America and American Occupation in German Eyes
Identifieur interne : 001447 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 001446; suivant : 001448America and American Occupation in German Eyes
Auteurs : Norbert MuhlenSource :
- The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science [ 0002-7162 ] ; 1954-09.
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- Teeft :
- American hypocrisy, American occupation speeches, American usage, East germany, Education program, Evening classes, German emigrants, German eyes, German life, Information control, Intercultural education, Many germans, Military government, Norbert muhlen, Other hand, Personal contacts, Pleasant experiences, Public opinion, Small minority, Soviet russia, Soviet threat, Soviet union, Total transformation, Unpleasant experiences, William ernest, Young people.
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DOI: 10.1177/000271625429500107
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pub-type="ppub"><month>9</month><year>1954</year></pub-date><volume>295</volume><issue>1</issue><fpage>52</fpage><lpage>61</lpage><custom-meta-wrap><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>sagemeta-type</meta-name><meta-value>Journal Article</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>search-text</meta-name><meta-value>52 America and American Occupation in German Eyes SAGE Publications, Inc.1954DOI: 10.1177/000271625429500107 Norbert Muhlen GER1VIAN ~ opinion of America today, as reflected in and reinforced by its mass media, is ambivalent, insecure, full of misunderstandings and misgivings, and often contradictory. While this opinion is based on the varying and petrified impressions of the past century, a series of new observations and emotions was added by the close, often personal contacts of the past eight years, when Germans met Americans in their quickly changing roles of enemies, victors, rulers, educators secret allies, and finally open allies-and, in addition, as individuals in and out of uniform. These age-old stereotypes and new impressions often received new emphasis from the acute situation confronting the Germans in the past five years: Should Germany join America in defense against the Soviet threat so close to her borders, or should she "go it alone" and remain neutral between the big powers? Dependent on this choice and the decision finally taken, the image of America as it developed was often merely a rationalization of the role desired for Germany in the future. Many Germans who tended to be neutral (for quite different reasons) often justified their attitude by developing an image of America as displeasing, if not as dangerous, as that of Soviet Russia. On the other hand, many Germans serious in their will to resist the Soviet threat and knowing that without American leadership it could not be resisted tried to like and understand America, and often discovered that its main values, purposes, and interests were similar to those of Germany herself. GERMAN EMIGRANTS TO U. S. For more than a century, America had been in German eyes a country far away and fabulous. Lacking the more direct relationships and experiences, antagonisms and sympathies, that brought England historically close to America, Germany imagined America as the land of noble savages and wide wilderness, a country without history and without despots. The letters from America which German emigrants wrote home in the nineteenth century, passed from hand to hand and printed in local newspapers, confirmed the benevolent picture of "a young, free country." Exactly because America enjoyed all the freedom that Germany lacked it became more fabulous and faraway than ever. On occasion, a German poet wrote an ode in praise of the distant country, but when the poet Nikolaus Lenau emigrated to America to be a free man on free soil, he soon returned in melancholy disappointment; freedom among the pioneers, he found, was shockingly different from the dream. Toward the end of the century, America changed in German eyes into "the country of unlimited possibilities" and "the country of unlimited contra- dictions," as the two then most popular slogans put it. Still a fabulous land where people got rich quickly, America was often looked upon with some condescension, in a way far removed from 1 The material in this article is limited to West Germany, as the situation in East Ger many differs so greatly that it would require a separate discussion. On East German opin ion of America see Norbert Muhlen, "German Anti-Americanism, East and West Zones," Commentary, February 1953; also, The Re turn of Germany (Chicago, 1953), pp. 270-75. 6453 the American stereotype and self-image of oppressed Europeans coming to its shores in search of freedom and a better life. Germans (like other West Europeans) saw these emigrants rather as adventurers, runaways, and ne'er-do- wells ; the officer who had to quit the service for some dishonorable act, the boy who had got with child the family cook, the employee in a merchant's office who had embezzled a petty sum- these seemed to be the people who escaped to America, "the Promised Land of failures." The very fact of emigration appeared somewhat suspicious to Germans, who have a saying, "Stay at home and make an honest living." It was "the German urchin in America"- after the title of a runaway's autobiography which was very popular in Germany and helped to shape the image of America from the turn of the century to our day-who later returned as "the rich uncle from America." These Americans, and their country, were viewed with a mixture of respect for their money and disrespect for their past. As late as 1948 a "Primer on America for German Adults" explained ponderously that "the emigrant is for him [the American] not to be pitied or to be scorned [as he is for Germans] but to be revered." 2 Many Germans looked down from their solid superiority on these shady emigrants, whose boasts, in turn, helped to strengthen the stereotype of "materialistic America," where mammon was idolized and multimillionaires ruled supreme over a people of millionaires, millionaires-to-be, and derelicts. "GOD'S OWN COUNTRY" The next stereotype which received almost general currency among Germans was that Americans were convinced that the United States was "God's own country." In Germany this slogan became (and still is) as current a foreign word in talk of America as, more recently and more passingly, Heyyenyasse ("the Master Race") in American usage for Germany. Ironically, both slogans became more popular abroad than at home. For America to consider itself as "God's own coun- try" revealed an unbearably hypocritical chauvinism, Germans thought. This stereotype was intensified by disappointment in President Wilson, who, Germans felt, had betrayed Germany by offering the self-determinationist Fourteen Points as a peace program only to abandon them in the imperialist Versailles Peace Treaty. The legend of American hypocrisy that developed in contradiction to the historical facts of the case was accepted as reality by most Germans. "AMERICANS ARE CRAZY" A third stereotype of the American character, widely believed (in France, Italy, and recently England as well as in Germany) and seemingly rather hostile, is actually less hostile than the other two. Paradoxically, it is the notion that "Americans are crazy." What it stems from and what it reveals is that Europeans have come to find the thought and behavior patterns of the transatlantic "strangers" (meaning simply foreigners) so different from their own, so "strange" and "outlandish" indeed (in both words, the statement of facts has become a value judgment in modern English usage!) that Europeans could not understand them. To call Americans "crazy" supplied Europeans with a pleasant feeling of superiority, and at the same time relieved them of the task of attempted understanding. Yet the stereotype of "these crazy Americans" contained only a minimum of marked hostility; hostile people prefer to see specific sinister traits and 2 Margret Boveri, Amerikafibel für Er wachsene, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1948. 6554 purposes, if not a plot, rather than merely strangeness in what they cannot understand. There was little hostility as long and in so far as the Germans had no reason to be afraid of America. When the United States decided to intervene in World War I, most Germans considered it a rather hilarious joke. PLUTOCRATIC AMERICA In Germany's Red Decade, the 1920's, when-as in America in the 1930's and early 1940's-much of the intellectual and cultural life of the country was influenced by Communists and their unwitting followers, the stereotype of America was further and deliberately made to appear unattractive. America, the bastion of capitalism, had then as now to supply the dark contrast to the glowing Great Experiment of the Soviet Union. From most German books and reports on America published at the time there again emerged the stereotype of a country dominated by the dollar, sadly lacking in civilization, backward in terms of culture, social progress, and human decency. The same picture was portrayed again by the Nazis, whose propaganda depicted the plutocratic, racially contaminated, brutal and greedy American. But in secret opposition to the Nazis, a small minority of intellectuals developed an underground cult of America and everything .it had and did. U. S. AS AN OCCUPATION POWER After 1945, with America turning into an occupation power and a military government with relation to Germany, new images of America were born in German eyes, and old ones strengthened. They reflected-and frequently misinterpreted-the contradictions, uncertainties, vagaries, and intentions of American policies; often they also reflected German feelings of inferiority, insecurity, resentment, and guilt projected onto the powerful victor. As conquerors The Americans had come, in the words of their commander-in-chief, "as conquerors, not as liberators." These were the years when "fraternization," or, to be more exact, the expression of human politeness, kindness, and decency toward the defeated was unlawful for an American soldier; when a few Americans-well fed, often luxuriously well housed-announced that in their billets Germans and dogs were not admitted, and secretly bought precious family heirlooms from homeless, half- starved Germans for a carton of American cigarettes or a pound of American coffee; when an American general in charge of information control forbade the playing of music over a German radio station, to bring home to the Germans that there was no reason for them to enjoy life. During these years Germans whose fathers had been executed by Hitler's hangmen for participation in the plot to kill the dictator, Germans who themselves had suffered for years the agony of Nazi concentration camps because they resisted Hitler, young people who had been three years old when Hitler came to power and fifteen when he fell-all were told by occupation officials that to their conquerors all Germans were alike and they must bear the punishment for the crimes committed by the Nazis. To be tough with the Germans appeared as a soldierly and patriotic virtue to a number of Americans, and their toughness sometimes included, as the Germans observed, an infamous imitation of infamous Nazi methods. "The Americans are just as bad as the Nazis were," some Germans began to whisper among themselves in these first postwar years.3 3 This attitude was mainly and most articu lately expressed in popular German fiction, 6655This analogy, more often wrong than right even in individual instances, and all wrong as a generalization, provided a release from uneasy consciences for many Germans who felt either guilty or helplessly ashamed of what the Nazis had done. It supplied a new facet to the German stereotype of America-the facet of American toughness and brutality, if not cruelty, strengthened by popular memories of "the Wild West" and "Chicago gangsters," and further strengthened by some American movies, crime books for adults (Mickey Spillane) and children (crime comics, and so forth), and the reports of crime and juvenile delinquency in the United States. 1947 to 1949 When from 1947 to 1949 the tough American policy of conquest was softened by a wavering, confused, half- hearted policy of co-operation, help, and reconstruction, the old stereotype of American hypocrisy was strengthened again, and combined with the new one of toughness. The Americans who before had played the role of conquistador now turned into an uneasy and implausible mixture of conquistador and social worker. While they ruled Germany by force of arms, they set out to educate her to democracy by force of argument. After first being "conquer- ors, not liberators," they now pretended and tried to be conquerors and liberators simultaneously. A pseudo- hermaphroditic figure, the Military Government suffered in peacetime from its double nature, the military one ruling by orders and requests and the democratic governmental one expressing thewill of the constituents. In addition to being a purely military, security-conscious army organization, the Military Government remained the very opposite of democratic government, since it at first combined the executive, legislative, and judiciary functions without division of powers and later retained the supreme right to veto these functions when performed by the Germans. INSTABILITY OF U. S. POLICY What seemed so hypocritical to many Germans was the apparent contradiction between the realities and the appeals made by America. It was indeed difficult for them to understand-and to accept-the underlying reasons, partly changes in American politics, partly changes in world politics, and partly fundamental beliefs as well as passing fallacies prevalent in American thinking. In their minds, it was the idea and the conception of Military Government which stuck, even after 1949 when its name as well as its functions was changed into the inoffensive and tactfully restrained High Commission for Germany. In the period of High Commission rule beginning in 1949 the politics of conquest were quietly shelved and replaced by the politics of alliance, or at least of winning the Germans for an alliance. As the United States needed the active good will of the Germans, the conquerors suddenly became missionaries, teachers, propagandists. This change, pleasant and profitable as it was for the Germans, did little to improve their stereotype of America. On the contrary, new unfavorable sidelights were added, and old negative stereotypes seemed confirmed. Were not Americans "crazy"-superficial, fickle, unprincipled, extremely naive at best? Most of the principles which two years ago they had enthusiastically advocated and many of the principles which they had requested the Germans to acceptespecially the national best seller: Ernst von Salomon, Der Fragebogen ("The Question naire"), Hamburg, 1952; also, Hans Hellmut Kirst, Sagten Sie Gerechtigkeit, Captain? ("Did You Say Justice, Captain?"), Munich, 1952. 6756 seemed forgotten overnight and replaced by opposites. Where, as late as 1947, the Americans had not permitted the Germans to publish anti-Communist books translated from the Russian, now they themselves encouraged their publication and distribution among Germans. In 1945, to get an American license to edit a newspaper, Berliners had had to prove they were friendly to Communism, and in Frankfurt and other cities Americans had insisted on the appointment of Communist editors on newspaper staffs; in 1948 the Americans fired the same Communists and demanded proof of anti-Communism from their licensees. It was the same in German officialdom and labor unions, in fact, almost everywhere. Since the Americans failed openly to admit and to explain their own reversal, the Germans concluded that "you can never know what the Americans are up to next." This stereotype seemed particularly valid when they compared American occupation speeches of 1946, proclaiming that no German should ever bear arms again, with American occupation speeches of 1951, scolding the Germans who never wanted to bear arms again.4 4 Many Germans, it is true; recognized that this seeming American instability and fickleness originated less with the Americans than with the Soviets. But they also saw that almost every American change in attitudes and policies toward Germany came about only in reply and as a reaction to a Soviet move; in German eyes, as a matter of fact, American policy in Germany seemed dictated by Soviet Russia. In the first stage, America made every concession to the Soviets that the Soviets requested after 1946 America began taking defen- sive countermeasures against the Soviets and their aggressions; after 1948 America made concessions to the Germans in order to "contain" the Soviets. In other words, the Americans seemed never to have an independent political purpose of their own, and no insight into what they should do in Germany. To many Germans, Americans appeared as a people sadly lost on the international scene, unable to perform their part in foreign politics, lacking either the power or the experienced understanding-or perhaps both-needed for world leadership. The United States seemed to be pushed in this direction and that in a helpless defensive against the aggressive, power-hungry, politically shrewd Soviets, while it propagandized its ever changing political practices by preaching never changing eternal principles to the Germans in its program of education, or "re-education." THE EDUCATION PROGRAM Whether the education program did more to help or to hinder better understanding of America in Germany is open to dispute. A semantic misunderstanding based on deeper differences between the two cultures from the very beginning contributed greatly to making many Germans resent the program. "Education" in a literal translation,' the term generally accepted in Germany for speaking of the education program, is Erziehung, which smacks of the three R's-the elementary schooling given to children, colonial peoples, and illiterates, with the use of the rod, while "education" in American usage means many things, including Bildung (for which there is no term in English). Many Germans agreed that political education, politische Bildung, was badly needed in their country, but that they should be eyzogen--educated as well as trained-by their conquerors, seemed an arrogant attempt to treat them as 4 This "salto mortale" became the source of countless jokes, cartoons, skits, indicating an officially somewhat subdued, yet strong pub lic reaction. 6857 illiterate children and to teach them with authoritarian sternness. Shades of "God's own country!" Some phases of the education program seemed indeed to fit into this hostile stereotype. Some American "re- educators" resorted to the methods that had been used successfully at home to change "backward foreigners" into democratic citizens, americanizing the immigrants with evening classes, adult schools, and literacy and citizenship courses while their younger generation was kept from delinquency by playgrounds, boy scoutism, and similar things. By presenting the German adults with a deluge of free lectures, evening classes, free libraries, pamphlets, and so on, and establishing baseball teams and playgrounds for the German youth, these backward people were to be kept from crime and elevated to the level of American ways, or, as the much-abused magic word was, "democracy." While hordes of visiting lecturers, writers, impresarios of all sorts explained to the .Germans the miraculously good, efficient, and beautiful thing called democracy, to Germans it soon seemed that Americans were suffering from an obsession endlessly to talk about that verbal fetish, democracy. Living in a country which was not democratic, in which there was little opportunity for the citizens to act as democrats, and where the very representatives of democracy ruled in an autocratic way-a system of government Germans called jokingly Demo- krdtur ("democratotorship," half democracy, half dictatorship)-their democratic education was bound to fail, if not to backfire. To some, it seemed to reveal again the hypocritical nature of the Americans, as well as their overl'y complacent arrogance. To others, democracy painted in such wonderful colors appeared as something very great and beautiful indeed-yet foreign to, and unobtainable for, Germans. "There is a broad sense in which anything antitotalitarian is ipso facto democratic. In that sense, there is no difference between our negative and our affirmative program, and democracy is simply there once totalitarianism is done for. But in the common sense of the term, democracy is one of several types of polity incompatible with Hitlerism.... And since there were several possible antitheses to Hitlerism, it seemed to many Germans that it was for them rather than for us to choose between them. In point of fact, so it seemed to them, it was the negative part of our task [de-NazificationJ that was the legitimate part; the affirmative [democratization] ] exceeded our man- date," William Ernest Hocking observed correctly.5 5 In fact, "antitheses" to totalitarianism such as a Catholic republic in Bavaria, with religious textbooks in schools as they were wanted and approved by the overwhelming part of the population, were denounced and fought as "antidemocratic" by American occupation officials before 1950 (when George N. Shuster became United States Land Commissioner and established an excellent administration). Cultural offerings In addition to political education in democracy, a vast program of nonpo- litical offerings was presented by the occupation to create good will, understanding, love for America in Germany. The offerings of. American singers, dancers, actors, American music, ballet, paintings, books, American lectures on American national parks, American 5 William Ernest Hocking, Experiment in Education: What Can We Learn from Teach ing Germany? Chicago, 1954, the best ana lytical critique of the United States occupation in Germany, especially its educational phases. 6958 wildlife, American photography, as they were showered over Germans, left the impression among many Germans that Americans, as is typical among the nouveaux riches, were throwing away their money boastfully to show off their newly acquired culture. That Americans were desperately eager to be admired and that they wasted their money to buy admiration seemed more conspicuous than the authentic great values of their civilization clumsily presented. To most open-minded Europeans, and to Germans in particular, the real greatness and achievement of America lay in the spirit and technique of its social structure. The architecture of American society appeared in the eyes of thoughtful Germans more admirable, more exemplary, than the architecture of American skyscrapers and mansions; American freedom in everyday life seemed to them a greater work of art than, say, American symphonies. Yet except for the few who had experienced it in America itself-in the very successful Exchange Program through which selected Germans are invited to visit the United States for several months under guidance of the Department of State or, ironically, as World War II prisoners of war-vr those who had carefully studied it, this culture could hardly be shown convincingly at a distance-particularly not to people conditioned to be skeptical about such claims. In the first place, the Germans tended to be skeptical of all government propaganda in general since their recent experience with Hitlerism and their present one with the Soviets. In the second place, American government propaganda tended to be especially self-contradictory and therefore self-defeating; in this program, "the American way" of freedom, with its resistance to bureaucratic entanglements and state power, was advertised by the state on a noncompetitive, bureaucratic basis; and the immensely varied, many-faced, pluralistic American reality was distorted by the selection of this or that feature, this or that facet of America which seemingly was provided with an official stamp of government approval. In the third place, America's propagan- distic self-introduction to Germans had by nature to lean heavily on the presentation of creative American works; yet many of these books, plays, and essays, in the best American tradition of national self-criticism (usually social criticism), taken out of their context and transplanted into alien surroundings, were accepted as accurate, typical descriptions of American life rather than one artist's or writer's voice of personal protest. They seemed to confirm all the anti-American, stereotyped prejudices held by many Germans-a tough, hypocritical, materialistic, arrogant, uncultured, dollar-ruled country. Self-criticism, as an experienced American official remarked sadly, cannot be exported, yet we have to export it unless we stop trying to familiarize the Germans with America at all. Successes in intercultural education Two periodicals published for German audiences under American government auspices-the Neue Zeitung, a daily newspaper combining the better features of American and German journalism (unfortunately published only for and in Berlin since 1953, when its West German circulation was suddenly stopped for reasons of economy), and Der Monat, a monthly magazine bringing international thought and life close to the Germans and generally respected as one of the leading European intellectual magazines today-succeeded in overcoming German resistance against understanding America; they greatly helped to establish a new, friendly relationship toward its culture. In this 7059 writer's opinion, only these two publications, in addition to the United States Exchange Program, can be considered genuine and important achievements in the vast American effort of intercultural education in Germany. ROOT CAUSES OF RESENTMENT What was often the root cause of the strong German resistance against American "re-education" and of the German acceptance of clich6s and generalizations antagonistic to America was the underlying fear that America wanted to remodel the whole world, including and especially Germany, in its own image, with "God's own country" as the blueprint according to which all the other countries and cultures were to be shaped. Irrational as this fear was on the whole, or rather, as it became while occupation and its educators learned their lessons of realism, it contained an actual kernel of truth. In the definition of the United States Department of State following the report of a United States Educational Mission, published in 1947, "the task of changing the German mind ... involves a total transformation of basic German beliefs, folkways and attitudes." 6 Many American experts who came to Germany to advise the Germans that from now on there must be a total transformation of their beliefs, folkways, and attitudes (a thing impossible to achieve even had it been desirable, which it surely was not), that they should forget all their rtraditions and customs, took it for granted that things in Germany should be done the American way; only by this could the country be transformed into a democracy. I know of a visiting professor of journalism with all the credentials and backing of a Special Governmental Expert who decreed that German newspapers should be written, edited, and made up exactly like American newspapers. In another case, an Educational Adviser suggested that German university students should address their instructors by their first names rather than by the stuffy title of Herr Professor, to break down the authoritarian attitudes of youth! (In this context, we can disregard Communist officials, especially numerous in the Information Control and Decartelization Branches of Military Government in the first postwar years, from which they were removed by and large by 1950, who- under guise of "Americanization"-sys- tematically sabotaged the h6althy reconstruction of German organizations and institutions.) As late as 1951, a public controversy was resentfully conducted against the American attempt to change the German hunting and fishing regulations (considered "feudalistic"1 for the American pattern (considered "democratic" by United States officials), although it was evident that German and American regulations corresponded well to the very different conditions prevailing in the two countries. A second root cause of the willing acceptance and development of anti-American stereotypes consisted in the resentment against the shift in power and prestige which suddenly seemed to elevate America far above and beyond the nations of Europe which liked to call themselves "the older nations." If this was a mood prevalent throughout Western Europe, in Germany it came into sharper focus since American domination was here a de jure and de facto situation, while America in its relations with other European nations went to some lengths to demonstrate diplomatic equality and sovereignty. With the national self-respect of Germany, which had been badly shattered after 6 Department of State Publications, No. 2783 (August 1947), p. 62. 7160 the war, slowly growing again, this mood of resentment was bound also to grow to some extent. PERSONAL CONTACTS If there were added many friendlier colors and more pleasant features to the picture of America in German eyes, they came in the main from personal contacts Germans had with Americans (as a substitute for contacts with America itself). Especially when they were able to speak the German language and were not completely alien to and uninterested in the ways of German life, as many Military Government and High Commission personnel were from the top levels down to minor employees, these Americans often contributed to a more balanced, better image of America. Chance contacts with, and observation of, a number of military occupation members had similar effects. After "fraternization" was fully permitted (which happened only in 1950, when uniformed personnel received permission to frequent German public places), "der Ami," the abbreviation which became usual for A~Ze~ika~cer, the young man in an American uniform was conspicuous in German life and, quite naturally, judged by Germans as a representative product of America's people and civilization. The. fact that most of these young men turned out to be kindly, generous, and often poor, without class consciousness, not behaving as overbearing victors, usually ready and willing to help, impressed many Germans favorably.7 Negro GI's, whom a prevailing positive German stereotype soon took to be more warmhearted, more humane, and less tough than their white comrades, were. on the whole especially well liked. Those strongly prejudiced tend to see; of course, what they want to see, and for them it was not difficult to see quite a few Ami's-a small minority, yet more conspicuous than the more typical large majority-who misbehaved in almost every way conceivable, on occasion in quite serious matters. Yet seen against the background of the Soviet Union, its traits and its occupation, as many Germans saw the Ami's, the Americans in general, and America itself, were preferred by the majority. Their value judgments tended often to rationalize their personal choice. PUBLIC OPINION STUDIES "Which of the four occupation powers do you prefer?" the EMNID (Institute ffr Marktforschung und Meinungs- forschung) Institute of Public Opinion in Bielefeld asked a representative sample of West Germans in the fall of 1951. While 12 per cent refused to give an answer, 1 per cent expressed preference for the Russians; 1 per cent for the French; 8 per cent for the British; and 33 per cent for the Americans. Almost one out of two questioned, or 45 per cent, said they did not prefer one power to the other. The latter group has, however, decreased since then to approximately 30 per cent, and almost 50 per cent now prefer the Americans. , In 1952, the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy asked a stratified cross section of the German people (including refugees from East Germany) about their experiences with the Americans since 1945. Of this cross section, 36 per cent had seen little of the United States troops; 15 per cent had had pleasant experiences; 32 per cent had had unpleasant experiences; and 17 per cent very unpleasant experiences. While the British rated somewhat better and the French considerably worse in the same test, all three evoked incomparably better memories than the Soviet 7 On such incidents in detail cf. Norbert Muhlen in The New Leader, New York, Feb ruary 4, 1950; The Reader's Digest (May 1950), pp. 95-98. 7261 occupation. Only 5 per cent had seen little of them or had had pleasant experiences, while "24 per cent had had unpleasant-and 71 per cent very unpleasant-experiences. In November 1953 EMNID conducted a very careful and thorough study of opinions and attitudes of Germans in the age groups between fifteen and twenty-four. To the question "Can we Germans learn something from other peoples?" 65 per cent answered in the affirmative; when this answer was followed up by the question "From which people can we learn most?" the answer given most frequently was: "From the U.S.A." Of the total youth sample, the United States was named by 23 per cent; England by 10 per cent; Switzerland, 7 per cent; France, 5 per cent; Sweden, 3 per cent; Russia and Holland, 1 per cent each. The subjects to be learned from America were, in frequency of mention as listed, its economic and social order, technological and scientific progress, tolerance, readiness to help, and habits of free living.8 SUMMARY To sum up, "anti-Americanism" of the violent, obsessionally prejudiced type is very rare in Germany, and usu- ally to be found among the "lunatic fringe" of unreconstructed Nazis and Communists, comprising together less than 3 per cent of the total population.9 The number of passionate and unqualified pro-Americans seems hardly to be much bigger-mainly among intellectuals and very young people. Between these two extremes, on the wide and varying scale of images determined by individual, economic, social, educational, and political factors, it may be said that we, find most frequently attitudes which tend to express feelings of cultural superiority, political and moral distrust, personal and national resentments toward what is supposed to be America-a picture that often conflicts with American realities, yet much more often than not accepts America as "the lesser evil" in comparison with Soviet Russia, and accepts it increasingly often as "a necessary evil" to support Germany in her defense against the Soviet evil. 8 EMNID-Institut für Meinungsforschung, Jugend zwischen 15 und 24; Eine Unter suchung zur Situation der deutschen Jugend im Bundesgebiet (Bielefeld, 1954), pp. 313-17. 9 L. L. Matthias, Die Entdeckung Amerikas Anno 1953 (Hamburg, 1953), a violently anti- American work, was successful neither with critics nor with the public, while Simone de Beauvoir, Amerika Tag und Nacht (Ham burg, 1952), and Robert Jungk, Die Zukunft hat schon begonnen (Stuttgart, 1952), more temperate and seemingly more balanced yet unfairly critical books on America, were very successful. On the other hand, none of the detached, nonstereotyped, and friendly trave logues from and reports on America by Ger man authors published over the last years has been given attention by critical and pub lic opinion.</meta-value></custom-meta></custom-meta-wrap></article-meta></front><back><notes><p>1 The material in this article is limited to West Germany, as the situation in East Ger many differs so greatly that it would require a separate discussion. On East German opin ion of America see Norbert Muhlen, "German Anti-Americanism, East and West Zones," <italic>Commentary,</italic> February 1953; also, <italic>The Re turn of Germany</italic> (Chicago, 1953), pp. 270-75.</p><p>2 Margret Boveri, <italic> Amerikafibel für Er wachsene,</italic> Freiburg im Breisgau, 1948.</p><p>3 This attitude was mainly and most articu lately expressed in popular German fiction, especially the national best seller: Ernst von Salomon, <italic> Der Fragebogen</italic> ("The Question naire"), Hamburg, 1952; also, Hans Hellmut Kirst, <italic>Sagten Sie Gerechtigkeit, Captain?</italic> ("Did You Say Justice, Captain?"), Munich, 1952.</p><p>4 This "salto mortale" became the source of countless jokes, cartoons, skits, indicating an officially somewhat subdued, yet strong pub lic reaction.</p><p>5 William Ernest Hocking, <italic>Experiment in Education: What Can We Learn from Teach ing Germany?</italic> Chicago, 1954, the best ana lytical critique of the United States occupation in Germany, especially its educational phases.</p><p>6 Department of State Publications, No. 2783 (August 1947), p. 62.</p><p>7 On such incidents in detail cf. Norbert Muhlen in <italic>The New Leader,</italic> New York, Feb ruary 4, 1950; <italic>The Reader's Digest</italic> (May 1950), pp. 95-98.</p><p>8 EMNID-Institut für Meinungsforschung, <italic>Jugend zwischen 15 und 24; Eine Unter suchung zur Situation der deutschen Jugend im Bundesgebiet</italic> (Bielefeld, 1954), pp. 313-17.</p><p>9 L. L. Matthias, <italic> Die Entdeckung Amerikas Anno 1953</italic> (Hamburg, 1953), a violently anti- American work, was successful neither with critics nor with the public, while Simone de Beauvoir, <italic> Amerika Tag und Nacht (Ham</italic> burg, 1952), and Robert Jungk, <italic>Die Zukunft hat schon begonnen</italic> (Stuttgart, 1952), more temperate and seemingly more balanced yet unfairly critical books on America, were very successful. On the other hand, none of the detached, nonstereotyped, and friendly trave logues from and reports on America by Ger man authors published over the last years has been given attention by critical and pub lic opinion.</p></notes></back></article></istex:document></istex:metadataXml><mods version="3.6"><titleInfo lang="en"><title>America and American Occupation in German Eyes</title></titleInfo><titleInfo type="alternative" lang="en" contentType="CDATA"><title>America and American Occupation in German Eyes</title></titleInfo><name type="personal"><namePart type="given">Norbert</namePart><namePart type="family">Muhlen</namePart></name><typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource><genre type="research-article" displayLabel="research-article"></genre><originInfo><publisher>Sage Publications</publisher><place><placeTerm type="text">Sage CA: Thousand Oaks, CA</placeTerm></place><dateIssued encoding="w3cdtf">1954-09</dateIssued><copyrightDate encoding="w3cdtf">1954</copyrightDate></originInfo><language><languageTerm type="code" authority="iso639-2b">eng</languageTerm><languageTerm type="code" authority="rfc3066">en</languageTerm></language><physicalDescription><internetMediaType>text/html</internetMediaType></physicalDescription><relatedItem type="host"><titleInfo><title>The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science</title></titleInfo><genre type="journal">journal</genre><identifier type="ISSN">0002-7162</identifier><identifier type="eISSN">1552-3349</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID">ANN</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID-hwp">spann</identifier><part><date>1954</date><detail type="volume"><caption>vol.</caption><number>295</number></detail><detail type="issue"><caption>no.</caption><number>1</number></detail><extent unit="pages"><start>52</start><end>61</end></extent></part></relatedItem><identifier type="istex">C6FA795BAC948AEE189D552B6D8D474FD7560CAE</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.1177/000271625429500107</identifier><identifier type="ArticleID">10.1177_000271625429500107</identifier><recordInfo><recordContentSource>SAGE</recordContentSource></recordInfo></mods></metadata><serie></serie></istex></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
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