This is a very relevant book for anyone interested in going beyond the rather facile explanations for Brexit that have been peddled almost unequivocally in the German media ever since 53 percent of those who bothered to vote in the British referendum on EU membership in 2016 decided that it was time to leave the European Union. This holds true even though the book tells us virtually nothing about the motivations of those voters. Instead, it follows a classic high-politics approach to history, where “great men” (and, in this case, one woman, namely Margaret Thatcher) make history. Despite this approach, the book presents an absolutely fascinating argument. On its own ground—the history of high politics—it makes a brilliant contribution to a much better and more complex understanding of the high-politics factors that hindered a better understanding between leading British and German politicians ever since the end of the Second World War.

Mathias Haeussler's compelling argument has to do with the two countries’ different trajectories after the Second World War. For West Germany, European integration did not only become a means to be accepted again in the international community of states, but it also became the leading rationale of West German foreign policy, which could not be jeopardized at almost any cost. Britain, Haeussler argues, was in a very different position. After the Second World War, it was still in charge of the greatest empire the world has ever seen, and it was the leading industrial nation in Europe—that is, once its German rival lay in ruins. This was to change very quickly, however, and yet it meant that at first, Britain was unwilling to join European supranational institutions and, when it was finally admitted, it struggled with the mechanisms and regulations the British had had no influence over and often seemed alien and contrary to British interests.

Although Haeussler argues that successive British cabinets, some more, some less, tried to grapple with these regulations, European integration never occupied the position of “holy cow” it would become for German (and French) foreign policy. What Haeussler shows very clearly is that British government engaged constructively with West Germany on a bilateral level in many policy areas and that not infrequently they worked together harmoniously. Because his emphasis throughout the book is on the chancellorship of Helmut Schmidt, this was the case even under the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, for example, regarding NATO's twin-track approach toward the alleged Soviet threat in the late 1970s. German–British relations remained solid with regard to the reaction to the appearance of the Solidarity movement in Poland and general policy over détente toward the end of the Cold War. For Schmidt and other leading German politicians, however, any questioning of the wisdom of European integration was tantamount to the ultimate sacrilege, and areas in which West Germany and Britain maintained a more constructive and positive relationship faded into insignificance next to the perception of Britain as an awkward partner in Europe. Based on a wealth of primary research in many archives and libraries in Britain, Germany, and the United States, and making extensive use of Helmut Schmidt's personal papers as well as an interview Haeussler was granted with Schmidt shortly before the latter's death, the book offers the reader fresh insights and surprising interpretations. It is a delight to read and will set a new standard in the field of British–German relations for many years to come. It is also lucidly structured around a wonderful introduction that draws the reader into the book and compels her or him to read on. In the first chapter, Haeussler deals comprehensively with the formative years of Helmut Schmidt's political life and traces his path from Anglophilia to a more skeptical evaluation of Britain's role. Schmidt's strong Atlanticism would make him look more to Britain and the United States than to France, which presented many cultural challenges and a language he did not speak. Yet his overriding belief in West Germany's absolute need for the European project made him question British attitudes toward that European project.

This disconnect becomes clear when Haeussler uses his second chapter to detail the lack of empathy between Harold Wilson and Helmut Schmidt during Wilson's tenure from 1974 to 1976. Wilson's attempt to renegotiate the terms of Britain's recent entry into the European Economic Community was driven almost entirely by domestic reasons, but there can be no doubt, as I have shown in my book on British–East German relations on the left of the political spectrum, that Wilson was instinctively hostile to a successful capitalist Germany (Stefan Berger and Norman LaPorte, Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR, 1949–1989 [2010]). Relations improved considerably under the premiership of James Callaghan (1976–1979) because Callaghan was much more sympathetic to the West German practice of social market economy and was a skilled diplomat who knew how to gain Schmidt's trust. Undoubtedly, Callaghan benefited also from the fact that Schmidt's relations with the incoming American president Jimmy Carter were not harmonious, so that Callaghan could act as a kind of honest arbiter between Schmidt and Carter.

After 1979, with the onset of Thatcherism, British–German relations took a significant turn for the worse, which is the topic of Haeussler's last substantive chapter. These developments hardened Schmidt's belief that British politicians would always remain much closer to the United States than to continental Europe and that they had no interest in building a strong and honest relationship with the continent. In a marvelously argued conclusion, Haeussler summarizes his main points and comes back to his most important insight—that British policy toward Europe should not be understood in terms of its policies toward the European Union alone but that it was much more constructive and Britain was a genuine political partner in many policy areas not directly related to European integration.

Overall, I find this to be an important correction to the standard trope of Britain as an awkward partner in European politics. At the same time, explorations of Anglo-German topics can only benefit from a socio-historical approach, taking into account how this relationship was viewed not only from the top but also from below, and how the people in both countries came to perceive each other as occupying different worlds, despite the many similarities and positive interactions that united them at times. But this is a topic for a different book.