbors.

The relationship between Berlin and Washington is “intact” said Schröder, who on Monday accepted the resignation of the offending cabinet member, Justice Minister Herta Daübler-Gmelin. His foreign minister, who is believed to have support in Washington, seemed to strike a conciliatory note as well.

"America is a guarantor of peace and security," Fischer said. "The United States is our most important partner and we want to further develop the traditionally good path of our relations."

Easier said than done, say those working to build the transatlantic relationship. Schröder’s unflinching refusal to support a US-led invasion of Iraq – with or without a United Nations mandate – has caused serious, long-term damage to US-German relations, they say.

Loss of support part of gradual trend

“He’s messed it up so badly,” said Andrea Mehrlaender, director of the Checkpoint Charlie Foundation in Berlin, of Schröder. “He needs to do something and do something before Christmas. And a plain letter is not enough.”

Rather than an exception, Merhlaender saw Schröder’s stance as part of a gradual movement taking place in Germany’s political establishment.

In lobbying for money for the bilateral projects the foundation sponsors, Merhlaender says she has faced more closed doors since the Social Democrats took over power from the conservative, pro-American Christian Democratic Union, in Berlin.

“Ideology-wise, the SPD party program has never been pro-American in any way,” Mehrlaender said in an interview. “I mean, it’s not outspokenly anti-American. But it has always been more leftist and critical of the US.”

So when a center-right government in Washington came to power in 2000, friction was bound to develop with the center-left red-green coalition.

"Badly bruised" relationship

“From the outset, these are not ideal partners,” said Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin, director of the conservative Aspen Institute in Berlin. But independent of the ideological differences, Gedmin says the “re-negotiation” of the German-American relationship has been the most obvious point of divide between the two nations since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

“You have a re-negotiation of the relationship where the German side, now united, now sovereign, wants more respect, more voice and more insurance,” he told DW-WORLD. “And that’s normal. That’s healthy.”

But Schröder (photo) “overplayed his hand” with his election rhetoric, Gedmin said.

“It’s not that the sky is falling, the relationship has more at stake than just Iraq,” said Gedmin. “But I think it’s badly bruised.”

Analysts are suggesting Schröder or Fischer pay a visit to Washington soon to iron things out. Gedmin thinks Schröder should hustle to make Germany's Iraq opposition a non-issue.

"Like the Berlin weather, he will have to dampen this," Gedmin said. "He will have to make it as calm and boring as humanely possible over the next couple of months."