The special historical circumstances of the postwar period and the tenacity of century-old stereotypes in the evaluation of cultural production were ambivalent factors at work in the development of German-American relations in the art world after 1945. The powerful military, economic, and political presence of the American victor affected many segments of West German society. On the face of it, the occupation entailed a clearly defined relationship between ruler and ruled, of dominance and subordination. This relationship co-existed, however, with an assumption that European culture was superior, an idea that was the product of a long historical development and that had been internalized on both sides of the Atlantic. It had been a bedrock assumption for the “high” visual arts, a visible symbol of the Occidental intellectual tradition. Before 1945, artistic relations between the old and new world had, without exception, flowed in only one direction: the significant developments in European painting and sculpture served as models both for mainstream artistic production and for its reception in American art circles.