Europe
changed dramatically between 1945 and 1989, both socially and culturally during
what became the Cold War. Two opposing ideologies divided Germany between the
forces of East and West. The West controlled half of Germany were the alliances
of Britain, France and United States, meanwhile The Soviet Union under Josef
Stalin controlled Eastern Germany. The relations between East and West would
become fragile, which Germany becomes part of what Winston Churchill termed
‘The Iron Curtain’. Not only was the Cold War about military or political
issues, but shaped culture on both sides of the great divide during the
twentieth century.[1]
American culture influenced and trickled into West Germany through the
occupational forces military installations, although the spread of their
culture did cause concern. East Germany believed the American influences were
corrupting their ideals and youth through consumerism and culture.[2] New technologies became
available to both the divided nations, which included Television and radio to
spread new ideas from other countries. The mass media captured the imaginations
of young people who emerged from the war years. Their lives were influenced by
the environment around them, which included the highly politicised creation of
the Berlin Wall and divided nation. Consumerism would rise with the prelude of
cheaply made items that people could easily purchase for their needs, which
were not available before the war that had engulfed much of the European
landmass.
The
repercussions within Europe after the war meant the alliances of Britain,
United States and Soviet Union would need to treat the population differently
after the upheavals of many people’s lives throughout the conflict after 1945. Winston
Churchill’s idea, where he claimed a ‘clean sweep’ was to make sure there would
not be the return of another world war, which uprooted millions of people
through a devastating war. People who were considered to be national threats
would be moved to different parts of the European continent. The threats the
allied nations worried about had not occurred by the end of the 1960s.[3] Memories of the old Europe
would prevail through post war Europe where countries within the continent
wanted the countries to band together through unification as a new Europe.[4] The emergence of what
would be the youth culture not long after the Second World War would change
Europe forever as cultural exchanges through mass culture especially from the
United States of America bringing about social change. Older cultural ideas
changed or crumbled through introduction of the consumer class, which came
along with Television and radio that swept the nations.[5] Europe was worried
countries would lose their own culture once the European Economic Community was
established. Leo Tindemans, the Belgium Prime Minister mentioned such an issue
when he wrote his report in 1975, which was submitted to the European council.
There was worry about the mass consumerism of American products would cause
difficulties to other countries and the loss of their identity.[6]
American
terminology and consumer products began having cultural influences on the world
and more so through the youth who lived within both East and West Germany. Into
verbal fashion came terminology not used before, which was ‘teenager’ and
products were marketed towards them. Youth on both sides of the border would
cross between East and West Berlin until the wall was constructed to access
available American products.[7] West Germany could not
escape the influence of American culture especially during the late 1950s that
caused rioting amongst youths. It had been thought the movie called ‘The Wild
One’ starring Marlon Brando had influenced the beginning of confrontations of
youths and police in West Germany.[8] Consumer items that had
been available in America were slowly becoming available to those within
Europe. Refrigerators, televisions and washing machines along with other large
domestic appliances were offered for the West German lifestyle.[9] Supermarkets were
spruiking with women in mind for the convenience and entice people to spend
their money on useful devices became cheaper to purchase as they were becoming
mass produced like washing machines.[10] Mass consumerism appeared
during the period when headlines of the Kennedy assassination and nuclear
holocaust were news. Music like Beatlemania enveloped Germany during a time
when new technologies and marketing tools impacted heavily on the Baby boom
generation.[11]
The
problem the main Allied powers foreseen during the conclusion of the Second
World War was what to do with Germany especially when viewed through European
unity. Problems arose when the victors felt Germany needed freedom, but at a
price through restrictions like denial of full sovereignty. Decisions about
Germany were made by The Soviet Union and Americans through issues like
boundaries, politics and relations with neighbouring countries.[12] After the Nazi threat had
been expelled, Germany was soon divided by the tug of war between The Soviet
Union and the United States as the two countries fought for supremacy through
what would become The Cold War.[13] The Soviet project for
East Germany after 1945 was to control and remake the country into their image
as part of the Eastern Bloc, where Lenin’s image would continue until
reunification at the end of 1989.[14] For people to be
controlled there needed to be vast networks of informants. These informants
were used by the Ministry of State Security otherwise known as The Stasi to
keep an eye on the people the government was worried about. Documentation that
survived the fall of communism could be analysed for future reference on the
surveillance methods.[15] The East German government during the 1960s
invested heavily into the heavy industry, while investing little into the
lifestyle of the citizens who lived there in the form of housing and consumer
goods.[16]
Long
before the German border had been solidified in 1961 and people’s movements
became restricted, young East German people between 1950 and 1961 could move to
West Germany looking for better employment opportunities and freedom that was
not on offer within the GDR.[17] Europe thought The
Soviets would be the next group to cause conflict when they closed the land
approaches to the city of Berlin deep in Soviet held territory. Peace was
something that could be shattered very easily after World War Two. The Soviets
had signed their own agreements with the German Democratic Republic or GDR with
the ambition West Berlin would eventually become part of East Germany. The
allies could no longer access the city under siege without the threat of
retaliation.[18]
The construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 used the pretext of
preventing the drain of workers from the East and also restricting the movement
of American cultural products into East Germany, which was called the
‘antifascist dam’. The idea of the wall was meant to draw the East Germans to
socialism.[19]
The Berlin wall has been a political football since it had been built
attracting the ire and attention of Presidents from the United States from John
F Kennedy to Ronald Reagan who have made stirring speeches, while in front of
the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin calling for the wall to be bought down or the
gates opened for the freedom of the people within the GDR.[20]
In
East Germany during the 1950s, Communist politicians decided how the youth of
the country were to behave within society without influences from the west and
what the social norms were meant to entail. The GDR wanted to control all
aspects of youth’s lives including behaviour and discipline, their goal was to
impose socialism onto people from a young age.[21] The East German
Protection law was created around 1955 for the use of protecting youth from
influences of American culture. The law was meant for denial of entry from
American culture through importation, although it could easily cross the
borders.[22]
Cultural minorities in East Germany were held with great suspicion by the SED –
East German Communist Party, which was different to the views of the Jewish
people in the West. The country had to conform to certain ideas of cultures to
align with their allies.[23] To ease what was thought
to be propaganda from the west, the East German authorities cut down radio
antennas pointing west with the hope the radio or Television signals would be
cut. The hope would be to stop the flow of Americanised western music and images
from being watched or heard in the country.[24]
The
humble radio became popular after the Second World War and The Soviet Union by
the 1960s had them in abundance. Before Television, radios were the primary
source of information and entertainment. The radio could be used for propaganda
purposes from countries like the United States to push their music across the
Iron Curtain to Communist states like East Germany through stations like the
BBC.[25] Jazz was at one stage
used as a Cold War weapon, which was thought to be respectable, unlike other
forms of music that was thought to be Americanised propaganda. Rock and Roll
had made an appearance during the 1950s and attracted the youth culture that
had started taking hold around that period. Both East and West Germany did
experience youth violence that had come from the rock music. As social change
made its way through the communities older people butted heads with the youth
as each viewed each other’s cultures through different eyes.[26] One such band that
appeared was the British invaders known as The Beatles where they played in
clubs like Liverpool, England and Hamburg within Germany and would attract
large numbers of people as well as imitators.[27] During 1987, David Bowie
was said to have influence upon East German youth when he played concerts near
the Berlin Wall with accusations speakers were pointed towards East Berlin,
which had attracted crowds of youth and police.[28]
East
Germany was not immune to what was thought to be hostile countercultures
created by youths. Youth groups clashed with each other and also the East
German government. Government officials viewed the youth groups as holding
extreme ideals that needed controlling. [29] One form of music was
Punk, which had spread from England through the free radio programs and
inspired movements within East and West Germany during 1976.[30] The punk movement
differed between East and West Germany. The culture in East Germany grew out of
frustration from what was termed the surveillance state. The goal of the punk
movement was to reject social values, which pretty much went against everything
the GDR stood for. The Stasi would monitor bands especially when lyrics in
songs would be about anti-establishment gaining attention from the watchful
eyes and ears of the government. The view of the GDR during the 1980s softened,
although they were seen as disturbing public order and degrading the government
institution when before the 1980s the groups were arrested.[31] The opposition to punks
within East Germany were the skinheads, whom in their own rights were
ultra-political as they attacked foreigners and other groups of people who did
not agree with their ideals. They lasted longer since the collapse of the
Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany. Usually these people came out of
the military service or even prison.[32] Groups like Punks and
Skinheads within East Germany were hostile towards each other as they had
differing ideas within the forms of politics that lead to conflict. The
Skinhead movement viewed themselves as right leaning radicals who were known
for their violence and the Punks thought they were the opposite viewed
themselves as left wing.[33]
Television
became an important culturally significant object throughout the course of the
Twentieth Century. Larger than traditional mass media items like radio and
literature, it reached wider audiences including within homes.[34] The use of the Television
between the East and West Germany could be different even though it could be
considered they were used for similar purposes, which includes politics. The
East was more upfront with the use of propaganda to control the by the state
than what was happening in West Germany. While Television sets were costly TV
clubs were created within Germany and could have gotten channels like BBC from
England.[35]
Television was a growing medium during the 1960s, which was owned by growing
number of people and within countries like England was out growing cinema. It
was a medium that changed lives as people could watch moving pictures instead
of the radio within the comfort of their own home.[36] There was fear of
pressure that there would be a saturation of Television programs from other
countries that included the United States and European countries would lose
their identity.[37]
During 1984, the document ‘Television without frontiers’ within Europe proposed
that there to be certain amount of American broadcasting with the rest dedicated towards local
programming amongst its member states including West Germany. Television was
viewed as a source for cultural enrichment.[38]
Women
created waves throughout Germany as the century wore on especially around the
late 1940s when they gained more responsibilities and the freedom that went
with it. Women’s perceptions were viewed differently through the mass media
from screaming throngs attracted by appearances from The Beatles, where they
had once been stuck within the confines of their homes.[39] From the 1950s onwards
girls growing up seen their mothers take advantage of new opportunities that
came to them with work and new forms of consumerism. This would change by the
time they became older as they sought to get better education and job training
when they became available.[40] Rock and Roll provided
women with the necessary changes to society through fashion on both sides of
the border as women began wearing pants like the men, wore ponytails making
them look boyish and took charge through new dance styles.[41] Marketing towards people
changed dramatically with women being targeted especially through the
relatively new medium television that bought with it a new term that was called
Americanisation. Women began to find their own feet and started to air their
views even though they were restricted in what they could do.[42] In West Germany, the sexual revolution had
been linked with the students movement. An issue within the 1960s was towards
the use of the contraceptive that appeared on the market otherwise known as The
Pill. The Pill would later also become connected with the Woman’s liberation
movement during the 1970s, where The Pill was viewed within two way as a device
to liberate women and a tool to oppress women’s sexuality.[43]
Reunification
between East and West Germany occurred when the Berlin fell in 1989, even
though the joining together of the two fractured countries might have other
issues that would prop up within the future.[44] The fall of the Berlin
Wall was the symbolism of the joining of both East and West Berlin, but also
Eastern Europe with the rest of the European continent.[45] The fall of the Berlin Wall bought change and
opportunities like David Hasselhoff singing from atop of the wall in 1989. The
authorities had granted him permission when asked, when once such an action
would be denied. During an interview David was surprised by the answer he
received. The fall of Communism surprised the world and Germany was the core of
the change as the country moved forward. [46] The Berlin Wall was once
seen as a divider between Berlin and Germany itself was to become a political
monument, when dismantled in 1989, which became iconic through the media
coverage and tourist attraction.[47] The Berlin wall being
dismantled was the collective memory where the fall of the USSR meant the world
would be changing yet again and the balance of power was changing. People were
let through the Brandenburg gates when the guards opened them for people to
flow through. Political powers outside of Germany were not ready for the fall
of the wall or even for reunification. Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s Prime
Minister for example wondered what it would mean and was suspicious of the
fallout from a unified Germany.[48]
Germany
after the Second World War was a different Germany that had entered the war as
the aggressor and ended the war as a defeated nation divided up between the
victors. The story of Germany was not the only one as the country went forward
even though it had been divided between the forces of the Allied nations of
United States and The Soviet Union as they themselves fought a Cold War for
nearly 30 years. Germany was influenced by the world around them much to the
dismay of the countries behind the Iron Curtain as new forms of culture was
cultivated like music and Television, which flourished within the new world. Berlin’s
culture changed once the Berlin Wall was erected during 1961 and again towards
the end of 1989 when the flood gates opened and the world changed. The
reunification of Germany began then, even if other world leaders were not ready
for the wall to crumble. Youth culture was something that appeared at the end
of the war years where people were specifically being marketed to by new styles
in clothing and music that trended like Elvis and The Beatles. Television
opened up a new world for many people and the cultural cringe from Eastern
Germany as the GDR wanted their citizens to have their own ideals not from the
influence from the West especially the United States. The rise of the mass
produced product like refrigerators and washing machines meant many appliances
would be cost effective and cheaply bought to become commonly available within
homes. The world was changing and the battle was fought within the streets of
Germany through new trends and fads that bought about new and interesting
problems as people explored themselves and the world they now lived in.
Cultural ideas would flow throughout both Germany’s, where people would
interpret them in their own way and form by including their own flair.
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[1] Sabina Mihelj, ‘Negotiating Cold
War culture at the crossroads of East and West: Uplifting the working people,
entertaining the masses, cultivating the nation’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 53, 2011, p.509.
[2] Rosemary Wakeman, 'European mass
culture in the media age', Themes in
modern European history since 1945, New York, 2002, p. 147.
[3] Pertti Ahonen, ‘Taming the expellee
threat in post-1945 Europe: Lessons from the two Germanies and Finland’, Contemporary
European History, 14, 2005,
pp. 1–2.
[4] Maria Malksoo, ‘The memory politics of becoming European: The East European
subalterns and the collective memory of Europe’, European Journal of
International Relations, 15, 2009,
p. 657.
[5] Wakeman, 'European', pp. 142 -143.
[6] Leo. Tindemans, ‘European Union. Report by Mr. Leo Tindemans, Prime Minister of
Belgium, to the European Council’, Bulletin of the European Communities,
Supplement 1/76, 1976, pp. 17 – 18, http://aei.pitt.edu/942/,
accessed 07 March 2017.
[7] Wakeman, 'European', pp. 146 -147.
[8] Uta G. Poiger, Jazz,
rock, and rebels: cold war politics and American culture in a divided Germany, Berkeley,
2000, pp. 79 – 80.
[9] Wakeman, 'European', p. 144.
[10] Tony Judt, Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London, 2010, p. 339.
[11] Julia Sneeringer, ‘Meeting The
Beatles: What Beatlemania can tell us about West Germany in the 1960s’, The Sixties, 6, 2013, pp. 173-174.
[12] Altiero Spinelli, ‘The growth of the
European movement since World War II’, European
Integration, Baltimore, 1957, pp. 48 – 51.
[13] Mihelj, ‘Negotiating’, p.510.
[14] Paul Betts, ‘The twilight of the
idols: East German memory and material culture’, The Journal of Modern History, 72, 2000, p. 745.
[15] Cora Granata, ‘The Cold War Politics of Cultural Minorities:
Jews and Sorbs in the German Democratic Republic, 1976 – 1989’ German
History, 27, 2009, p. 63.
[16] Betts, ‘twilight’, p. 747.
[17] Judt, Postwar, p. 333.
[18] David DeGuistino, 'Europe emerges 1944-1954.' A reader in European integration, London, 1996, p. 26; David Childs, ‘From the ‘New course’ to the
Berlin Wall: 1954 – 1961’, The GDR,
Moscow’s German Ally, London, 1983, pp. 60 – 65.
[19] Poiger, Jazz, p. 208;
Wakeman, 'European', p. 147.
[20] "Berlin Wall" Speech - President Reagan's Address at the
Brandenburg Gate - 6/12/87, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MDFX-dNtsM, accessed 07 March 2017.
[21] Juliane
Brauer, ‘With power and aggression, and a great sadness’ Emotional Clashes
between Punk Culture and GDR Youth Policy around 1980’, Twentieth Century Communism. A journal of international history,
2012, p. 84.
[22] Poiger, Jazz, p. 67.
[23] Granata, ‘Cold War ‘, p. 60.
[24] Poiger, Jazz, p. 209
[25] Judt, Postwar, p. 344.
[26] Poiger, Jazz, pp. 163 – 164;
Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s
twentieth century, New York, Vintage, 2000, pp. 316 – 317.
[27] Wakeman, 'European', p. 149.
[28] Jefferson Chase, ‘'87 Concert was a
Genesis of East German Rebellion’, Deutsche Welle, 2007, http://www.dw.com/en/87-concert-was-a-genesis-of-east-german-rebellion/a-2663850,
accessed 1 April 2017.
[29] Gideon Botsch, ‘From
skinhead-subculture to radical right movement: The development of a ‘National
Opposition’ in East Germany’, Contemporary European History, 21, 2012, p. 558.
[30] Seth Howes, ‘“Killersatellit” and Randerscheinung:
Punk and the Prenzlauer Berg’, German Studies Review, 36, 2013, p.579;
Wakeman, 'European', p. 160.
[32] Botsch, ‘skinhead-’, p. 560 -
562.
[33] Manfred Stock, ‘Youth culture in East Germany from symbolic
dropout to politicization’, Communist and Post-Communist
Studies, 27, 1994, pp. 141-142.
[34] John David Donaldson, ‘“Television without frontiers”: The continuing tension between liberal
free trade and European cultural
integrity.’ Fordham International Law
Journal, 20, 1996, p. 144.
[35] Wakeman, 'European', pp. 156 - 157.
[36] Judt, Postwar, pp. 345 - 346.
[37] Cris
Shore, ‘Creating the people's Europe: symbols, history and invented
traditions’, Building Europe: The
Cultural Politics of European Integration, London, 2006, p. 52.
[39] Wakeman, 'European', pp. 150 - 151.
[40] Sneeringer, ‘Beatlemania’, p. 184.
[41] Poiger, Jazz, pp. 178 – 180.
[42] Mazower, Dark, p. 314.
[43] Eva-Maria Silies, ‘Taking the Pill
after the ‘sexual revolution’: female contraceptive decisions in England and
West Germany in the 1970s’, European
Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 22, 2015, p.46.
[44] Betts, ‘twilight’, p. 736.
[45] John Hagan, Hans Merkens and Klaus Boehnke,
‘Delinquency and disdain: Social capital and the control of right-wing
extremism among East and West Berlin youth.’ American Journal of Sociology, 100, 1995, p. 1030.
[46] David Hasselhoff at Berlin wall
1989, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zXiClnK8oE,
accessed 07 March 2017; Emma Hartley, ‘David Hasselhoff's role in the
fall of the Berlin Wall’, The Guardian,
20 March 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/19/david-hasselhoff-berlin-wall-fall,
accessed 07 March 2017.
[47] Betts, ‘twilight’, p. 731.
[48] Judt, Postwar, pp. 632 - 639; Mazower, Dark, pp. 386 - 389.
