Germany Vs United States Essay

The political relationship between Germany and the United States has been one characterized by the bitter animosity created following two world wars, and then to becoming one of the strongest diplomatic relationships between two countries in the world. One would think that the strong diplomatic relationship these two countries have formed over the years, would be a result of similar government structures and similar political values. However, this is not the case. While the two forms of government possess similarities, they are truly different in terms of what powers are granted to each legislature, and the executive of each nation. From a comparison of these two nations we learn that history is imperative to the way nations draft their

Germany institutes a parliamentarian system, whereas the United States implements a presidential one. Germany’s parliamentarian system was created largely out of the issue of reunifying the nation after the fall of the Berlin wall. In 1949 Basic Law was drafted as a temporary Constitution in order to mend the wounds and differences between Eastern and Western Germany. However, Basic Law was so successful that the government decided to preserve it as the Constitution of the country. Basic Law had two goals it wished to accomplish, the first was to avoid the same fragmented party system which had worked to undermine the authority of the Weimar Republic, resulting in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power through the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (NSDAP). The second goal was limit the emergency powers of the president during times of crisis, which was another flaw of the Weimar Republic which allowed Hitler to remain as the Chancellor of Germany before the outbreak of war. Essentially, Basic Law was created with past historical context in mind. Never again did Germany want to relive the past, and the hope was that Basic Law would prevent that while also reunifying the