With the emergence of Barack Obama on the political stage, hopes for fairer weather in German-American relations returned. In fact, Obama soon became the projection surface for those hoping that the U.S. would do away with the highly unpopular policies of the past. Obama had given good reasons for such hope: his statements pledged a new global posture of the United States, a posture that promised to be attuned to a changing international environment and altered domestic parameters, that emphasized the new weight of developing countries and non-state actors, and that increasingly favored soft power and international cooperation, under U.S. leadership, to confront the global challenges of the twenty-first century. The chapter argues that, all things considered, Barack Obama clearly succeeded in restoring U.S. soft power during his eight years in the White House (2009–2017)—and perhaps nowhere more so than toward Germany. Media voices, political statements, and survey data substantiate these findings. The fact that Germany and the United States became partners in some of the major agreements reached during Obama’s time in office—including the Paris Agreement and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—as well as the virtually unprecedented increase in voting coincidence in the U.N. General Assembly are clearly indicative of some very real policy outcomes of these developments. At half-time, at the height of the NSA affair, a slight bump can be detected, and even if Obama arguably could not fulfill all the great expectations vested in him, a considerable gain in soft power can be ascertained. Once more, the personality factor and charismatic leadership proved vital in those years, both with respect to the general public as well as between Barack Obama and Angela Merkel, who over time would forge a paricularly close partnership.