Thomas W. Maulucci, Jr is Associate Professor of History at American International College. He is the author of Adenauer's Foreign Office: West German Diplomacy in the Shadow of the Third Reich (2012). Detlef Junker is Senior Distinguished Professor of History and founding director of the Heidelberg Center for American Studies at Heidelberg University. He is the editor of the two-volume handbook The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945–1990 (2004).

• Introduction Thomas W. Maulucci, Jr; Part I. Strategy and Politics: 1. Guarantors of peace and freedom: the US forces in Germany, 1945–90 Hans-Joachim Harder; 2. Deterrence and defense: the stationing of US troops in Germany and the implementation of forward strategy in Europe, 1950–67 Bruno Thosse; 3. The war that was never fought: the US army, the Bundeswehr, and the NATO central front Dennis Showalter; 4. Why they did not go home: the GIs and the battle over their presence in the 1960s and 1970s Hubert Zimmermann; Part II. Military Communities: 5. United States army military communities in Germany Thomas Leuerer; 6. German-American relations at the local level: Heidelberg, 1948–55 Theodor Scharnholz; 7. American military families in West Germany: social, cultural, and foreign relations, 1946–65 Donna Alvah; Part III. Tensions between Neighbors: 8. Insolent occupiers, aggressive protectors: policing GI delinquency in early 1950s Germany Gerhard Fürmetz; 9. Protection from the protector: court-martial cases and the lawlessness of occupation in American-controlled Berlin, 1945–8 Jennifer V. Evans; Part IV. The German Armed Forces and the American Model: 10. The godfathers of Innere Führung? The American military model and the creation of the Bundeswehr Klaus Naumann; 11. From Befehlsausgabe to 'briefing': the Americanization of the Luftwaffe Wolfgang Schmidt; Part V. The 1970s and 1980s: 12. 'Army in anguish': the United States army, Europe in the early 1970s Alexander Vazansky; 13. The US military and dissenters in the ranks: Germany 1970–5 Howard J. De Nike; 14. The US armed forces and the development of anti-NATO protests in West Germany, 1980–9 Anni Baker; 15. GIs under seige: the German peace movement confronts the US military Lou Martin; Appendix: population statistics on the US armed forces in Germany, 1945–2000 Dewey Browder.

'… worth a read not just for its account of the cultural, political, and social history that created the relationship between Germany and the United States today, but also to serve as a lesson for the pitfalls that our military is sure to face as it changes how forces are postured in the years to come.' Military Review