All part of the same struggle: Berlin’s role in German-US relations during the Lyndon Johnson presidency

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses Berlin’s place in German-US relations during the Lyndon Johnson presidency. It examines how Johnson linked the defence of the Cold War’s frontier city to the US military effort in South Vietnam in order to extract burden-sharing concessions from the Federal Republic of Germany. By the end of Johnson’s presidency, the West Germans used his rhetoric against him, driving a wedge between Bonn and Washington on the Cold War’s Gordian Knot and leading, in part, to Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik.