Social and cultural changes in Europe between 1945 and 1989

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.

[31]             Brauer, ‘aggression’, pp. 76 - 77.

[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.

[38]             Donaldson, ‘Television’, pp. 96 – 97.

[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.