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Das Deutschlandbild: National Image, Reputation and Interests in Post-War Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2018

STEVE WOOD
STEVE WOOD*
Affiliation:
Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, 2109; steve.wood@mq.edu.au
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Abstract

This article examines post-war (West) Germany's attempt to address national stigma and gain international acceptance. It surveys three domains: public relations, Foreign Cultural Policy (Auswärtige Kultur Politik) and bilateral relations with France and the United States. By the 1970s, although some images of ‘Germany’ were still negative, on a global scale its underlying reputation was remarkably positive. The complex of political actions involved was a pioneering example of ‘nation branding’.

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Contemporary European History , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , November 2018, pp. 651 - 673
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Many scholars have analysed how the United States and United Kingdom integrated defeated Germany's western parts into a nascent military and economic bloc.Footnote 1 At the epicentre of a bipolar competition defined by ideological antagonism and the threat of armed conflict, West Germany was confronted by formidable material and strategic demands. Germans also had instrumental and affective motivations to address national stigma and gain acceptance beyond a limited sovereignty.Footnote 2 This article examines aspects of that endeavour over three decades. It is mainly concerned with how West Germany was presented to and received by foreign countries, rather than with contemporaneous domestic controversies or policies (Innenpolitik).

The article proceeds by first outlining some conceptual contours. It then surveys three domains in which national image and reputation were prominent factors: public relations, Foreign Cultural Policy (Auswärtige Kultur Politik; AKP) and bilateral relations with France and the United States. It finds that by the 1970s, although some images of ‘Germany’Footnote 3 were still negative, on a global scale its underlying reputation was remarkably positive. How much of this transformation in reception is directly or solely attributable to public relations or AKP cannot be answered in quantitative terms. The Foreign Ministry (Auswärtiges Amt; AA) conducted some internal evaluations but there was little attempt at measurement. Qualitative evidence suggests that these avenues contributed gradually, without fanfare, to improvement in foreign perceptions. The article also finds that France, ostensibly West Germany's partner engine of European integration, was not among the states in which this improvement was earliest or most extensively registered. Prevalent French conceptions of West Germany qua Germany were less favourable than in the United States and many other countries.

International Image and Reputation: The German Case

States and nations project self-images. These are representations that comprise cultural, political, symbolic, discursive, geophysical or commercial elements. Perceptions of what is projected are often different, and each is prone to prejudices and other subjectivities.Footnote 4 The images of nations formed externally are generalisations. They are selective and sometimes rather superficial interpretations that do not accurately reflect empirical or normative features. They can be dominated by stereotypes or be surprisingly variable. National reputations are more thorough and informed estimations influenced by knowledge about political and legal systems, society and culture, economy and products and regional or global connections, as well as historical memory. Reputations could also be affected by perceptions of resolve in meeting geopolitical tests or moral and prestige issues.Footnote 5 Reputations are more durable than images. Nonetheless the latter can temporarily enhance or diminish the former. Scholars underestimated image and reputation in the early Cold War years. But these and related properties like status, prestige and esteem had international impact.Footnote 6

Patrick Jackson has argued that from mid-1945 the idea of ‘Germany’ was framed as part of ‘Western Civilisation’. The main agents were American with Germans in subordinate alliance.Footnote 7 This article by contrast focuses more on German actors. Recreating ‘Germany’Footnote 8 involved the formation of a democratic party system, emphasis on the rule of law, decentralisation, a stable market economy, ‘reeducation’ that built on Allied precursors, a diplomatic ‘culture of restraint’, espousal of multilateral organisations, accent on a European vocation and support for a ‘north-south dialogue’. Image management and reputation building accompanied institutional transformation. ‘Deutschlandbild’ became an operational category for ministries and other authorities. In comparison with the more spectacular ‘economic miracle’ (Wirtschaftswunder), Cold War machinations and revelations of complicity in actions of the predecessor regime, processes intended to influence attitudes towards West Germany and how it appeared internationally were low profile. Authorities monitored foreign elites and publics, responded to their signals and transmitted through a variety of proactive measures that (West) Germans were now reliable supporters of liberal democratic values.Footnote 9 That aim was abetted by the system's effective negotiation of some highly charged conflicts.

This complex of political actions was a pioneering example of ‘nation branding’Footnote 10 for a population characterised by Ernst Friedlaender in 1949 as ‘unloved people number one’. In his view it was the German nation and not, as in the Russian/Soviet case, only a state regime that was fundamentally distrusted.Footnote 11 Crafting a favourable image for post-war (West) Germany was the most difficult challenge of its kind ever undertaken. It began in a context of physical and psychological devastation, territorial loss, economic strains, an imposing Soviet Union and the ignominy of Nazism.Footnote 12 The public at large were then focused on elementary needs and did not prioritise collective image or reputation. The new political class and intellectual elite understood early on that these were important considerations. While they directed a largely top-down enterprise, the entire population was indirectly engaged in ‘empathy promotion’ (Sympathiewerbung), as many came to realise.Footnote 13

International reintegration was further complicated by the existence of the rival East German state. Sharing the same ethnicity, language and culture, East Germany asserted its claims to German identity, expressed in the terms of Marxist-Leninist ideology. East German and Soviet propaganda drew attention to Nazi functionaries in the West German state sector or business.Footnote 14 In the 1950s West Germany's rehabilitation was impaired by the re-employment of these servants of the former regime, the avoidance of confrontation with shameful themes and details, occasionally with Allied collusion or negligence, and delays in restitution to victims of Nazism. Progress in ‘coming to terms with the past’ (Vergangenheitsbewältigung) required at least a generation.Footnote 15 The evolution of a more critical and self-assured polity lent credibility to a desired image of trustworthiness and moral renewal.Footnote 16 Affirmative appraisals in foreign countries were attributable to West German civil society as well as to its state organs.

Public Relations

23 May 1949 was retrospectively declared the birthdate of a federal German state, one that had to confirm its functional capacity and loyalty to mentors who retained de facto control.Footnote 17 Founding Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, prioritised integration into western frameworks (Westbindung) while ostensibly striving for reunification. His pragmatism did not exclude concern for status and pride, revealed by the ‘carpet politics’ incident that disarmed the Allied High Commissioners (AHC) as he presented his cabinet's credentials in September 1949.Footnote 18 Adenauer understood the importance of ‘information’ and its presentation better than most. He commissioned the Federal Press Agency (Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung; PIA, also known as the Bundespresseamt; BPA) the day after his election. It was to join the Foreign Ministry, which began as a section within the Chancellor's office (Bundeskanzleramt),Footnote 19 as West Germany's first official news and information providers.

A growing network of agencies was incorporated into the struggle for ‘hearts and minds’ that defined the Cold War as much as nuclear deterrence. It required a German acculturation to the Anglo-American practice of ‘public relations’.Footnote 20 Adenauer sought individuals who could operate with acuity in a political environment where internal and external dimensions were intermeshed.Footnote 21 Felix von Eckardt, appointed as Federal Press Agency chief in 1952, announced at his first press conference that he felt himself to be a ‘colleague’ of the assembled journalists.Footnote 22 In contrast to background ‘propagandists’, like Otto Lenz, Eckardt was a flamboyant figure, accompanying the Federal Chancellor on official visits. The government's attempt to conflate itself with the new state in the public mind was consistent with reelection-driven politics in older liberal democracies. Sometimes it tried to go too far. Rumours of plans for a larger ‘information ministry’ that might try to control the private media were abandoned when uncomfortable resonances were registered. Some checks and balances were shown to be effective. A 1954 US High Commission report drew a ‘positive balance’ on the press sector while noting a potential for misuse by government.Footnote 23

Professionalisation and expansion of political public relations continued, as it did in the private economy.Footnote 24 Eckardt returned from a sojourn at the United Nations for the 1957 election campaign. The governing Christian Democratic coalition slogan of ‘no experiments’ (Keine Experimente) aimed to convey to the electorate and foreign observers that they represented stability.Footnote 25 At a conference on ‘Goal-Oriented Public Relations’ in 1959, one presentation expressed that ‘Dr Adenauer attributes the high respect that he enjoys in the western and neutral world not least to his sharpened sense for public relations and to the public relations work of the Federal Press Office’. That was carried out under the ‘psychologically astute leadership of the Federal Press Chief and the 500-person team led by his deputy’.Footnote 26 Polls and surveys became favoured instruments used to ascertain and shape public opinion domestically and to ‘influence or even form the picture of Germany in foreign countries’.Footnote 27 Kruke contends that they were manipulated to exaggerate an atmosphere of ‘Cold War angst’ and sustain support for western integration over a ‘neutral’ route to reunification.Footnote 28 Internal polls were a counterpart to regular questionnaires on foreign perceptions that were sent to West Germany's diplomatic missions.Footnote 29

A notable contemporary project was the production and dissemination of a cartographic impression of ‘Germany’. This Deutschlandkarte was envisioned for use in American schools, specifically to help prosecute a case for reunification. Assisted by the chargé d'affaires (later ambassador) to the United States, Heinz Krekeler, the Federal Press Agency contracted Roy Bernard Co., a New York firm.Footnote 30 As work got underway, the arrival of the ‘Stalin Note’Footnote 31 intensified the project's importance. The business-like Americans emphasised that the map was ‘not intended for accurate geographical studies’, rather, ‘designed to do a very big public relations job’. Leading figures were said to regard the initiative as ‘an absolute must and as a terrific public relations idea’. Intended to evoke empathy for the divided Germans among the American public, the analogy of a United States divided into zones occupied by foreign powers, with New York as a ‘four power city’, was represented in supplementary maps. An accompanying text sketched a scenario of desolation and suffering.Footnote 32 The venture continued into the 1960s.Footnote 33 Peter Hoeres has investigated how during that decade governments styled the media representation of German–American relations. Free media was heralded simultaneous to covert manipulation and attempts to restrict exposure of delicate issues that might damage an image of solid alliance. Hoeres details controversies within and between German parties on that relationship with disputes between Gaullists and Atlanticists prominent.Footnote 34 This tension was two-edged. It could be exploited by Soviet and East German agitation. It also demonstrated that the West German system and the Western alliance were capable of robust exchange without disintegrating.

Germans also learnt from the British, who had begun planning for ‘educational reconstruction’ during the war. The Foreign Office provided training in governance for people ‘representative of German public life’. Trainees wanted to demonstrate goodwill to a dubious British public and press.Footnote 35 That scepticism was shared by some British historians and grounded in beliefs about an enduring German propensity for militarism.Footnote 36 One manifestation was the ostentatious expression of disapproval by students at Oxford University during a visit by West German President Theodor Heuss in 1958.Footnote 37 Even then, some observers noted that the British image of Germany was subtly changing, that approving features were being discovered and that Germans might be overly sensitive.Footnote 38 As had occurred in the United States, a public relations firm, Curzon, was contracted to work with West Germany's London embassy. It aimed to produce an English language journal, based on the United Kingdom's Bonn embassy model of ‘London Diplomatic Correspondence’, which German officials considered a ‘singular and exemplary instrument’. They were impressed by its dispatch of information ‘black on white’.Footnote 39 So successful was the person employed to do this, an Austrian named Ernest Albert, that the Germans sought an English talent who could ‘create a reputation’ for ‘Bonn Diplomatic Correspondence’. An implicit recommendation for content noted that the principal British interest was in ‘building a real democracy in Germany’.Footnote 40 Another pamphlet, ‘German View’, was restyled to become ‘more prestigious’. Sent mainly to teachers, its circulation rose to 3,000. The embassy also forwarded a list of 225 ‘cultural films’, to be loaned free. A memo on ‘Building up Goodwill’ summarised letters of gratitude.Footnote 41 The campaign was appraised as a success. Public relations work had ‘contributed to the change in attitude towards Germany by the British public and especially the British press’. Former ‘animosity and harshness’ was ‘replaced by detailed reporting’ and ‘understanding and recognition of’ West Germany's ‘international situation’.Footnote 42

Film was understood as a medium than could have beneficial or adverse political effects. In May 1960 a film combining Adenauer the statesman and ‘private man’ was proposed. Scenes would include Adenauer being ferried over the Rhine, meeting a foreign visitor, dealing with ‘world political events’ and a participating in a ‘celebratory evening reception that resonates a nocturnal atmospheric image of city and Rhine’. The film would show an effective government, emphasising ‘policy continuity’ and ‘the personal connections of the Federal Chancellor to the statesmen of the western world’.Footnote 43 Another film would illuminate ‘the spiritual and cultural face of Berlin’, the decisive city. Other documentation referred to films showing the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), which many Europeans were unsure about, as a galvanising and unifying force.Footnote 44 To detect examples that might ‘damage the German reputation’, films about West Germany, East Germany, Germany in historical and cultural contexts or merely made by Germans, were monitored. In August 1961, as the Berlin Wall was being erected, Transit-Film-Gmbh, owners of Wochenschau material, informed the Interior Ministry (Bundesministerium des Innern; BMI) that Tore Sjöberg, a Swede, wanted documentary footage for use in films Battle for Stalingrad (Schlacht um Stalingrad), History of the Wars (Die Geschichte der Kriege) and The Judgement (Das Urteil). The BMI emphasised that ‘very high political importance must be attributed to Das Urteil . . . a continuation of the film “Mein Kampf”’.Footnote 45 It would also ‘deal with the Eichmann case’. Transit had ‘gained the impression that the film will have a strong anti-German tendency’.Footnote 46 The Interior Ministry sought an injunction against the showing of Mein Kampf and refused to allow footage and licencing rights for its proposed sequel. There were associated problems, including:

that the film will be produced nonetheless; that it will be shown everywhere abroad; that its opening in Germany can only be prevented by involving the courts; that serious public accusations will be made against the federal state (Bund), because it has exercised a form of censorship and because it has boycotted a film that will certainly also present a reckoning with the Nazi regime.Footnote 47

If material were made available there would be counter accusations that the state had supported an anti-German film. Transit wrote to the Interior Ministry, declaring that because they could not be ‘certain that the films “Battle for Stalingrad” and “History of the Wars” . . . contain no anti-German tendencies, we will also not make available Wochenschau material for these two films’. It was unlikely that foreign courts would agree that only the West German state or companies could use Wochenschau material.Footnote 48 These events were followed by the impending release of ‘Judgment at Nuremburg’. The West German Information Bureau in New York interpreted that this film could ‘sow new mistrust against Germans’ and counselled against sending official representation to its world premiere in West Berlin.Footnote 49 Germans and Americans who had ‘worked assiduously to rehabilitate Germany's image’ feared the film would ‘unravel years of difficult labor’. Despite those recommendations, West German dignitaries attended the December 1961 premiere, where Mayor Willy Brandt delivered an address.Footnote 50

The Foreign Ministry, Federal Press Agency and Inter Nationes, an agency fashioned by the PIA and Roy Bernard Co., which had run the Deutschlandkarte campaign,Footnote 51 strove to counteract negative themes by highlighting affirmative facets of contemporary West Germany. One method was a visitor programme. While European and transatlantic linkages were initially prioritised, it developed an inverse global reach and became a substantial component of public diplomacy. Prospective or confirmed visitors were assessed before, during and after their visits. Many had official or quasi-official status in their home countries and research was conducted on personal data, hobbies and how ‘esteemed’ (angesehen) they were. Some visits were associated with problematic issues and relationships; others helped establish or maintain cordial relations and engender trust. Chaperones (Betreuer) were assigned, a kind of internal consul, each with responsibilities usually confined to one city. They sent reports to the Foreign Ministry on ‘attitudes towards’ West Germany. The Betreuer was asked to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to ‘did the visit benefit: a) the guest, and b) West Germany?’ Besides encouraging positive impressions, the information gathered and analysis of reputational outcomes influenced the diffusion of subsequent discourses and initiatives.Footnote 52 Dialogue with persons from non-aligned states, and later Soviet clients, enabled a subtle autonomy for West Germany in international affairs.

The visitor programme reached its zenith in the 1970s. A few examples give some indication of the scale and diversity of the contacts. In May 1975 the embassy in Sri Lanka was asked for a briefing on a local parliamentarian planning to visit West Germany. His attitude towards it was ‘positive but not uncritical’ and his reputation that of an ‘expert in his field, influential, and a rising star’. He was a ‘politician of great esteem and influence’. It was requested that the guest be provided with the ‘usual pocket money for persons from weak currency countries’.Footnote 53 A report (Betreuerbericht) described his character as ‘friendly although aloof, demanding, expectant not modest’. His attitude to West Germany was ‘all in all positive’. He ‘praised German cultural life and the high living standard’ and was interested in legislative procedures. An official from the Thai Ministry of Finance was evaluted as having a ‘very positive’ attitude and that he would be a ‘multiplicator’. His programme requests included ‘famous castles’ and to ‘visit a brewery’.Footnote 54 The rector of the Haitian State University had a ‘generally friendly attitude’, which ‘rests on the reputation of German competency’. He was ‘influential, also through his former activity as education minister’.Footnote 55 The visit of Syrian Foreign Minister Abdul Halim Khaddam was a different proposition. Syria had a socialist orientation and a connection to East Germany. Its leaders tried to manipulate this to extract favourable treatment from the West Germans. It had no press freedom, and foreign representations could not disseminate ‘political publications’. However, West Germany's ‘public relations work has good chances in the area of the economy’. Here ‘the performance of German industry and German technologies are well known and appreciated. There is a great readiness for economic cooperation without political constraints.’ The Syrians greeted the prospect of ‘European unity’ ‘in the hope that Europe would thereby free itself of the influence of the USA’.Footnote 56

A South African official wrote that he had been ‘privileged to enjoy some of the sophisticated forms of entertainment which constitute such a notable feature of the German way of life’. He had ‘everlasting impressions of the tremendous strength and versatility of your country's economy, and of the many outstanding qualities of its people’. The Pretoria embassy informed the Federal Press Agency that this visitor had ‘personally and in writing thanked Inter Nationes and the government for exceptional hosting’ and that ‘the invitation is seen as a complete success for our public relations work’.Footnote 57 A visit by Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis was linked to West Germany's interest in Greece introducing the PAL television format, rather than the French SECAM system. The Greek writer Iakovos Kampanellis visited a few weeks later. His ‘political attitude’ was summarised as ‘friendly’. Kampanellis had made no ‘earlier visits to Germany’ but had been ‘imprisoned in the concentration camp Mauthausen from autumn 1942 to May 1945’. He rejected the ‘communist social order’ prevailing in the Eastern Bloc.Footnote 58

The West German consulate in Atlanta recommended a visit by the mayor of that city, Maynard Jackson, whose recent invitation by the French government had resulted in a ‘publicity success’. His programme was to include Stuttgart, because of a twin-city relationship, West Berlin, ‘which for political reasons should not be left out’, and Munich. Americans, ‘especially former members of the army stationed in’ West Germany had a ‘particular love of the Bavarian lifestyle’.Footnote 59 A visit by the Governor of Georgia was planned soon after, for which ‘political and cultural’ issues, as well as economic investment, were on the agenda.Footnote 60 The consulate in Sydney advised that ‘in the general interest of our reputation externally’ it was not acceptable that some ‘high-ranking Australian personalities’ were directed to their own embassy in Bonn when on a ‘self-funded’ visit. Inter Nationes should be activated and hospitality provided.Footnote 61 These instances were among the thousands that were part of global Sympathiewerbung. They do not include visits associated with other institutions, examined below, which pursued more specific partnerships and audiences.

Foreign Cultural Policy

Before the First World War and in the 1920s Germany had been admired for achievements in science and culture. After 1945 culture was a field that had not been so gravely tarnished and for which there was residual international appreciation. This was ‘high culture’ and its main targets were ‘elites’ of foreign societies.Footnote 62 Because it promoted cooperation and exchange, science (Wissenschaft) could also function as a bridge. When the Foreign Ministry was established in 1951 it expanded an extant bureau for foreign cultural policy.Footnote 63 This oversaw a network of agencies, some with predecessors dating to the nineteenth century, now founded anew.Footnote 64 These ‘mediator organisations’ included the Goethe Institut, the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutsche Akademischer Austausch Dienst; DAAD), the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung (AvH), German foreign schools (Auslandsschule) and the Institute for Foreign Relations (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen; IfA). Some were defined as ‘non-state’ bodies, though they received most of their funding from public budgets. With the respectable names of Goethe and Humboldt prominent, culture and science were portrayed as apolitical. But these domains were envisaged as assisting the acquisition of legitimacy and as such were an important political investment.Footnote 65

Foreign Cultural Policy began in accordance with Basic Law (Grundgesetz)Footnote 66 principles rather than a comprehensive plan. External representations were soon reporting ‘great interest . . . for German cultural work’. Even countries politically ‘very reserved vis-á-vis the Federal Republic’ or that feared its economic competition wanted ‘close contact with German culture’ and ‘culture represents the best German export ware’.Footnote 67 Art, architecture, design and events like the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958 extended the scope.Footnote 68 Branches were opened in prized locations, including a Goethe Haus on Fifth Avenue, New York.Footnote 69 Adenauer's successor as chancellor, Ludwig Erhard, declared that Foreign Culture Policy would expand ‘the image of Germany as a trading and industry nation’ to impress ‘the characteristics of intellect and civilised human behavior’.Footnote 70 A prominent foreign policy official later explained that ‘it was the aim by a serious promotion of culture, to regain the trust of the world, and re-establish severed international contacts’. Culture also came to be seen as an alternative to ‘economic miracle’ or ‘Volkswagen-state’ perspectives.Footnote 71

The 1960s internationalised (West) Germany in previously unexperienced ways. It was part of a transformation throughout the Western world.Footnote 72 As a leading sociologist, Ralf Dahrendorf had diagnosed associated issues in 1965.Footnote 73 As a civil servant, new guidelines (Leitsätze) for cultural policy formulated by him in 1970 reflected what was already happening.Footnote 74 The Leitsätze referred to a 1969 parliamentary declaration on promoting the image of ‘fruitful unrest’ (fruchtbare Unruhe) as a ‘daily reality’ in West Germany. The concept of ‘Culture’ (Kultur), previously dominated by a canon of classical music, theatre and literary greats, was broadened. ‘Dialogue’ with ‘partners’, rather than one-way transmission, became a leading motif. Rejection of 1950s conservativism was an impulse for these changes, though that era had contrasted greatly with the preceding period. The stability and prosperity generated then was a platform for the next phase. Partisans fervently emphasised the superiority of their own positions, on cultural policy and everything else. A new anthropological-sociological understanding of culture could encompass dispute among ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’, which manifested the resilience of West German democracy.Footnote 75 So did cooperation. The mainstream social-market parties were more alike than different and entered a Grand Coalition from 1966 to 1969.

Institutes and foundations engaged in Foreign Culture Policy differed in their target audiences and cultivated their own personae. These mediator organisations implemented programmes and detail within broad parameters decided by higher instances of the state, which were responsible for ‘planning and coordination’.Footnote 76 All shared a common, if diffused, goal to ‘improve the image of the country externally’. The Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung supported an international network of scholars. Any ‘political intentions’ were understated.Footnote 77 The German Academic Exchange Service promoted student and academic exchanges. The Goethe Institut supported interest in German language and literature. Schoolchildren visited other countries and stayed with host families. German foreign schools taught the children of expatriates and others and promoted bilateral relations. ‘Twinning’ projects, partnerships between German towns and cities and foreign counterparts, increased. Exchanges emphasised cultural, scientific and social purposes rather than the more overt political contacts and aims that featured in the United States's exchange of persons programme.Footnote 78

The effects of these policies and actions are difficult to measure precisely and may take years to become discernible. The resources provided, however, have been considerable. In 1952 the ‘culture budget’ administered from within the Foreign Ministry was 3 million DM. In 1959 it was 61.3 million DM and in 1966 215 milllion DM, which included 73 million DM in funding of foreign schools.Footnote 79 A decade after its refounding in 1951 the Goethe Institut counted a cumulative 35,700 participants in language courses outside and another 7,045 in West Germany. In 1962 it received 15 million DM from the Foreign Ministry. By 1971 participants in language courses totalled 143,000, over 80 per cent of them in foreign countries. The Foreign Ministry provided 64 million DM in that year.Footnote 80 The mediator organisations also received support from corporate and other private sources and through self-funded means. A 1975 report presented to the Bundestag by a parliamentary commission (Enquete Kommission) declared that ‘cultural foreign policy’ was a ‘structural element of international relations’. It was applicable to ‘interstate civilisation and thereby not only a “third pillar” of foreign policy’. Its principal aim was ‘the legitimation of the Federal Republic as a culture state in a changing world’.Footnote 81 A government response to the Enquete Kommission in 1977 recorded that AKP had the task of ‘multiplying the reputation’ of West Germany ‘through the representation of its cultural achievements’. That required a ‘balanced, realistic, and self-critical image of life and thought in our land’. However, ‘occasional distortion of the image of Germany must be countered’.Footnote 82

Two Special Relationships

Concurrent to the universal ambit of Foreign Cultural Policy and public relations, France and the United States were the highest bilateral priorities for West Germany's foreign policy. Convincing their political establishments and publics of West Germans’ transformed character and goodwill was essential to West Germany's ‘normalisation’ as a member of the ‘Western community’. Maintaining diplomatic equidistance between these two states also demanded a skilful balancing act.Footnote 83 Archival and other sources suggest a contrast in French and American attitudes towards West Germany, which influenced the images formed of it. After three wars in seventy-five years, many French people had a very adverse conception of Germany. A ‘conventional wisdom’ among historians about French aversion towards Anglo-American policy of expediting German recovery and integration into western political and military structures in 1948–55,Footnote 84 resonated on into the 1970s when French public resentments against a now pacifist Germany were exploited at high political level.

A US administrator commented in 1948 that French public opinion had ‘not been allowed to evolve with the times’. An ‘armed truce’ among political parties had ‘frozen French thought on Germany as it was in 1944 when it differed hardly at all from 1919. The average Frenchman thinks a Frankfurt Government as dangerous as a Berlin Government’, a fear fanned by French authorities. Their apprehension about a meeting between General Lucius Clay, the US military governor, and the Länder Minister-Presidents in January 1948 turned into obstruction before the London Conference the following month.Footnote 85 Integration of the western regions of occupied Germany into ‘Trizonia’ was reliant on Franco-German reconciliation. That relationship, said US High Commissioner John McCloy to Adenauer and State Secretary Walter Hallstein, was ‘of very special meaning . . . the only counterweight against the efforts . . . to sovietise Europe’.Footnote 86 The resurgence of a German state, even a democratic one, which aimed to unify, outweighed French concerns about either superpower. The prospect of a rearmed state was worse. In discussions on European army structures in 1951, a participant noted that there were three words the French ‘did not like to hear: ‘Minister, military district, national’.Footnote 87 Disquiet persisted after the founding that year of the European Coal and Steel Community and the project of European integration.Footnote 88 In August 1954 the French parliament rejected the proposal for a European Defence Community. The Paris Accords of October the same year, and good personal relations between Adenauer and Charles De Gaulle, did not dispel an underlying distrust of many French towards the Germans. Media and intellectual controversies reflected or exacerbated interstate problems.Footnote 89 Yet there were phases when anxieties were allayed. The atmosphere improved in the 1960s and the 1963 Franco–German Treaty announced ‘reconcilation’ and ‘solidarity’. But French unease endured as West Germany's economic strength and political acceptance grew.Footnote 90

The talent of Helmut Schmidt, who became Chancellor in 1974, was pivotal to reaching a point where ‘12 years after the German–French Treaty, one can finally again speak without embellishment (Schönfärberei) of an untroubled understanding between Paris and Bonn’. Newspapers reported ‘a complete absence of bilateral problems’. The disappearance of a ‘shrill and sometimes justifiable pessimism’ signified success for Schmidt and the French President, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Their rapport was genuine but the Franco–German relationship was still not harmonious. As military-strategic tensions reduced in Europe, the motor of integration experienced ‘unresolved problems’.Footnote 91 To help overcome dissonances a German Institute in Paris, based on a New York Information Center model, was proposed. This would counter ‘almost chronic Germanophobia’ in French intellectual milieux and associated bad press. An ‘intellectual “clearing house”’, led by a ‘younger Hausenstein’, was needed.Footnote 92 Personnel would be in continuous conversation with ‘journalists, members of parliament, artists and authors’ and complement the embassy. This Parisian ‘pendant’ to the New York Center would ‘operate with a very small staff’ and prove itself ‘a good medium and long-term investment’. The director was envisaged as having ‘a literary education and political understanding, with affinity for France’. The institute would ‘of course fly the flag of the Federal Government, but would not be held too tightly on the embassy's leash’.Footnote 93

A subsequent Foreign Ministry report informed that ‘in France, exchange with Germany is more emotional than it is for us, and is pursued with the use of long established clichés’, originating before the wars. These were ‘manipulated for political interests’ by Gaullists and communists. ‘Only to a limited extent can they be corrected through “information”’. In France ‘the public discussion on Germany . . . should be steered to our benefit when political interests converge and in the long-term through intensive cultural work and economic interconnection’. The available resources were adequate and

we should be able to react elastically. . . . We need a broad palette of means, which we must discreetly apply . . . Important is the personal credibility of people entrusted with public relations and contact work, their personal and intellectual power and their compatibility in their environment.Footnote 94

In 1977 West Germany's Paris embassy began a study on the content and effects of French television. It reported that ‘the trend to gradual improvement of the Deutschlandbild in this period has continued. Because of the events of the current half-year (Hitler Film, Kappler, Schleyer kidnapping),Footnote 95 a comprehensive analysis is only possible after the year's end’. In the interim a summary of television programmes and films about Germany was provided.Footnote 96 A focus on war precipitated protest from Germans who disputed official positions or inaction and drew attention to what they regarded as hypocrisy or unfairness. In a letter to West Germany's Paris embassy a citizen contended:

If series were regularly shown on German television in which French soldiers of the – now more than 30 years past – Second World War were continually presented as idiots, malicious, and occasionally as criminals . . . the responsible German director would have to pack his bags and the series be cancelled . . . the French public and their state representation would rightfully consider that kind of distorted presentation as an unfriendly act and protest against it.

The author was engaged in the German-French Society and led tours to Paris. He had friends in France but vigorously opposed the ‘image of the Germans that implanted itself in their younger generation’. Ten year olds had shouted at him, ‘I will never be a friend of the Germans’. He wanted to see a more ‘objective image of the Germans . . . The past should not be forgotten, but must be overcome. Do not let it happen in a one-sided way’.Footnote 97 This was one example indicating that, as West German agencies tried to project a positive image for external audiences, they also had to respond to disapproval among their own public about images disseminated by others. Ministerial personnel empathised with these concerns and they were aired at the highest levels. A Foreign Ministry memo noted that ‘In the face of countless and demanding efforts by’ West Germany ‘to improve a still very negative Deutschlandbild on French television, an attempt to analyse the results of these efforts is now also of considerable import. The Federal President has raised this problem verbally with the French State President on two occasions’.Footnote 98 These sources suggest that beyond the communities directly engaged by Foreign Cultural Policy, at least until the late 1970s those agencies and initiatives did not have a transformative effect on the population at large or a sizeable proportion of the intellectual and political elite in France.Footnote 99

Americans did not have the same concerns about relative power, status or geographic proximity as the French. Belligerent images of Germany occasionally came to the fore, when there were revelations in the media, for example. But this was not a recurring nightmare. A profusion of US popular culture references to the war and Nazism, periodic discord and some incongruous expectations, did not prevent the development of an underlying reputation for reliability, technical capacity and economic strength. From 1945 the United States had sought to make (West) Germany more like itself, something the French did not attempt. Its recovery had been possible due to the US's assistance and a remodelling on liberal democratic principles. During the blockade of West Berlin, the city's residents had shown a courageous will to support these values. Conversely, Anglo-American efforts had a profound impression on Germans. The ‘air bridge’ (Luftbrücke) that had enabled West Berlin to survive through the winter of 1948–49 remained an option after the Soviets ended the blockade of land and water transport in May 1949.Footnote 100 Currency reform was a precipitant of that crisis and the Deutsche Mark, printed secretly in the United States, would become a symbol of stability and prosperity.Footnote 101 Americans admired West Germany's impressive economic performance as comparable to their own boom. These events inspired mutual recognition that, in the western zones, Germans and their occupiers were effectively allied.

In February 1950 a German journalist claimed that inaccurate and provocative stories by American reporters, and unwise behaviour by politicians in Bonn, were damaging West Germany's reputation. Some Americans suspected the plotting of militarist resurgence, though Germans were hardly able to even if they had wanted.Footnote 102 Others appealed for the opposite. In January 1951, with the Korean War raging and the Soviets about to launch a propaganda action, McCloy explained to Adenauer and Hallstein that ‘in Germany the spirit of resolve must be much more strongly expressed’. He emphasised how the German government and public would appear to American counterparts. An ‘energetic attitude’ had to be encouraged. If any country had a ‘European task, it is Germany’. Moreover, ‘Korea is comparable with Germany, and the average American asks: should we send our boys to Germany, if Germany or Western Europe restricts itself to criticism and shows no preparedness to cooperate positively in the defense of the world?’Footnote 103 McCloy gave instructions on how to present this in the media and on difficulties that might be posed. The United States should avoid any impression of pushing the Germans against their will or of pleading for a contribution from them.Footnote 104

Formal institutionalisation of West Germany's military commitment was affirmed when it joined NATO in 1955. The preceding years had seen the ‘gradual formation of a more positive image of Germany’ in which US stereotypes about ‘German “assets” – industriousness, thrift, scientific talent and technical efficiency – were reactivated and gradually eclipsed the image of the Third Reich’.Footnote 105 The political establishment capitalised on these sentiments but remained acutely conscious of how controversies could be perceived. There was scepticism about ‘intellectual Germany’, which had failed in the 1930s. Nazi Germany lived on in American popular culture, where it reinforced a virtuous US counterpoint and a wave of journalistic and scholarly treatments. This ‘other’ ‘became a mirror in which the democratic development of the Federal Republic was sharply scrutinised’.Footnote 106 The reaction to an alarming anti-semitic outbreak in Cologne and other places in 1959 revealed ‘a latent anti-Germanism’ in ‘broad and influential sections of the American population’. Although Adenauer ‘symbolised and embodied’ a conception of Germany that had changed majority American attitudes, ‘under the surface there still lay (understandably enough) a certain mistrust, that is easy to awaken’.

Even insignificant things can cause Americans to ask earnestly: have the Germans really learnt from their history? Have they really changed? Would they today, under difficult economic and political circumstances, prevent criminals coming to power like in 1933?Footnote 107

Securing the ‘newly won friendship of the American people’ was the ‘chief task’ of the Atlantic Bridge (Atlantik-Brücke), established by founders of the newspaper, Die Zeit, Ernst Friedlaender, Marion Dönhoff, and others in 1952. Apart from its publications, ‘Meet Germany’ and ‘The Bridge’, this ‘small, prestigious association of important personalities’ targeted ‘Americans in key positions, who belong to the policy and opinion shaping leadership strata’.Footnote 108 Decades of surveys were conducted on the ‘Deutschlandbild of American opinion formers and multipliers’.Footnote 109 Legally a private organisation, the Atlantik-Brücke had many politicians as members. Critics later asserted that it became more of a business interest group than a forum for understanding among nations. Sustaining belief in a reformed and trustworthy Germany also required the presence of a flourishing private media. In May 1960 Die Zeit launched a North America edition declaring that, conscious of the past, present and future of its ‘own people’, it had transmitted to foreigners an accurate picture of a country that had risen from a political and economic nadir.Footnote 110 At the end of the decade a US National Intelligence Estimate declared that ‘despite lingering but latent resentment in Western Europe’ and ‘uneasiness over German economic power, Germany is a respected and trusted member of the Atlantic Community’.Footnote 111 By the mid-1970s in the United States the main German stereotype was not that of a dangerous recidivist but a Lederhosen-clad beer drinker. The typical German was a Bavarian. Americans had not arrived at this view alone. The German tourist bureau endorsed romanticised ideas held in foreign countries where ‘Germany has something fairy-tale about it’. And so it was marketed in the United States as a ‘Fairytale Country’.Footnote 112

In contrast to these harmless clichés, the spectre of recidivism was intermittently reanimated. In September 1977, for example, Brandt wrote to Schmidt about neo-Nazi activity, which a Los Angeles newspaper had linked to the ‘Kappler case’. Herbert Kappler was an SS officer responsible for wartime atrocities in Italy. While serving a life sentence he was moved to a hospital. He escaped to West Germany, which refused to extradite him on grounds of terminal cancer. An unnamed Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands; SPD) politician was cited saying that ‘although it's probably understandable that some Germans no longer feel the need to atone for the past after 30 years’, the apparent indifference towards Kappler's wartime killing of hostages, ‘worries me’.Footnote 113 In the same year the television series ‘Holocaust’ generated enormous interest.Footnote 114 German officials had interpreted that it would be a signal example of television's power. Their strategy was ‘to continue forward patiently and persistently as in our previous public relations work and to show’ that West Germany ‘is a different state to the “Third Reich”; we are conscious of the injustices carried out in Germany's name; we have drawn the moral and political consequences from that; everything will be done to avoid any regression to an oppressive state’. The Washington embassy informed that the series was ‘neither completely “facts” or “fiction”, rather, “faction”’. It would be ‘an historic television event’.Footnote 115 The Foreign Ministry asked for academic studies on the theme. Growing interest led to more funding for schools and universities. Among the correspondence received by German diplomatic representations and newspapers in the United States,Footnote 116 some questioned a lack of differentiation between Germans and Nazis. One writer argued that West Germany had made ‘a historically unique moral effort . . . to make voluntary restitution payments of billions of marks to individual victims of persecution and even to a state (i.e. Israel) which did not exist as [sic] the time of the crimes’.Footnote 117 Several months later the Foreign Ministry summarised that up to 70 million people had seen the series and that ‘as far as can be evaluated to this point, it has not had the negative effects on the Deutschlandbild that were first feared’. On ‘potential long-term effects’, nothing could yet be determined.Footnote 118 These events presaged the Historikerstreit, a dispute about the German past that was to consume West German historians, the German media and politicians, almost a decade later.Footnote 119

Meanwhile the global standing of West Germany had continued to rise. Chancellor Schmidt sensed and personally expressed a growing West German self-confidence. Chancellor and public believed that West Germany had demonstrated itself as deserving of due recognition. Schmidt chaired the 1978 G7 summit in Bonn, which received ‘a remarkable international echo’, attributed to the ‘impressive leadership style of the host’. Federal Press Agency files recorded that ‘the two losers of the war’, West Germany and Japan, ‘whose historical embarrassment had hindered that their influence in politics could correspond to their economic strength, have entered the trio of the most powerful’. ‘After a long probationary period’, West Germany had joined the ‘leadership of the world system of industrial democracies’. Schmidt had ‘made this summit a German–American instead of an American–German affair’.Footnote 120 In May 1979 the Pittsburgh Press declared that West Germany had ‘grown into a vibrant, prosperous and stable democracy that is admired, or at least respected, around the world’. It had been very successful ‘in distancing itself from the Hitler era’.Footnote 121 The bilateral relationship was no longer a tutelage arrangement.

Conclusion

For the first three decades of its existence how West Germany was perceived internationally was as important as what it actually did. A modus vivendi was achieved relatively quickly with the United States, where a lack of resistance against the occupation had ‘decisively helped to improve the image of the conquered foe’.Footnote 122 Public relations organs reiterated alliance loyalty. As industry recovered, quality goods enabled West Germany to develop as an economic power. This lent a measure of independence and provided funding for other tasks, like Foreign Cultural Policy. Ostpolitik placated inter-German confrontation and the communist bloc could not plausibly deny West Germany's economic and lifestyle superiority. Now more than ‘occidentalism’ justified its place in the ‘community of civilized nations’.Footnote 123

In October 1977 an inter-ministerial committee concluded that ‘there was no unified Deutschlandbild in the world’ and ‘even within particularly critical countries’, Deutschlandbilder varied according to whether they were those of ‘intellectuals, politicians of certain ideologies, nationalists, older or younger people, business people, people from the provinces or the capital’. There was, however, a ‘latent mood’ and for ‘many countries and many people, German-hatred would accompany us for a long time, perhaps generations’. Opinion shapers could potentially manipulate publics and ‘again enliven’ a ‘fear of the Germans’. In Eastern Europe there was an ‘official’ Deutschlandbild with ‘no public opinion’. In Western Europe the most critical voices were in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, France and Italy. Elsewhere ‘West Germany’ generated positive responses.Footnote 124 In February 1978 an official responded to a detractor of the Foreign Ministry's performance that ‘despite certain reservations . . . Germany's reputation is now of a comparably very high rank’. Even in critical countries, the Deutschlandbild was ‘far better than its reputation here at home’.Footnote 125

The remaking of Germany's image and reputation was an intergenerational process that required a confronting of the past in political, practical, financial and symbolic dimensions. It involved communicating culture and building non-state relationships, often funded by the state. PresidentsFootnote 126 and Chancellors, football teams,Footnote 127 the economy, iconic products, political system and civil society shaped the Deutschlandbild. A credible projection enhanced the material, civil and normative bases of state and societal development. These vectors contributed to West Germany's global status. A plausible counterfactual is that, regardless of other achievements, German reunification would not have happened if West Germany had not attained normative approval. The end of the Cold War could have been different.

Footnotes

The author thanks the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for valuable assistance.

1 Vogel, Walter, ‘Deutschland, Europa und die Umgestaltung der amerikanischen Sicherheitspolitik 1945–1949’ Vierteljahresheft für Zeitgeschichte, 19, 1 (1971), 64–82; Deighton, Anne, The Impossible Peace: Britain, the Division of Germany, and the Origins of the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); Leffler, Mervyn, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, The Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1992); Heuser, Beatrice, ‘Keystone in the Division of Europe: Germany in the Cold War’, Contemporary European History, 1, 3 (1992), 323–33; Schmidt, Gustav, ‘Divided Europe – Divided Germany (1950–63), Contemporary European History, 3, 2 (1994), 155–92; Larson, Deborah, ‘The Origins of Commitment: Truman and West Berlin’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 13, 2 (2011), 180–212.

2 Adler-Nissen, Rebecca, ‘Stigma Management in International Relations: Transgressive Identities, Norms and Order in International Society’, International Organization, 68, 1 (2014), 143–76; Dirk Moses, A., ‘Stigma and Sacrifice in the Federal Republic of Germany’, History and Memory, 19, 2 (2007), 139–80; Wolf, Reinhard, ‘Respekt: Ein Unterschätzter Faktor in den Internationalen Beziehungen’, Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 15, 1 (2008), 5–42; Gassert, Philipp and Steinweis, Alan, eds., Coping with the Nazi Past: West German Debates on Nazism and Generational Conflict, 1955–1975 (New York: Berghahn, 2006).

3 Now represented, for the non-communist world, by West Germany.

4 Holsti, Ole, ‘The Belief System and National Images: A Case Study’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 6, 2 (1962), 244–63.

5 Schelling, Thomas, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966); Amstutz, Mark, International Ethics 4th ed. (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013).

6 Allied Commission for Austria – British Element, ‘Publicity Campaign and Prestige in Austria’, 1 Jan. 1948, FO 1020/121, National Archives (NA), London; ‘Action in Respect of Attacks by the Communist Press on Allied Prestige and Security’, July 1950, FO 1060/381, NA; ‘Overseas Information Services: Report of the Drogheda Committee’, 13 Nov. 1953, CAB/129/64, NA; ‘The Impact of Sputnik I: Case Study of American Public Opinion at the Break of the Space Age’, (NASA: Washington, 1963); Herrmann, Richard, ‘Analyzing Soviet Images of the United States: A Psychological Theory and Empirical Study’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 29, 4 (1985), 665–97; Ringmar, Erik, ‘The Recognition Game: Soviet Russia against the West’, Cooperation and Conflict, 37, 2 (2002), 115–36.

7 Jackson, Patrick, Civilizing the Enemy: German Reconstruction and the Invention of the West (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006); See also Schumacher, Frank, Kalter Krieg und Propaganda: Die USA, der Kampf um die Weltmeinung und die ideelle Westbindung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1945–1955 (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2000).

8 See Glees, Anthony, Reinventing Germany: German Political Development Since 1945 (Oxford: Berg, 1996).

9 Hughes, Michael, ‘Restititution and Democracy in Germany after the Two World Wars’, Contemporary European History 4, 1 (1995), 1–18, suggests that West Germans were more concerned with the outcomes rather than values of a political system. The post–1952 Lastenausgleich (compensation for wartime property loss) contributed to the development of liberal democratic values.

10 ‘Nation branding’ is a term that first appeared in the 1990s, usually attributed to Simon Anholt. See Anholt, Simon, ‘Nation-Brands of the Twenty-First Century’ Journal of Brand Management, 5, 6 (1998), 395–406; Melissen, Jan, ed., The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2005); van Ham, Peter, ‘Place Branding: The State of the Art’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616, March, (2008), 126–49; GFK-Roper, Anholt/GFK-Roper Nation Brand Index (New York: GFK-Roper, 2012); Browning, Christopher, ‘Nation Branding, National Self-Esteem, and the Constitution of Subjectivitity in Late Modernity’, Foreign Policy Analysis, 11, 2 (2015), 195–214. Studies on Germany include Gienow-Hecht, Jessica, ‘Nation Branding’, in Düffler, Jost and Loth, Wilfried, eds., Dimensionen internationale Geschichte (Oldenbourg: Wissenschaftsverlag 2012), 65–84; Zöllner, Oliver, ‘German Public Diplomacy: The Dialogue of Cultures’, in Snow, Nancy and Taylor, Philip, eds., Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (New York: Routledge 2009), 262–9; Hülße, Rainer, ‘The Catwalk Power: Germany's New Foreign Policy Image’, Journal of International Relations and Development, 12, 2 (2009), 293–316; Wood, Steve, ‘Rebranding the Nation: Germany's Image Politics’, International Politics, 54, 2 (2017), 161–81.

11 Ernst Friedlaender, ‘Deutschland: unbeliebtes Volk Nr.1’, Die Zeit, 13 Jan. 1949, 1. All translations are by the author unless otherwise noted.

12 A huge literature has examined many tangents and undercurrents. A brief selection includes, Maier, Charles, The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1988); von Bredow, Wilfried, Tückische Geschichte: Kollektive Erinnerung an den Holocaust (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1996); Markovits, Andrei and Reich, Simon, The German Predicament: Memory and Power in the New Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997); Dirk Moses, A., German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

13 Marion Dönhoff, ‘Was das deutsche Volk über Politik denkt’, Die Zeit, 2 Feb. 1950; Weidenfeld, Werner, ed., Die Identität der Deutschen (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1983).

14 Frei, Norbert, ed., Karrieren im Zwielicht (Frankfurt: Campus, 2001); Jonathan Wiesen, S., The West German Industry and the Challenge of the Nazi Past, 1945–1955 (London: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). See also the revelatory report on employment of persons with a Nazi past presented to the German parliament. Deutscher Bundestag, 17. Wahlperiode, Umgang mit der NS-Vergangenheit Drucksache 17/8134, 14 Dec. 2011. East German and Soviet propaganda did not mention former Nazis in their own systems.

15 See Gassert and Steinweis, eds., Coping with the Nazi Past.

16 Koch-Hillebrecht, Manfred, Das Deutschenbild: Gegenwart, Geschichte, Psychologie (München: Beck, 1977); Roth, Rainer, Was ist typisch Deutsch? Image und Selbstverständnis der Deutschen (Freiburg: Ploetz, 1979); Ilio Tognoni und Roth, Rainer, eds., Deutschland im Blickpunkt: Die Bundesrepublik aus der Sicht prominente Europäer (München: Landeszentrale für politische Bildungsarbeit, 1977); Craig, Gordon, Über die Deutschen (München: Beck, 1983).

17 Merkl, Peter, Origins of the West German Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963); Udo Wengst detailed, inter alia, the reappearance of former Nazi Party members, and/or persons employed in the Nazi state apparatus, as administrative personnel of the new West German state. See Wengst, Staatsaufbau und Regierungspraxis 1948–1953: Zur Geschichte der Verfassungsorgane der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1984).

18 Granieri, Ronald, The Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, the CDU/CSU, and the West, 1949–1966 (Berghahn: New York, 2003), 32; Gunther Hellmann, ‘A Status-Conscious Germany between Adolescence and Retirement: Foreign Policy Commemorations on the 60th Anniversary of the Federal Republic’, AICGS Transatlantic Perspectives, Johns Hopkins University 2009; Schwartz, Hans-Peter, Adenauer: Der Aufstieg, 1867–1952 (Stuttgart: DVA, 1986).

19 Adenauer was also West Germany's first foreign minister. Singer, Otto, Auswärtige Kulturpolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Konzeptionalle Grundlagen und institutionelle Entwicklung seit 1945 (Berlin: Wissenschaftliche Dienste des Deutschen Bundestages, 2003), 6–7.

20 Usually translated as Öffentlichkeitsarbeit. ‘Deutsche Werbung im Ausland; Unterrichtung des Auslandes über die Bundesrepublik Deutschland; Öffentlichkeitsarbeit der Bundesregierung’; ‘Planung und Grundsatzfragen der publizistischen Arbeit im Ausland, Laufzeit 1952–1972’; ‘Amerikanische Public Relations-Firmen, Laufzeit 1951–1972’; ‘Public Relations für die Bundesrepublik in den USA’. B 145, Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive, Koblenz, BA); Osgood, Kenneth, ‘Hearts and Minds: The Unconventional Cold War’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 4, 2 (2002), 85–107; Yarrow, Andrew, ‘Selling a New Vision of America to the World: Changing Messages in Early Cold War Print Propaganda’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 11, 4, (2009), 3–45; Clymer, Kenton, ‘The Ground Observer Corps: Public Relations and the Cold War in the 1950s’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 15, 1 (2013), 34–53.

21 Especially in security issues, including alternative European structures and the actual or potential effects on public opinion in Germany and elsewhere. For example, ‘Außenministerkonferenz in Paris’ 16 Nov. 1951, 620–4; ‘Aufzeichnung des Ministerialdirektors Blankenhorn’ 9 Sept. 1953, 787–91; ‘Runderlaß des Staatssekretärs Hallstein’, 17 Sept. 1953, 811–2. Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (AAP) (München: Oldenbourg).

22 Felix von Eckardt, ‘Vorstellung des neuen Bundespressechefs’ Pressekonferenz 14 Feb. 1952, at http://www.kas.de/upload/ACDP/eckardt/eckardt_pk.pdf. Ostensibly this press conference was on the ‘Stalin note’, which had just been delivered. See also ‘Die hellgraue Eminenz’, Der Spiegel, 6 Feb. 1957, 13–20; Beucke, Stefan, Meiring, Jochen and Russ, Maximilien, ‘Konrad Adenauer’, in Birkner, Thomas, ed., Medienkanzler: Politische Kommunikation in der Kanzlerdemokratie (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2016), 45–74.

23 Conant (HICOG), Bonn, to State Department, Sept. 8, 1953, 762A.00/9–853: Telegram, FRUS 1952–1954, Vol. VII, Part 1, Germany and Austria, Document 221. See Buchwald, Frank, Adenauers Informationspolitik und das Bundespresseamt. Strategien amtlicher Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit in der Kanzlerdemokratie (Mainz: Univ. Diss., 1991); Matthieß Weis, ‘Journalisten: Worte als Taten’ in Frei, ed., Karrieren im Zwielicht, 241–99; Düffler, Jost, ‘The Adenauer Era – Anxieties and Traumas of Violence in the Postwar Period’, German Politics and Society 25, 2 (2007), 1–6. Some years later government excess in the ‘Spiegel affair’ catalysed a more robust public sphere.

24 Karl Friedrich, ‘Es geht nicht ohne Public Relations’, Die Zeit, 27 Mar. 1958, 17.

25 ‘Wie man Wähler gewinnt’, Der Spiegel, 11 Sept. 1957, 13–33.

26 ‘Öffentlichkeitsarbeit in Grossbritannien’, report to AA Referat 993, 8 Feb 1961, B 145/1277, Bd. III ‘Public Relations - Arbeit in Großbritannien’, 1 Jan. 1959–Dec. 1961, BA.

27 ‘Meinungsumfragen von Allensbach und Emnid zu Themen der Außenpolitik, Einstellung der Bevölkerung zur Regierung, Image von Politikern und gesellschaftspolitischen Fragen’. B 136, Bundeskanzleramt, BA; Peter Hoeres, ‘Abwehr und Aneignung der Demoskopie im intellektuellen Diskurs der frühen Bundesrepublik’, in Kersting, Franz-Werner, Reulecke, Jürgen and Thamer, Hans-Ulrich, eds., Die zweite Gründung der Bundesrepublik: Generationswechsel und intellektuelle Wortergreifungen 1955–1975 (Stuttgart: Stein Gesellschaft, 2009), 69–84.

28 Kruke, Anja, ‘Western Integration vs. Reunification? Analyzing the Polls of the 1950s’, German Politics and Society, 25, 2 (2007), 43–67.

29 ‘Fragebogenaktion über das Bild der Deutschen im Ausland’ and ‘Fragebogen zu “Maßnahmen im Rahmen der politischen Öffentlichkeitsarbeit” bei den deutschen Vertretungen im Ausland’, B 145/3242, 1962–1964, BA.

30 B 145/1277, Bd. I ‘Deutschlandkarte’, BA.

31 A diplomatic communique from the Soviet leadership to the Western allies, the Stalin Note was an attempt to weaken West Germany's integration into the US-led bloc by offering unification with East Germany in exchange for the neutrality of the whole. See Wettig, Gerhard, ‘Stalin – Patriot oder Demokrat für Deutschland?’, Deutschland Archiv, 28, 7 (1995), 743–8; Zarusky, Jürgen, ed., Die Stalin-Note vom 10. März 1952: Neue Quellen und Analysen (München: Oldenbourg, 2002); Ruggenthaler, Peter, ‘The 1952 Stalin Note on German Reunification: The Ongoing Debate’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 13, 4 (2011), 172–212.

32 B 145/1277, Bd. I ‘Deutschlandkarte’, BA. Gittelson of Roy Bernard to von den Bussche, West German Embassy, New York, 18 July 1955; Gittelson to Jaenicke, PIA, 11 October 1955. The map displayed a United States under Canadian, Soviet, South American, Mexican and South African administration.

33 ‘Werbeaktion für die Wiedervereinigung mit einer Karte des geteilten Deutschland’, 1960–63, B145/3242, BA.

34 Hoeres, Peter, Außenpolitik und Öffentlichkeit: Massenmedien, Meinungsforschung und Arkanpolitik in den deutsch-amerikanischen Beziehungen von Erhard bis Brandt (München: Oldenbourg, 2013); Hoeres, Peter, ‘Außenpolitik, Öffentlichkeit, öffentliche Meinung: Deutsche Streitfälle in den “langen 1960er Jahren”’, Historische Zeitschrift, 291 (2010), 689–720.

35 ‘Overseas Information Services: Report of the Drogheda Committee’, 82; ‘Records of German Educational Reconstruction’, GER/1 to GER/11, 1943-1958, University of London. See Hearnden, Arthur, ed., The British in Germany: Educational Reconstruction after 1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978); Welch, David, ‘Citizenship and Politics: The Legacy of Wilton Park for Post-War Reconstruction’, Contemporary European History, 6, 2 (1997), 209–18.

36 Michael Davie, ‘Wie die Engländer die Deutschen sehen’, Die Zeit, 17 May 1956, 3.

37 Günther, Frieder, Heuss auf Reisen: Die auswärtige Representation der Bundesrepublik durch den ersten Bundespraisidenten (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2006), 148–60.

38 Rudolf Leonhardt, ‘England und wir’, Die Zeit, 30 Oct. 1958.

39 Memo, Pr. 304-82, 5 Feb. 1959, B 145/1277, Bd. III ‘Großbritannien’, BA.

40 West German Embassy London, 22 June 1960, B 145/1277, Bd. III ‘Großbritannien’, BA.

41 Von Etzdorf, AA, to Diehl, PIA, 2 July 1960; German Embassy, London, Nov. 1960. B 145/1277, Bd. III ‘Großbritannien’, BA.

42 PIA to AA, Referat 993, 8 Feb. 1961, B 145/1277, Bd. III ‘Großbritannien’, BA. A British image complex of the Germans comprising indifference, pragmatism, distrust and admiration is portrayed by Johnston, Walter in ‘Das Deutschlandbild der Briten’, Dokumente, 10 (1954), 361–70.

43 Uhlig to Best, PIA, 20 May 1960; Uhlig to PIA, 22 Nov. 1960. ‘“Zu Gast in Bonn” and “Zu Besuch in Bonn”, films ‘on the international prestige of the Federal Chancellor’, by Deutsche Wochenschau Gmbh Hamburg. B 145/1459 (AZ 824-269) 1960-64, BA.

44 ‘Berlin: Die Stadt um die es geht’ by Heinz Grothe. B 145/1459, Dec. 1960; B 145/1489, BA.

45 Produced by Sjöberg, directed by Erwin Leiser, and released in 1960 as ‘Den blodiga tiden’. Released as ‘Mein Kampf’ in the USA in 1961.

46 Baron, BMI, on ‘Weitere Filme des Produzenten von “Mein Kampf”, u.a. “Das Urteil”’, 9 Aug. 1961. ‘“Das Urteil” u.a. Film’, Referat III 5. ‘Das deutsche Ansehen im Ausland schädigende Filme, Hetzfilme und ähnl.-Einzelfälle’, B 106/903 (AZ 35708) 1961, BA. Emphasis in original underlined.

47 ‘Vorgehen des BMI gegen den Film “Mein Kampf”’, 14 Aug. 1961, Transit Filmvertrieb to BMI, 6 Sept. 1961. B 106/903 (AZ 35708) 1961, BA.

48 ‘Vorgehen des BMI gegen den Film “Mein Kampf”’, 14 Aug. 1961, Transit Filmvertrieb to BMI, 6 Sept. 1961. Emphasis in original (underlined by hand). B 106/903 (AZ 35708), BA. A similar attempt to restrict broadcasting in cinemas or on television had occurred in response to the 1956 Alain Renais film on the theme of Nazi death camps, Nuit et Brouillard, or Night and Fog in English and Nacht und Nebel in German. The West German government had been successful in having it banned for general audiences at the Cannes film festival in 1956. It was not officially banned in West Germany. However, the PIA owned the rights and was selective about who it lent copies of the film to, particularly because this period coincided with controversy about West German rearmament. The film was also controversial in France because some scenes implicated French police as collaborators. See van der Knaap, Ewout, ‘“ Nacht und Nebel”: Gedächtnis des Holocaust und internationale Wirkungsgeschichte (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008); ‘“Nacht und Nebel” (Nuit et brouillard) – Ausstrahlung im deutschen Fernsehen’, B145/209, 965-08, BA.

49 West German embassy Washington to AA, 27 Sept. 1961, B 106/903 (AZ 35708), BA.

50 Etheridge, Brian, ‘Die anti-deutsche Welle: The Anti-German Wave, Public Diplomacy, and Intercultural Relations in Cold War America’, in Gienow-Hecht, Jessica, ed., Decentering America (New York: Berghahn, 2007), 73–108; Moeller, Robert, ‘How to Judge Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg’, German History, 31, 4 (2013), 497–522; Harry Golden, ‘Nazi War Crimes Film Controversial in Berlin’, The Miami News, 20 Dec. 1961, 6B.

51 ‘Milderes Klima’, Der Spiegel, 18 Feb. 1953, 6-8.

52 ‘Besuche von Personlichkeiten des politischen Bereiches aus Fremdenlandern in die Bundesrepublik’, Zw.-Archive 102883 [240-321-36], Political Archive of the Foreign Ministry (hereafter PA).

53 Report by the West German Embassy in Colombo ‘re: visit by Parliamentarian’, 20 May 1975, and following reports in June from hosts in Munich, Hamburg and Bonn. Zw.-Archive 102883 [240-321-36] ‘Besuche von Personlichkeiten des politischen Bereiches aus Fremdenlandern in die Bundesrepublik 1974–75’, PA.

54 Note from the West German embassy in Thailand on a ‘visit of Thai Ministry of Finance officials (tobacco/alchohol division)’, 9 June 1975. Zw.-Archive 102883 [240-321-36], PA.

55 Memo from West German embassy Haiti re: ‘visit of Rektor Uni d'Etat d'Haiti’, 23 July 1975. Zw.-Archive 102883 (240-321-36), PA.

56 ‘PIA to AA re: ‘Visit of the Foreign Minister Abdul Halim Khaddam’, 25 Apr. 1975. Zw.-Archive 102883 (240-321-36), PA.

57 Letter from South African Secretary for Commerce G. Steyn to the West German embassy, Pretoria, 14 Nov. 1974; Memo from the West German embassy Pretoria to PIA, 7 Jan. 1975. Zw.-Archive 102883 (240-321-36), PA.

58 Memo 414-496.01 GR1 ‘Visit of the Greek Prime Minister Karamanlis, “Sachstand”’, 29 Apr. 1975; Message from West Germany's Athens embassy to the PIA ‘re: a visit by Jokob Kampanellis’, 21 May 1975. Zw.-Archive 102883 (240-321-36), PA. Mauthausen is in present day Austria.

59 West German Generalkonsulat Atlanta to AA re: ‘Invitation to Mayor Maynard Jackson to visit the FRG’, 11 Juni 1975. Zw.-Archive 102883 (240-321-36), PA.

60 West German Generalkonsulat Atlanta to AA and BPA, ‘Germany visit of the governor of the state of Georgia, George Busbee, in the FRG from 21–24 August 1975’, 1 Aug. 1975. Zw.-Archive 102883 (240-321-36), PA.

61 West German General Consulate Sydney to AA on ‘fact finding’ visits by ‘self-funded’ Australian parliamentarians, 2 Apr. 1975. Zw.-Archive 102883 (240-321-36), PA.

62 Glaser, Herman, Kulturgeschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (München: Hanser, 1985–89).

63 ‘Aufzeichnung des Legationsrats I. Klasse Salat’, 9 May 1951, Β 90, 145, PA.

64 B 90 KA, 430; B 96, PA. See Düwell, Kurt, Deutschlands auswärtige Kulturpolitik 1918–1932: Grundlinien und Dokumente (Köln: Böhlau, 1976).

65 Arnold, Hans, Kulturexport als Politik? Aspekte deutscher auswärtiger Politik (Tübingen: Erdmann, 1976); Arnold, Hans, Foreign Cultural Policy: A Survey from a German Point of View, Tübingen: Erdmann, 1979); Hoffmann, Hilmar and Maaß, Kurt-Jürgen, eds., Freunde oder Fratze? Das Bild von Deutschland in der Welt und die Aufgaben der Kulturpolitik (Frankfurt: Campus, 1994); Schulte, Karl-Sebastian, Auswärtige Kulturpolitik im politischen System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Konzeptionsgehalt, Organisationsprinzipien und Strukturneuralgien eines atypischen Politikfeldes am Ende der 13. Legislaturperiode (Berlin: VWF, 2000); Singer, Auswärtige Kulturpolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland; Maaß, Kurt-Jürgen, ed., Kultur- und Außenpolitik: Handbuch für Studium und Praxis (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2005); Kathe, Steffen, Kulturpolitik um jeden Preis: Die Geschichte des Goethe-Instituts von 1951 bis 1990 (München: Meidenbauer, 2005); Gienow-Hecht, Jessica and Donfried, Mark, eds., Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy (New York: Berghahn, 2010); Denscheilmann, Heike, Deutschlandbilder: Ausstellungen im Auftrag Auswärtige Kulturpolitik (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2013); Barbian, Nikolaus, Auswärtige Kulturpolitik und “Auslandsdeutsche” in Lateinamerika 1949–1973 (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2014).

66 The Grundgesetz, translated as ‘Basic Law’, functioned as a provisional constitution for West Germany from 1949. It is, with amendments, operating for the reunified Federal Republic of Germany.

67 ‘Aufzeichnung des Legationsrats I. Klasse Salat’ on ‘Kulturreferenten an deutschen Auslandsvertretungen’, 2 Nov. 1951, 584-585. Β 90, 145, PA. The UK Foreign Office monitored the venture. ‘Campaign to restore German influence and prestige abroad’, FO 924/1055, CR L1181/3, 1953-1954, NA.

68 Paulmann, Johannes, ‘Representation without Emulation: German Cultural Diplomacy in Search of Integration and Self-Assurance during the Adenauer Era’, German Politics and Society 25, 2 (2007), 168–200.

69 Thilo Koch, ‘Goethe in New York’, Die Zeit 17 Feb. 1961. A ‘cultural agreement’ was signed in 1953. ‘Gesandschaftsrat I. Klasse Federer an das Auswärtiges Amt’ 15 Apr. 1953, 345–7 AAP 1953. The first Goethe Institut in the United States did not open until 1967, in Boston.

70 ‘Regierungserklärung des Bundeskanzlers’, 10 Nov. 1965.

71 Arnold, Foreign Cultural Policy, 17.

72 Lammers, Karl, ‘Glücksfall Bundesrepublik: New Germany and the 1960s’, Contemporary European History, 17, 1 (2008), 127–34; Brown, Timothy, West Germany and the Global Sixties: The Antiauthoritarian Revolt 1962–1978 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

73 Dahrendorf, Ralf, Gesellschaft und Demokratie in Deutschland (München: Piper, 1965).

74 ‘Leitsätze für die Auswärtige Kulturpolitik’ (Bonn: Auswärtiges Amt, 1970).

75 von Hodenberg, Christina, ‘West Germany's Long Sixties and the Formation of a Critical Public Sphere’, Contemporary European History 15, 3 (2006), 367–95; Brown, West Germany and the Global Sixties; Merseberger, Peter, Willy Brandt 1913–1992: Visonär und Realist (Stuttgart: DVA, 2002).

76 ‘Leitsätze’, 14–5.

77 Jansen, Christian, Exzellenz Weltweit: Die Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung zwischen Wissenschaftsförderung und auswärtiger Kulturpolitik (Köln: DuMont, 2004), 44–5.

78 Pilgert, Henry, The Exchange of Persons Program in Western Germany (Petersberg: Office of the US High Commissioner for Germany, 1951); Kellerman, Henry, Cultural Relations as an Instrument of US Foreign Policy: The Educational Exchange Program between the United States and Germany 1945–1954 (Washington: Department of State, 1978); Scott-Smith, Giles, ‘Mapping the Undefinable: Some Thoughts on the Relevance of Exchange Programs with International Relations Theory’, Annals of the American Academy of Political Science 616, Mar. (2008), 173–95.

79 ‘Auswärtige Kulturpolitik: Woanders mehr’, Der Spiegel, 19 Sept.1966, 48–9.

80 ‘60 Jahre Goethe-Institut’ (München: Goethe Institut) at http://www.goethe.de/prs/pro/pressemappe60/Geschichte%20des%20Goethe-Instituts.pdf. See Kathe, Kulturpolitik um jeden Preis; Michels, Eckard, Von der Deutschen Akademie zum Goethe-Institut: Sprach- und auswärtige Kulturpolitik 1923–1960 (München: Oldenbourg, 2005).

81 Bericht der Enquete-Kommission Auswärtige Kulturpolitik gemaß Beschluß des Deutschen Bundestages vom 23. Februar 1973 – Drucksache 7/215, Deutscher Bundestag 7. Wahlperiode Drucksache 7/4121, 7 Oct. 1975, 9.

82 Stellungnahme der Bundesregierung zu dem Bericht der Enquete-Kommission “Auswärtige Kulturpolitik” des Deutschen Bundestages (Drucksache 7/4121), Drucksache 8/927, 23 Sept. 1977, 5.

83 See Schwabe, Klaus, ‘Franco-US Relations and the Gaullist Legacy’, Contemporary European History, 7, 1 (1998), 133–9.

84 Sheetz, Mark, ‘France and the German Question: Avant Guard or Rear Guard? Comment on Creswell and Trachtenberg’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 5, 3 (2003), 37–45.

85 Wallner, Associate Chief, Division of Western European Affairs, to Bonbright, Counselor, US Embassy in France, ‘French Desk File: Lot 53 D 246: File “Germany”’, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1948, Vol. II, Germany and Austria, 29.

86 ‘Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Adenauer mit dem amerikanischen Hohen Kommissar McCloy’, 2 Jan. 1951, AAP 1951, 3–10.

87 Minister, Wehrkreis, national. ‘Aufzeichnung des Generalleutnants a.D. Speidel’, Paris, 13 Nov. 1951, AAP 1951, 613–6.

88 Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste, ‘German-Franco Relations since 1945’, Review of Politics, 14, 4 (1952), 501–19; ‘Deutschland: noch immer der Erbfeind? Ergebnisse einer Enquête in Frankreich’, Die politische Meinung, 1, 3 (1956), 73–82.

89 Josef Müller-Marein, ‘Falsches Deutschland-Bild’, Die Zeit, 13 Feb. 1959, 5.

90 Bundesgesetzblatt, 1963, II, 705-10, PA. See also, FRUS Vol. XLI Western Europe; NATO, 1969–1972, 458–9; Trachtenberg, Marc, ‘The de Gaulle Problem’ Journal of Cold War Studies, 14, 1 (2012), 81–92.

91 ‘Nachrichtenspiegel/Inland II’, citing the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, General Anzeiger (Bonn) and the Stuttgarter Zeitung, 5 Feb. 1975, Zw-Archiv 106.515, PA. See ‘Memorandum of a Conversation’ Paris, 1 Mar. 1969 and ‘Minutes of a National Security Meeting’ Washington, 23 Feb. 1970, FRUS Vol. XLI Western Europe; NATO, 1969–1972, 445–447 and 502.

92 Wilhelm Hausenstein was the first West German ambassador to France and an author with some resonance there. See Maurice Nadeau, ‘Was wir von deutschen Schriftsteller halten’, Die Zeit, 24 Mar. 1955, 6.

93 Bölling, 4 Oct. 1977, ‘Pressestimmen Deutschlandbild’, Bd. 5 1977, Zw-Archiv 106483, PA.

94 ‘Errichtung ein deutschen info Zentrums in Paris’, Referat 211 VLR 1, Dr Zeller, 2212, 17 Oct. 1977. ‘Pressestimmen Deutschlandbild’, Bd. 5 1977, Zw-Archive 106483, PA.

95 Referring to ‘Hitler: Ein Film aus Deutschland’ directed by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg. Hans-Martin Schleyer was President of the Federation of German Industry (BDI), kidnapped and killed by the Rote Armee Fraktion. On Kappler see the main text above.

96 West German embassy Paris to AA, Report 2667/77, ‘Deutschlandbild im französischen Fernsehen; hier Erstes Halbjahr 1977’, 26 Sept. 1977, and Report 2670/77, ‘Deutschlandbild in Frankreich’, 27 Sept. 1977. ZA 108445, Bd. 44, 1973-1978 ‘Generalia – Reinicke Verlag, Deutschlandbild – BK-Rede zur VN’, PA.

97 Theo Kroj to the West German Paris Embassy, 13 June 1978. ZA 108445 Bd. 44, 1973–1978 ‘Generalia’, PA.

98 AA to PIA ‘Dbild im fr. Fernsehen – Bezug: Bericht der Bot Paris 11.8.1978 Pr 312.33 Nr 2308’, 1 Sept. 1978. PIA to AA, 45 105/2 FRA, 7 Sept. 1978. ZA 108445 Bd. 44, 1973–1978, ‘Generalia’, PA.

99 See Loth, Wilfried, ‘Französische Deutschlandbilder nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in Grunewald, Michel and Schlobach, Jochen, eds., Médiations/Vermittlungen. Aspekte der deutsch-französischen Beziehungen vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1992), 343–53; Kolboom, Ingo, Vom geteilten zum vereinten Deutschland: Deutschland-Bilder in Frankreich (Bonn: DGAP, 1991).

100 ‘Gespräch des Bundesministers Erhard mit den Hohen Kommissaren François-Poncet, Kirkpatrick und McCloy’, 24 Oct. 1951, AAP 1951, especially 573–4.

101 Lutz, F. A., ‘The German Currency Reform and the Revival of the German Economy’, Economica, 16, 62 (1949), 122–42; Tribe, Keith, ‘The 1948 Currency Reform: Structure and Purpose’, in Hölscher, Jens, ed., 50 Years of the German Mark (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2001), 15–43; Kettenacker, Lothar, Germany Since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 30.

102 Richard Tüngel, ‘Mißtrauen gegen Deutschland’, Die Zeit, 2 Feb. 1950, 1

103 ‘Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Adenauer mit dem amerikanischen Hohen Kommissar McCloy’, 2 Jan. 1951, AAP 1951, 3–10.

104 McCloy to Kellermann, 511.00/1-3152 Telegram, 31 Jan. 1952 FRUS 1952–1954 Vol. VII, Part 1, Germany and Austria, Document 140.

105 Reuther, Thomas, ‘In Hitler's Shadow: American Images of Germany’, in Junker, Detlef, Gassert, Phillipp, Mausbach, Wilfried and Morris, David, eds., The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War: 1945–1990 Vol. I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 601–7.

106 Reuther, ‘In Hitler's Shadow’, 605. Barclay, David and Glaser-Schmidt, Elizabeth, eds., Transatlantic Images and Perceptions: Germany and America Since 1776 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Weigelt, Klaus, eds., Das Deutschland- und Amerikabild: Beiträge zum gegenseitigen Verständnis beider Völker (St. Augustin: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 1986). See also the differentiated portrayal in Meyer, Martin, Nachkriegsdeutschland im Spiegel amerikanischer Romane der Besatzungszeit (1945–1955) (Tubingen: Narr, 1994).

107 ‘Public Relations; Transatlantische Brücke; Schrift “Meet Germany”’, Bd. 1, June 1954–Dec. 1961, B 145/1277, BA.

108 ‘Public Relations’, B 145/1277, BA. Kuhnhardt, Ludger, Atlantik-Brücke. Fünfzig Jahre deutsch-amerikanische Partnerschaft (Berlin: Propyläen, 2002).

109 ‘Umfrage über das Deutschlandbild Amerikanischer Meinungsbildner und Multiplikatoren – Bezug: DE Nr. 4022 von 14.9.77’. ZA 108445 Bd. 44, 1973–1978, ‘Generalia’, PA.

110 Gordon Michler, ‘Willkommen’, Die Zeit, 6 May 1960, 1.

111 NIE 20-1-69, Washington, 4 Dec. 1969, FRUS Vol XLI Western Europe; NATO, 1969–1972, 81.

112 Werner Dageför, ‘Kraut und Leder’, Die Zeit 10 Sept. 1976. Many foreigners were said to dream of sharing a German-style Christmas with a German family.

113 West German Washington embassy to AA, Bonn, 27 Sept. 1977, ZA 108445, Bd. 44, 1973–1978, PA, in reference to ‘Nazi Resurgence seen in West Germany – Brandt among those concerned about return of extremism’, Los Angeles Times, 25 Sept. 1977. The London embassy reported on British press coverage. ‘Britische Presse zu Bild der Deutschen im Ausland’, 23 Sept. 1977, ZA 108445, Bd. 44, 1973–1978, PA.

114 Zw-Archive 106482 ‘Pressestimme Holocaust 1977’, PA.

115 West German embassy Washington to AA on ‘NBC-Fernsehserie “The Holocaust”’, 27 Sept. 1977. Zw-Archive 106482, PA.

116 West German Washington embassy, ‘Leserbriefe zum Thema “Holocaust”’ 3 Oct. 1977. Zw-Archive 106482, PA.

117 Letter by Alfred de Zayas to the West German Ambassador in Washington, Bernd von Staden, 5 Nov. 1977; Letter by de Zayas to Dr Müller, director of the culture department, AA, 9 Nov. 1977; Letter by Hans Haug to the Philadelphia Inquirer, 4 Oct. 1977, Zw-Archive 106482, PA.

118 ‘Reise von Frau StM Dr. Hamm-Brücher nach New York und Kanada’ including appendices on the ‘German Information Center’, ‘das Deutschlandbild in den USA’ and ‘Fernsehserie “Holocaust”’, 16 May 1978. Zw-Archive 106482, PA.

119 See Maier, Unmasterable Past.

120 ‘Auslandsecho auf den Bonner Wirtschaftsgipfel 16/17 Juli 1978’, PIA, 13 Sept. 1978, AZ 320.40, ZA 108445, (Bd. 44 – 1973-1978), ‘Generalia’, PA.

121 Harry Trimborn, ‘30 Years Later West Germany Prospers, Secure in its Reputation’, Pittsburgh Press, 26 May 1979, B3.

122 Reuther, ‘In Hitler's Shadow’.

123 See Jackson, ‘Civilizing the Enemy’.

124 ‘Steurerungsaussschuß Deutschlandkunde’, 5 Oct. 1977. ‘Pressestimmen Deutschlandbild’ (Band 5: 1977), Zw-Archiv 106483, PA.

125 Ministerialdirektor Thomas, 20 Feb. 1978, in response to an article by Hans Stercken, ‘Die Hofschreiber von Bonn’, Rheinischer Merkur 17 Feb. 1978. ZA 108445 (Bd. 44 – 1973-1978) ‘Generalia – Reinicke Verlag, Deutschlandbild – BK-Rede zur VN’, PA.

126 ‘Bedeutung des Bundespräsidenten für die Entwicklung der deutschen Politik und das Ansehen der Bundesrepublik im Ausland – Interview mit Heinrich Fraenkel vom New Humanist’, B 122/13817 (AZ 7004) 1973, BA.

127 Dichter, Heather, ‘Kicking Around International Sport: West Germany's Return to the International Community Through Football’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 30, 17 (2013), 2031–51.