【正文】 siness, which has its foundation on illegal gambling and alcohol smuggling. To escape his poor heritage and the shadows of the past, Vito wanted to bee an influential man. Accumulating great quantities of money was the first important step to achieve that objection. 13 After building up his Mafia empire， he indeed became influential and money was furthermore his most important instrument to maintain power. The reader had the chance to observe this in the parts of the books, in which difficult conflicts occurred. The exact way of how Vito Corleone solves these conflicts is portrayed at the beginning of the novel when Johnny Fontane, the godson of Vito, turns to his godfather to ask him for a favor. He wants a role in a movie, but the movie producer Jack Woltz refuses him getting it. The Don promises to solve the issue by making an ―offer to him that he could not refuse‖.19 He sends his lawyer and adopted son Tom Hagen to convince Woltz to give Johnny the role. As Hagen met the movie producer, he had the task to wind up negotiations on behalf of the godfather. His negotiation strategy consisted of three particular steps. At first he explained to Woltz that he would face some trouble with the labor union. Trouble could be settled, if he would offer the movie role to Johnny Fontane. At this point the godfather intended to use his work of connections, which he built up by the means of wealth and power. As Woltz refused the first offer angrily, Hagen offered, that his boss would pay $ 5 million to finance the movie. Noheless Woltz refused again, but invited Hagen to his private residence. There, he showed Hagen his favorite breeding horse Khartoum and invited him for supper. Subsequently he explained to him that he would never give the role to Johnny because he had a sexual affair with a woman Woltz. At the same time he has interest in Don Corleone solving the problems with the labor union for cash. As a reaction to that, Don Corleone arranged that Woltz found the dismembered head of his breeding horse in his bed, after waking up. After the threat, Woltz realized that he would be the next one to die if he wouldn‘t bend to the godfather‘s will of giving the role to Johnny. The first offer of Hagen was to bribe the labor union, which was possible due to the godfather‘s social connections. This shows that Corleone‘s rich work of social connections would be his first attempt to face a problem. As a second attempt he offered to bribe Woltz himself, which failed due to his 14 personal animosities towards Johnny. The third step was a threat to Woltz life and physical condition by paying someone to kill his horse. With this Putzo portrays the weaknesses of a corrupted capitalist world. Nearly everyone is longing for money and would give in if just high enough amounts of money are involved. If a problem can180。die humaine . Crimes violate human rights, break up families, and unsettle people to a degree, which make them mistrust each other, and therefore derogate the development of the whole human society. All the conflicts arising from criminality should be alleviated in some way. Therefore, people, especially the authorities who govern countries, are supposed to pay much attention to this vital concern. Puzo‘s works with their realistic writing style are reflecting the actual social conditions of the timeframe he lived in. Therefore he gives his readers an exact view on the events he observed while writing his books. In our modern age we have the chance to gain an enthralling insight of the problems of America‘s in 1950‘s. Especially The Godfather with its prosaic style, shows us the onset of a crime culture with nearly Darwinist consistence in a meticulous way. The Author portrays a circle of violence that no one of the parties involved could escape, because it even manifested itself in the shelter of the family. The particular stories of the individuals, who appear in this book, lay bare the nature of capitalist society by uncovering a profound human trait, namely the pursuit for wealth and power. There is no doubt that this novel is still accurate in analyzing modern America, and even other capitalist societies. The struggle to achieve money and power continually overshadows social values like solidarity, considerateness and mutual respect. Recently several novels from modern American authors, give the same diagnosis for society. One example is Back to Blood by Tom 2 Wolfe, which was published recently2. A lack of these values is fertile ground for criminality to sprawl. What is unique about the novel is that it presents the conflicts from the perspective of the intelligent and tactical godfather. There is always someone you can learn from. The godfather, Don Corleone, shows his tremendous abilities by intelligently modifying his behavior during the interaction with different individuals. Everyone feels his accepting and understanding, which makes the ―Don‖ exceptionally successful in leading a group and maintaining his Mafia In this paper, I will illustrate the conflicts and analyze their causes. Afterwards I will present potential ways on how the conflicts can be resolved. 3 I. The Phenomenon of the American Social Conflicts in The Godfather The foundation of social conflicts is the struggle for power in society. Social conflicts or group conflicts occur, when two or more actors oppose each other in social interaction, reciprocally exerting social power in an effort to attain scarce or inpatible goals and prevent the opponent from attaining them. It is a social relationship wherein the action is oriented intentionally for carrying out the actor‘s own will against the resistance of other However, contradictions are universal, absolute, existing in the whole processes of the development of things, and running through a