From 1954 to 1958 Mander lived in Berlin and Munich, gaining a detailed knowledge of German language and culture in the then West Germany.
The first two, The Eagle and the Bear (1959) and a Penguin Special Berlin: Hostage for the West (1962), were heavily marked by the Cold War concerns of the day.
Our German Cousins: Anglo-German relations in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1974) reflected more the development of European integration and the respective historical tensions and links between Britain and Germany.
Mander was also active as part of this informal grouping in supporting oppressed writers and intellectuals in the former Soviet bloc and Yugoslavia.
With his first wife, Necke Brache, Mander also translated three books from German: Klaus Roehler's, The Dignity of Night, Carl Zuckmayer's Carnival Confession and, most important in terms of its wider impact, Georg Lukacs's, The Meaning of Contemporary Realism.