Since 1990 the reunited and sovereign Federal Republic of Germany tries to define its role in the world. It is linked to an academic debate on the coherence of German foreign policy and underlying interests. How do norms and values on the one hand relate to pragmatic, primarily economic interests, on the other hand? How is the German foreign policy linked to the European one? Does the German position influences or even dominates the European orientation? These questions will be discussed using the example of the German foreign policy towards the Central Asian states Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.