The last time someone messed with them so hard, they elected that austrian painter dude, who then killed hitler in the end... and now EU is wondering, why the germans are turning towards AfD.
https://www.nato.int/acad/conf/future95/rodman.htm
> Lord Ismay, the first Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), reportedly observed that the purpose of the Alliance was to keep the Americans in Europe, the Russians out, and the Germans down.
Worth noting that the quote must have predated the EU and all its predecessors, as well as the Euro.
At the same time, one of the main concerns of at least US foreign policy has been to keep a truce between Germany and Russia from happening, because that would be one of the few constellations that could upset the European power balance.
And yes, that seems absurd, and no, I don't want this nor can I see it succeed in any way, but I also think it would definitely be an upset.
Well yeah... german industry + russian raw materials and energy sources would mean a big problem to american industry... so yeah... to turn it back into a one liner, they managed to keep germany down and russia out.
And now, more and more germans feel betrayed and are looking at an alternative (could be written in uppercase too).
I also wouldn't say that Germans feel betrayed. Quite the opposite, they instead think it's beneficial to betray their allies. Playing both sides, much like Hungary and Turkey.
I imagine it might have been part of the strategic thinking at that time, but that has apparently changed quite quickly. By the 1970s, Bundeswehr was the strongest western European army, West German economy living its golden years. (it's quite astonishing, but towards the end of the Cold War, West German economy was bigger than that of Soviet Union with 1/6th of the population)