The power void resulting from the Tunisian regime change opened doors for domestic groups and opposition forces entering the political fray. Scholars have focused extensively on how new parties and civil society actors managed to gain social and political influence in the transitional period. The political vacuum also created opportunities for external actors to rethink their involvement in the country. While regional issues and neighbouring chaotic transitions inevitably affected Tunisia politics, the country seemed to have been less porous to anti-system influences than many of its regional counterparts. Tunisian transitional elites in fact welcomed technical and economic assistance from Western democracies. The US and a plethora of European countries thus entered Tunisia, eventually rebalancing the weight that traditionally Tunisian international partners - France and Italy - had before the revolution. This article explores the way Germany « seized » the opportunities to gain influence in the Tunisian transitional process by increasing the magnitude of its assistance to broad number of sectors, including economic cooperation, democracy promotion, environmental and security issues. The article draws from the theoretical concept of soft power to make sense of German assistance to Tunisia. Indeed, by deploying a number of bodies that reach and interact with a broad spectrum of Tunisian domestic groups, Germany has progressively raised its profile in the country’s political transition, mutating the ways Tunisians perceived Germany and German culture. Relying on qualitative analysis (interviews with German officials and Tunisians and discourse analysis) and survey data (the Arab Transformations Project) ) this study suggests that Tunisians appreciate the German diplomatic approach. This study presents two main findings that contribute to the understanding of Tunisia and Germany relations. First, it claims that the partnership between Germany and Tunisia is “horizontal” and the Germans tailor the assistance on the specific need of their Tunisian partners. In this regard, German foreign policy is not reproducing the top down, semi-imperialist foreign policy France had conducted since Tunisian independence. Second, the study argues that, while generally fulfilling the expectations of its Tunisian partners, Germany is stretching its cultural, economic and diplomatic influence in Tunisia, eventually creating assets for its domestic economy and for its leading role in European policy.