‘Westernization’: A new paradigm for interpreting West European history in a Cold War context

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Notes

1. Cf. Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, Wie westlich sind die Deutschen? (Göttingen, 1999), pp.5–19; idem, ‘Wie westlich sind die Deutschen?’, Historisch-Politische Mitteilungen 3 (1996), pp.1–38; and, in English, idem, ‘Transatlantic Exchange and Interaction – The Concept of Westernization’, paper presented to the conference ‘The American Impact on Western Europe: Americanization and Westernization in Transatlantic Perspective’, German Historical Institute Washington, D. C., March 25-27, 1999, www.ghi-dc.org/conpotweb/westernpapers/doering.pdf.

2. On the influence of New Deal ideas on US policies after the Second World War cf. Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan. America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952 (Cambridge, 1987).

3. Cf. Dominik Geppert, ‘Cultural Aspects of the Cold War’, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute London 24/2 (2002), pp.50–71. Cf., among the many studies, Walter L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain. Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, 1945–1961 (Basingstoke, 1997); Frank A. Ninkovich, The Diplomacy of Ideas. US Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, 1938–1950 (Cambridge and New York, 1981); Richard H. Pells, Not Like Us. How Europeans have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture since World War II (New York, 1997); Emily S. Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream. American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890–1945 (New York, 1982); with an emphasis on state.private network and written in a slightly polemic tone W. Scott Lucas, Freedom's War. The US Crusade against the Soviet Union (Manchester, 1999). More nuanced: Frank Schumacher, Kalter Krieg und Propaganda. Die USA und der Kampf um die Weltmeinung und die ideelle Westbindung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1945–1955 (Trier, 2000) and Bernd Stöver, Befreiuung vom Kommunismus. Amerikanische Liberation Policy im Kalten Krieg 1947–1991 (Cologne, 2002).

4. Volker R. Berghahn, The Americanisation of West German Industry, 1945–1973 (Leamington Spa, 1986).

5. Hermann-Josef Rupieper, Die Wurzeln der westdeutschen Nachkriegsdemokratie. Der amerikanische Beitrag 1945–1992 (Opladen, 1993) and Edmund Spevack, Allied Control and German Freedom. American political and ideological influences on the framing of the West German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) ‘Geschichte, vol. 36’ (Münster, 2001).

6. Cf., for example, Kaspar Maase, BRAVO Amerika. Erkundungen zur Jugendkultur der Bundesrepublik in den fünfziger Jahren (Hamburg, 1992), and Uta G. Poiger, Jazz, Rock, and Rebels. Cold War Politics and American Culture in a Divided Germany (Berkeley, 2000).

7. On the American information centres in Germany cf. Maritta Hein-Kremer, Die amerikanische Kulturoffensive. Gründung und Entwicklung der amerikanischen Information Centers in Westdeutschland und West-Berlin 1945–1955, Cologne 1996.

8. Cf. Heide Fehrenbach and Uta G. Poiger (eds.), Transactions, transgressions, transformations. American Culture in Western Europe and Japan (New York and Oxford, 2000). Richard F. Kuisel, Seducing the French. The Dilemma of Americanization (Berkeley, 1993). On Britain cf. Hugh Wilford, ‘“Unwitting Assets?”: British Intellectuals and the Congress for Cultural Freedom’, Twentieth Century British History 11/1 (2000), pp.42–60, and his The CIA, the British Left, and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? (London, 2003). Both are directed against the polemic by Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London, 1999). Cf also Paul Lashmar and Oliver James, Britain's Secret Propaganda War: Foreign Office and the Cold War 1948–1977 (Stroud, 1998).

9. This is especially evident in Lucas' Freedom's War and can also be detected in Ralph Willett, The Americanization of Germany, 1945–1949 (London, 1989).

10. Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht, Transmission Impossible. American Journalism as Cultural Diplomacy in Postwar Germany, 1945–1955 (Baton Rouge, 1999). See also her article ‘Shame on US? Academics, Cultural Transfer and the Cold War – A Critical Review’, Diplomatic History 24/3 (2000), pp.465–94.

11. Giles Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture. The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and Post-war American Hegemony (London, 2002), p.2 (quote).

12. On Americanization cf. Volker Berghahn, ‘Conceptualizing the American Impact on Germany: West German Society and the Problem of Americanization’, paper presented to the conference ‘The American Impact on Western Europe: Americanization and Westernization in Transatlantic Perspective’, German Historical Institute Washington, DC, 25–27 March 1999, www.ghi-dc.org/conpotweb/westernpapers/berghahn.pdf as well as Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, ‘Dimensionen von Amerikanisierung in der deutschen Gesellschaft’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 35 (1995), pp.1–34; the volume edited by Konrad Jarausch and Hannes Siegrist, Amerikanisierung und Sowjetisierung in Deutschland 1945–1970 (Frankfurt/Main, 1997), as well as the review article by Philipp Gassert, ‘Amerikanismus, Antiamerikanismus und Amerikanisierung. Neue Literatur zur Sozial-und Kulturgeschichte des amerikanischen Einflusses in Deutschland und Europa’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 39 (1999), pp.531–61.

13. Mary Nolan, Visions of Modernity. American Business and the Modernization of Germany (New York and Oxford, 1994).

14. Previous studies on the activities of the CCF include: Saunders, Who Paid the Piper?; Peter Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the Mind in Postwar Europe (New York, 1989); and Pierre Grémion, Intelligence de l.Anticommunisme: Le Congrès pour la Liberté de Culture à Paris, 1950–1975 (Paris, 1995). Cf. now as well: Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture.

15. For a summary on the importance of Der Monat in English cf. Michael Hochgeschwender, ‘The intellectual as propagandist: Der Monat, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and the Process of Westernization in Germany’, paper presented to the conference ‘The American Impact on Western Europe: Americanization and Westernization in Transatlantic Perspective’, German Historical Institute Washington, DC, 25–27 March 1999, www.ghidc.org/conpotweb/westernpapers/hochgeschwender.pdf.

16. On Shepard Stone cf. Volker R. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe. Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy and Diplomacy (Princeton, NJ, 2001).

17. On this ideological package cf. now Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture and his ‘The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the End of Ideology and the 1955 Milan Conference: “Defining the Parameters of Discourse”’, Journal of Contemporary History 37/3 (2002), pp.437–55. Scott-Smith overlooks, however, that the CCF's message was highly political and that those involved in it were very well aware of this.

18. Cf. Angster, Konsenskapitalismus und Sozialdemokratie. Cf. also her ‘“Safe by Democracy”: American Hegemony and the “Westernization” of West German Labor’, Amerikastudien/American Studies. A Quarterly 46/4 (2001), pp.557–72, and on her ‘Vom Klassenkampf zur Tarifpartnerschaft. Westernisierung in SPD und DGB 1940–1970’, Vorgänge. Zeitschrift für Bürgerrechte und Gesellschaftspolitik 154 (2001), pp.41–50 and Doering-Manteuffel, Wie westlich sind die Deutschen?, pp.90–102.

19. Cf. the excellent overview on these ideas in the West German and American labour movement in Angster, Konsenskapitalismus und Sozialdemokratie, pp.39–98.

20. Cf. Patrick Renshaw, American Labour and Consensus Capitalism, 1935–1990 (London, 1991).

21. Cf. on importance of exile: Martin Conway, ‘Legacies of Exile: The Exile Governments in London during the Second World War and the Politics of Post-war Europe’, in idem and José Gotovitch (eds.), Europe in Exile. European Exile Communities in Britain 1940–1945 (New York and Oxford, 2001), pp.255–74, especially 269–70. On Brandt cf. in particular: Willy Brandt, Zwei Vaterländer: Deutsch-Norweger im schwedischen Exil. Rückkehr nach Deutschland, 1940–1947, ed. Einhart Lorenz, vol.2, Berliner Ausgabe (Bonn, 2000).

22. Cf. Julia Angster, ‘Wertewandel in den Gewerkschaften. Zur Rolle gewerkschaftlicher Remigranten in der Bundesrepublik der 1950er Jahre’, in Claus-Dieter Krohn and Patrik von zur Mühlen (eds.), Rückkehr und Aufbau nach 1945. Deutsche Remigranten im öffentlichen Lebens Nachkriegsdeutschlands (Marburg, 1997), pp.111–38; and her ‘Der Zehnerkreis. Remigranten in der westdeutschen Arbeiterbewegung der 1950er Jahre’, Exil 18/1 (1998), pp.26–47. Cf. in English the broad overview: ‘The Westernization of the German Labor Movement. Cultural Transfer and Transnational Network Politics in the 1940s and 1950s’, paper presented to the conference ‘The American Impact on Western Europe: Americanization and Westernization in Transatlantic Perspective’, German Historical Institute Washington, DC, 25–27 March 1999, www.ghi-dc.org/conpotweb/westernpapers/nolan.pdf.

23. Hochgeschwender, Freiheit in der Offensive, p.154.

24. Angster, Konsenskapitalismus und Sozialdemokratie, pp.99–178 (on American foreign policy and these networks) and pp.179–269 on the working of these networks in West Germany 1945–52.

25. Angster, Konsenskapitalismus und Sozialdemokratie, pp.353–413.

26. For an elaboration of this theme cf. Doering-Manteuffel, Wie westlich sind die Deutschen?, pp.127–34; idem, ‘Westernisierung. Politisch-ideeller und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in der Bundesrepublik bis zum Ende der 60er Jahre’, in Axel Schildt, Detlef Siegfried and Karl Christian Lammers (eds.), Dynamische Zeiten. Die 60er Jahre in den beiden deutschen Gesellschaften (Hamburg, 2000), pp.311–41; and idem, ‘Turning to the Atlantic: The Federal Republic's Ideological Reorientation, 1945–1970’, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute Washington, D.C. (Spring 1999), pp.2–12.

27. Charles S. Maier, ‘The Politics of Productivity. Foundations of American Economic Policy after World War II’, International Organization 31/4 (1977), pp.607–33.

28. Angster, Konsenskapitalismus und Sozialdemokratie, pp.468–9.

29. On Friedrich see: Volker R.Berghahn and Paul J. Friedrich, Otto A. Friedrich. Ein politischer Unternehmer. Sein Leben und seine Zeit, 1902–1975 (Frankfurt/Main, 1993).

30. Sauer, Westernisierung, p.17.

31. Cf. the critique by Mary Nolan, which unnecessarily juxtaposes Americanization and Westernization: ‘Americanization or Westernization?’, paper presented to the conference ‘The American Impact on Western Europe: Americanization and Westernization in Transatlantic Perspective’, German Historical Institute Washington, DC, 25–27 March 1999, www.ghi-dc.org/conpotweb/westernpapers/nolan.pdf.

32. For German influences on certain sections of the British labour movement cf. Lawrence Black, ‘Social Democracy as a Way of Life: Fellowship and the Socialist Union, 1951–9’, Twentieth Century British History 10/4 (1999), pp.499–539.

33. Cf. for example, Michel Espagne and Michael Werner, ‘Deutsch-französischer Kulturtransfer im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Zu einem neuen interdisziplinären Forschungsprogramm des C.N.R.S.’, Francia 13 (1985), pp.502–10; idem, ‘Deutsch-französischer Kulturtransfer als Forschungsgegenstand. Eine Problemskizze’, in idem (eds.), Transferts. Les relations interculturelle dans l.espace franco-allemand (XVIIIe-XIXe siècle) (Paris, 1988), pp.11–34, and Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, ‘Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtung. Der Ansatz der histoire croisée und die Herausforderung des Transnationalen’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 28/4 (2002), pp.607–36. An example for a more elaborate analysis is (although it is centred too much on the realm of ideas rather than social action): Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey, ‘Der Transfer zwischen den Studentenbewegungen von 1968 und die Entstehung einer transnationalen Gegenöffentlichkeit’, in Hartmut Kaelble, Martin Kirsch and Alexander Schmidt-Gernig (eds.), Transnationale Öffentlichkeiten und Identitäten im 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main and New York, 2002), pp.303–25. On a social approach to transnational history cf. Jürgen Osterhammel, ‘Transnationale Gesellschaftsgeschichte: Erweiterung oder Alternative’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 27 (2001), pp.464–79 and the remarks in Frank Ninkovich, ‘No mortems for Postmodernism, Please’, Diplomatic History 22/3 (1998), pp.451–66.

34. For an analysis which does not rely on the Westernization paradigm cf. S. Jonathan Wiesen, ‘Industrialists, Workers and Perceptions of America in West Germany in the 1950s’, paper presented to the conference ‘The American Impact on Western Europe: Americanization and Westernization in Transatlantic Perspective’, German Historical Institute Washington, DC, 25–27 March 1999, www.ghi-dc.org/conpotweb/westernpapers/wiesen.pdf.

35. For some ideas cf. Ursula Lehmkuhl, ‘Commentary’, paper presented to the conference ‘The American Impact on Western Europe: Americanization and Westernization in Transatlantic Perspective’, German Historical Institute Washington, DC, 25–27 March 1999, www.ghi-dc.org/conpotweb/westernpapers/lehmkuhl.pdf, p.4.

36. Hochgeschwender, Freiheit in der Offensive, p.590.

37. Cf. Richard Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age. American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s (Hanover, NH, 1989), p.129.

38. Cf. Daniel Friedrich Sturm, ‘Schröders deutscher Weg’, Die Welt, 6 Aug. 2002, and the critical comment ‘Der deutsche Holzweg’, die tageszeitung, 9 Aug. 2002.

39. Cf. Alfons Kaiser, ‘Der amerikanische Weg’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 23 April 2003. On German anti-Americanism in general cf. Dan Diner, Feindbild Amerika. Über die Beständigkeit eines Ressentiments (Berlin, 2002).

40. An exception is Gustav Seibt, ‘Ende einer Freundschaft’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 15/16 Feb. 2003.