Longing for Purity: Fascism and Nazism in the Italian and German Satirical Press (1943/1945–1963)

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 464-494
Author(s):  
Dario Pasquini
Keyword(s):  
German Society ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The Other ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
The West ◽  
Allied Occupation ◽  
East German ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
Post War ◽  
Sources Of Contamination

This article compares Italian and German memory cultures of Fascism and Nazism using an analysis of Italian and West- and East-German satirical magazines published from 1943 to 1963. In the early post-war period, as a consequence of the anti-Fascist and anti-Nazi policies in Italy and in Germany that had been put into effect by the Allied occupation authorities, a significant part of the Italian and German public felt anxiety regarding the Fascist and the Nazi past and feared these past regimes as potential sources of contamination. But many, both in Italy and Germany, also reacted by denying that their country needed any sort of ‘purification’. This article’s main argument is that the interaction between these two conflicting positions exercised different effects in the three contexts considered. In Italy, especially during the years after 1948, the satirical press produced images that either rendered Fascism banal or praised it, representing it as a phenomenon which was an ‘internal’ and at least partly positive product of Italian society. I define this process as a sweetening ‘internalization’ of Fascism. In East Germany, by contrast, Nazism was represented through images linking the crimes committed in the Nazi concentration camps, depicted as a sort of ‘absolute evil’, with the leadership of the FRG, considered ‘external’ to ‘true’ German society. I define this process as a ‘demonizing’ externalization of Nazism, by which I mean a tendency to represent Nazism as a ‘monstrous’ phenomenon. In the West German satirical press, on the other hand, Nazism was not only ‘externalized’ by comparing it to the East German Communist dictatorship, but also ‘internalized’ by implying that it was a negative product of German society in general and by calling for public reflection on responsibility for the Nazi crimes, including West Germany as the Nazi regime’s successor. The demonization of the regime also played a crucial role in this self-critical ‘internalization’ of Nazism.

The foundations and prerequisites of imagology

2021 ◽  
pp. 65-74
Author(s):  
Valerii P. Trykov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Engineering ◽  
Dominant Strategy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Role ◽  
The West ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One ◽  
Eu Project

The article examines the conceptual foundations and scientific, sociocultural and philosophical prerequisites of imagology, the field of interdisciplinary research in humanitaristics, the subject of which is the image of the “Other” (foreign country, people, culture, etc.). It is shown that the imagology appeared as a response to the crisis of comparatives of the mid-20th century, with a special role in the formation of its methodology played by the German comparatist scientist H. Dyserinck and his Aachen School. The article analyzes the influence on the formation of the imagology of post-structuralist and constructivist ideological-thematic complex (auto-reference of language, discursive history, construction of social reality, etc.), linguistic and cultural turn in the West in the 1960s. Shown is that, extrapolated to national issues, this set of ideas and approaches has led to a transition from the essentialist concept of the nation to the concept of a nation as an “imaginary community” or an intellectual construct. A fundamental difference in approaches to the study of an image of the “Other” in traditional comparativism and imagology, which arises from a different understanding of the nation, has been distinguished. It is concluded that the imagology studies the image of the “Other” primarily in its manipulative, socio-ideological function, i.e., as an important tool for the formation and transformation of national and cultural identity. The article identifies ideological, socio-political factors that prepared the birth of the imagology and ensured its development in western Humanities (fear of possible recurrences of extreme nationalism and fascism in post-war Europe, the EU project, which set the task of forming a pan-European identity). It is concluded that the imagology, on the one hand, has actualized an important field of scientific research — the study of the image of the “Other”, but, on the other hand, in the broader cultural and historical perspective, marked a departure not only from the traditions of comparativism and historical poetics, but also from the humanist tradition of the European culture, becoming part of a manipulative dominant strategy in the West. To the culture of “incorporation” into a “foreign word” in order to understand it, preserve it and to ensure a genuine dialogue of cultures, the imagology has contrasted the social engineering and the technology of active “designing” a new identity.

Halbstarke and Rowdys: Consumerism, Youth Rebellion, and Gender in the Postwar Cinema of the Two Germanys

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 432-452
Author(s):  
Priscilla Layne
Keyword(s):  
Pop Culture ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Delinquent Youth ◽  
The West ◽  
German Film ◽  
Class Society ◽  
East German ◽  
Film Reviews ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Specific

ABSTRACTIn the second half of the 1950s, American films about “delinquent youth” took West Germany by storm. Although these films were not screened in East Germany, the still open border between the FRG and GDR allowed young people in both states to see these films. Many adopted American clothing styles and music in both Germanys. Two films, the West German production Die Halbstarken (1956) and the East German production Berlin–Ecke Schönhauser (1957) addressed “delinquent youth” in the German context and became quite popular. The article compares the competing images of femininity in both films, which linked the problem of “delinquent youth” to consumerism, pop culture, and “weak parents,” but portrayed young women very differently. While consumerism in the West German film was in a gender-specific way linked to femininity, the East German film linked consumerism to a class society and displaced it to the West. Contemporary film reviews and press treatment of main actresses reflected these differing attitudes toward gender and consumption.

From Reconstruction to ‘Leisure Society’: Free Time, Recreational Behaviour and the Discourse on Leisure Time in the West German Recovery Society of the 1950s

1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel Schildt
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
German Society ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Expert ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Post War ◽  
Industrial Standards ◽  
Second World

Little more than a decade after having lost the Second World War, the society of the western part of Germany, the Federal Republic, had changed fundamentally in the eye of the observer. The economic expert Henry C. Wallich was not the only one to speak of the ‘German miracle’. Not only had the previously achieved industrial standards long been regained and surpassed, but also a boom had set in – as in all of Western Europe – which came to an end only in the 1970s. Simultaneously, both economy and society had been modernised in the process of reconstruction. The transition to a new stage of modernity, ‘society in affluence’, was discussed animatedly. The emergence of new leisure lifestyles in particular was considered a mark of present times. However, in current reviews it is often forgotten that the West German society of the 1950s was to a far greater extent determined by continuity with the interwar period and by the consequences of the war and post-war years than a first glance at the spectacular novelties suggests.

Moving against Disappearance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Richard Giersdorf
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The West ◽  
Pedestrian Movement ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Social ◽  
East German

Nearly a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany was subsumed into the West German national structure. As a result, the distinct political systems, institutions, and cultures that characterized East Germany have nearly completely vanished. In some instances, this history was actively—and physically—eradicated by the unified Germany. This chapter works against the disappearance of East German culture by reconstructing the physicality of the walk across the border on the day of the opening of the Berlin Wall and two choreographic works depicting East German identities on stage. The initial re-creation of the choreography of a pedestrian movement provides a social, political, and methodological context that relates the two dance productions to the social movement of East German citizens. Both works take stances on the political situation in East Germany during and after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989, although one is by a West German artist, Sasha Waltz, and the other by East German choreographer Jo Fabian.

The Lasting Impact of the ‘Sociological Moment’ on the Churches’ Discourse of ‘Secularization’ in West Germany

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 157-176
Author(s):  
Thomas Mittmann
Keyword(s):  
Modern Society ◽  
German Society ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
The West ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
The Future ◽  
The 1960S

This paper focuses on the effect of the religious sociology on the churches’ discourse of “secularization.” The research results refer to transformations within the Catholic and Protestant Church(es) in West Germany since the 1950s. At this point the purpose is not to give comprehensive insight into that topic. Rather, a few general trends are to be considered here. The secularization discourses within the West German Churches can be described as a periodization with three stages. In the period from 1945 to the late 1950s “secularization” was used to give an orientation after the devastating experiences of the Second World War. The concept was at that stage most understood in the classical meaning of a religious decline. “Secularization” was the mirror-image of past, present, and more importantly, the future. The chance of a religious revival on the one hand and the fear of a godless communism on the other hand were the main topics of the secularization discourse in the postwar period. In the 1960s we can find a kind of “theologization” of “secularization.” Based on the work of theologians such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul Tillich, and Friedrich Gogarten it was the aim to integrate a changed understanding of “secularization” in the sense of a necessary “Verweltlichung” or “Weltlichkeit” into a “modern” and future oriented church model. The churchly debate was influenced and inspired by the general politicization of the West German society. The third period began in the 1970s, but was fully developed in the 1980s. The secularization discourse followed the trend of a scientification of the Churches. The definition of “secularization” was more and more affected by sociological patterns and the theological dimension moved into the background. The churchly discussion benefited primarily from the extension of Church Sociology to Sociology of Religions. This impact of the “sociological moment” improved the future prospects of the Churches, as long as they were willing to adapt to modern society by changing their symbolic, ritual, and institutional form. Already, at the end of the 1970s the first indications of a changed perception of the significance of religion were seen. This also involved attempts to replace the theory of secularization with more plausible accounts of the future of religion.

Radicals and the State

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
GREGG O. KVISTAD
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
The State ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
German State ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
The One ◽  
State Employee ◽  
Political Battle

This article argues that ideas of the state are crucial for understanding contemporary politics in so-called “state-societies” like West Germany. It argues that the recent protracted and divisive political battle over state employee personnel policy in the Federal Republic needs to be understood as a conflict involving the power of two nineteenthcentury ideas of the German state, on the one hand, and the general modernization of the West German state and transformation of West German elite and mass political culture, on the other.

How Udo Wanted to Save the World in ‘Erich's Lamp Shop’: Lindenberg's Concert in Honecker's East Berlin, the NATO Double-Track Decision and Communist Economic Woes

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
LORENZ M. LÜTHI
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
East German ◽  
Peace Activist ◽  
Nuclear Missiles ◽  
Double Track

AbstractThe concert given by the West German rock star Udo Lindenberg in East Berlin on 25 October 1983 links cultural, political, diplomatic and economic history. The East German regime had banned performances by the anti-nuclear peace activist and musician since the 1970s, but eventually allowed a concert, hoping to prevent the deployment of American nuclear missiles in West Germany. In allowing this event, however, East Germany neither prevented the implementation of the NATO double-track decision of 1979 nor succeeded in controlling the political messages of the impertinent musician. Desperate for economic aid from the West, East Germany decided to cancel a promised Lindenberg tour in 1984, causing widespread disillusionment among his fans in the country.

Red Power: Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich and Indian Activist Networks in East and West Germany

2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Glenn Penny
Keyword(s):  
American Indian ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Red Power ◽  
American Indian Movement ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Simple Question ◽  
East German ◽  
German Newspaper ◽  
Post War

A curious photograph appeared in 1976 in the East-German newspaper Junge Welt (Fig. 1). Two well-known members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), Dennis Banks and Vernon Bellecourt, were shown together with an elderly German woman, Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich, at her home in East Berlin. This photo, like so many of the photos of Indians in unexpected places, always seems to amuse people, leading them to ask with a snigger why the Indians were there. The Indians' presence in such places, however, is seldom a laughing matter, and in this case, scholars of the post-war era might find the answer to the simple question of the Indians' presence somewhat disconcerting.

scholarly journals Debates on the Collective Guilt in Post­War West Germany

2015 ◽  
pp. 99-103
Author(s):  
Evgeny L. Kauganov
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
German Society ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Collective Guilt ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Nazi Past

Analyses the attitudes towards the Nazi past that existed in West German society from 1945 through the 1950s. The author considers the social and political situation in the Federal Republic of Germany, the concept of “zero hour”, and collective guilt thesis that were tackled in the publications of sociopolitical character. The author concludes that in Germany in the post­war period, a specific “victim’s mentality” prevailed that rejected the idea of collective guilt and responsibility for the Nazi crimes.

scholarly journals Comprehension of the national past in the West Berlin music culture in the 1980s

2021 ◽  
pp. 251-264
Author(s):  
Е.Н. Лысенко
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Music Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
The Public ◽  
Music Scene ◽  
West Berlin ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
Political Economic

Статья посвящена роли популярной музыки в процессах осмысления и проработки нацистского прошлого в Западной Германии в 1980-х гг. Популярная музыка рассматривается на примере музыкальной сцены Западного Берлина, а именно группы «Einstürzende Neubauten». Рассмотрены политический, экономический и социальный контекст функционирования сцены Западного Берлина, проанализированы различные способы репрезентации национального прошлого в музыке «Einstürzende Neu-bauten». Сделан вывод о том, что в музыкальной культуре Западного Берлина происходило восстановление преемственности разных периодов немецкой культуры и вписывание проблемного прошлого в публичный исторический нарратив. The article is focused on the role of popular music in the processes of comprehension and dealing with the Nazi past in West Germany in the 1980s. Popular music is examined on the example of the music scene of West Berlin, namely the band «Einstürzende Neubauten». The article considers the political, economic and social context of the West Berlin music scene, analyzes different ways of representing the national past in the music of «Einstürzende Neubauten». The conclusion is made that in the musical culture of West Berlin the continuity of different periods of German culture was restored and the troubled past was incorporated into the public historical narrative.

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