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I seriously doubt that even today Germany has a final say without US weighing in first in anything related to their military, intelligence, foreign policies. France on the other hand plays hard ball, I'd like to see something like that escalate in France.

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If you'd ask me a week ago who the U.S. is spying on the most in the EU, I'd told you without hesitation: France. One can only wonder...

Basically, the US never stopped spying on Germany after WW2. I'd guess they kept upgrading their hardware during the cold war, and apparently never stopped after its end.

Also, the occupation authorities were instrumental in establishing the German intelligence service from the get-go, liberally making use of the existing NS personnel (Wikipedia[1] lists Reinhard Gehlen, Klaus Barbie, Alois Brunner, Wilhelm Krichbaum, Franz Rademacher, Walther Rauff, Konrad Fiebig, Franz Alfred Six as prominent examples).

[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesnachrichtendienst#Geschic...

I think Germany is fairly autonomous. However the conservative parties are basically US fanboys.

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