German environment minister Jürgen Trittin

German air force plane delivers 30 tons of MRE  rations to Pensacola Naval Air Station.

After days of heavy rains in August 2002, the Elbe River swelled to record levels and flooded the historic Saxon capital of Dresden. A couple of days before the floodwaters reached their highest level in Dresden, the Elbe threatened to flood the German towns of Pirna and Heidenau. 30,000 residents of the two towns had to be evacuated on short notice. Special tent cities were quickly set up to provide temporary lodging for the evacuees. Policemen from all over Germany, local firemen, German border patrol units, German soldiers and American soldiers from U.S. bases in Germany worked side by side to get the job done.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf coast on Monday, August 29th, one German cabinet member seemed to have forgotten the effort made by American troops to save German lives during the Elbe flood three years earlier. In an article published in Tuesday's (August 30) "Frankfurter Rundschau" newspaper, German Minister of the Environment Jürgen Trittin implied that the American government was responsible for Katrina: "The American president has closed his eyes to the economic and human damage that natural catastrophes such as Katrina – in other words, disasters caused by a lack of climate protection measures – can visit on his country," Trittin wrote. His comments were an obvious reference to the U.S. government's refusal to sign the Kyoto agreement on environmental protection.

Trittin is well known for his offensive and unusual comments over the years. When he was sworn in as Minister of the Environment the first time in 1998, he declined to add the words "So help me God" to his oath. When asked about it later, Trittin remarked: "I haven't needed God in my life up to now, and I don't think I will need him in the future, either" – an interesting attitude for someone who is charged with protecting the environment, which is God's creation.

Trittin's comments on Hurricane Katrina brought an immediate storm of protest, and not just from the United States. The "Sydney Morning Herald" wrote that he was "the first prominent person to step over the bodies to score political points." The German newsmagazine "Der Spiegel", not known over the years for being pro-American, called Trittin's remarks a new low point in German-American relations. "Der Spiegel" commentator Claus Christian Malzahn wrote: "At a moment when the dead on the Gulf Coast are still being counted, the German Minister for the Environment could think of nothing better to do than to blame the US itself for the catastrophe. [His comments are] 493 words long, and not a single one of them is wasted to express any sort of sympathy for the victims of the storm."

Two days later, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Environment released a statement saying that Trittin's comments had been misinterpreted and that he had written his guest editorial before the full extent of the damage was known. Viewed cynically, this would mean that the extent of the damage known by Monday evening – when Trittin would have written his comments – would have been similar to the damage caused by the record Elbe River flood of August 2002. So it would have been appropriate at the time for foreign politicians to take potshots at Germany for having allowed construction so close to the flood plain along the Elbe River. Despite the statement from his spokesman, Trittin refused to participate in an interview by "Der Spiegel" that would have been published in German and in English.

Otto Graf Lambsdorff, honorary chairman of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and a former cabinet minister in Helmut Kohl's government, called on chancellor Gerhard Schröder to fire Trittin immediately. Lambsdorff called Trittin's remarks "self-righteous and callous." On a website set up as a reaction to Trittin's article, individual German citizens apologized to Americans for the insensitive comments. Although chancellor Schröder did not publicly censure his Minister of the Environment, he did appear to distance himself from Trittin later in the week when he said: "We should be especially sensitive out of consideration for the dire situation resulting from a natural disaster."

Schröder made amends his own way by offering the United States assistance in coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Within one week the German air force had delivered 30 tons of Meals Ready to Eat to Pensacola Naval Air Station, and special German high speed high capacity water pumps will be sent to New Orleans to help pump the floodwater out of the city. Schröder also authorized the release of petroleum from Germany's strategic reserves to help offset the loss of U.S. production capacity from damaged Gulf of Mexico facilities. In a letter to Schröder, President George Bush thanked Germany for its humanitarian aid, which reflects "humanitarian spirit and the close relations between our two countries."

Initial reports indicating that the German people would be willing to contribute generously to special relief funds for Hurricane Katrina victims were erroneous. Despite the assistance offered by their government, Germans have not donated as readily to assist Hurricane Katrina victims as they did for the Elbe flooding in 2002 and after last year's tsunami in South Asia. The German Red Cross reports that it has raised less than one tenth of the amount donated for these earlier disasters.

• Paul Kieffer, September 7, 2005