Test the West: American History through the Lens of German Survey Texts

Abstract

The extent of American influence on postwar German affairs is arguably unprecedented in history of relations between modern nation-states. From preeminent occupying force after World War II to guardian, cultural exporter, and largest trading and investment partner, United States played a role in postwar (West) German society that has led chroniclers of German affairs to speak of United States as the midwife of German democracy and to describe Federal Republic as Americanized. The still-proliferating literature on German-American relations takes as premise a decisive American presence in German society; instances range from presumed surrender to American policies and culture to what some characterize as troublesome rise of anti-Americanism. The United States, as largest political and economic power and dominant cultural trendsetter, has often represented indeed, symbolized the for post-World War II Germans. Ever since founding of two separate Germanies in 1949, German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), West Germans have been acutely aware some might argue, proud -of belonging to the West, a concept that was initially identified almost exclusively with United States, and only later in postwar era with Western Europe. It was not without historical irony that East Germans, soon after Berlin Wall was opened in November 1989, were greeted in West Berlin by a huge billboard advertising American-made West cigarettes with slogan Test West. 1 Given this context, how do Germans learn about United States, and, more specifically, how does German-language portrayal of United States history compare with historical literature that has materialized in America?2 The short answer is: not very favorably. There is very little evidence of different or uniquely German perspectives that might shed new and revealing light on American past. Above all, immense richness of sources and diversity in approaches that