The bright years over the Atlantic illuminate the 'good' years of eventful 20th-century German-American history through the prism of personal experience. In his memoirs, Frank Trommler writes the entertaining story of a young German who is by no means geared towards America, but who cannot give up his desire to travel and ends up becoming a professor of German literature at American elite universities. In view of the decline of the German language and literature in the country's intellectual household, he devoted much of his energy to reforming the teaching of German and establishing the German Studies Association, of which he became president at the time of reunification. As Humanities Director of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington, he organizes a highly acclaimed program of critical encounters with German culture. After the work of the refugees from the Third Reich, the picture of the still little-known history of the "second" generation of German US emigrants emerges here.