Patrick, I served three of my years in the U.S. military stationed in southern Germany about halfway between Munich and the Austrian border, at a little base named Bad Aibling Station. The German and Austrian people that I came into contact with were absolutely amazing, and I believe probably have a different point of view than someone who was born in eastern Germany, even if it was after the fall of the Berlin Wall. So your slant to being a more pro-Russia than pro-USA shouldn't come as a shock, I guess. You were raised by a generation that had lived as part of the eastern block of communist countries.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union I thought the U.S. should push for an end to NATO. Too much of our money is going to countries in the name of supporting NATO, not to mention the U.S. is required to defend any of those nations if they are attacked. Some of those same countries did very little to next to nothing to help the U.S. in Afghanistan after 9/11. Iraq I can understand as I don't believe we should have invaded that country, but Afghanistan was an entirely different matter. So it's a one sided partnership, and many NATO countries are becoming more and more only concerned with their interests, not the interest of the alliance in general. Considering anti-American sentiment in Europe after the beginning of the Iraq war, and to some extent even Afghanistan, I believe I was proven correct that NATO should have been dissolved, not expanded. We know which countries will be by our side, and which wont, so why continue in the alliance? Especially after the European Union came into being to compete with larger countries like the United States, China, and India. Europe is proving more and more as the years go by that their interests are not in line with ours. I say end NATO and let European countries deal with Russia, it's in their neighborhood.
As far as spying goes, the German government not only spies on the U.S., but also spied for the U.S. against it's EU partners.
I wouldn't worry about what Senator John McCain said, he's a hothead that is often wrong anyway.
To be honest, my impression of Angela Merkel is that she's got a little anti-Americanism in her blood. I do try to give her the benefit of the doubt though as I don't know enough about her, at least half of my ancestors came from Germany, and I loved my time in southern Germany. If I had met a girl there, who knows, I may still be living there speaking Deutsch!
One last thing, if you think the U.S. and other countries they pressed to forgive and/or restructure German debt wasn't charitable and only to prevent some sort of rebellion, I believe you are wrong. No one would have wanted to see an uprising, but they could have been just as hardline as Germany has been with Greece. Greece has serious problems with corruption and the rich not paying their taxes, but now there has been some violence after the recent agreement. I'm not going to say Germany doesn't care about that, but if fear of a rebellion scared the U.S. in '53 as you say, it would have done the same to Germany now, and it hasn't. It was charitable and that should be acknowledged.
Hopefully, the EU never dissolves with countries having bitter feuds that lead to war(s). That was my fear when the EU was created. Hard to take so many countries that are so different and have EU officials making rulings that some countries don't like. It's going to lead to some nasty bitterness. Unfortunately, the U.S. is doing a little of that with the Trans-Pacific Partnership with other nations. That could be a disaster as well, although in a different way.
