The Overseas World and Hamburg

Abstract

Closely reading the Overseas Review ?a journal founded in the German port city of Hamburg in 1949? this article examines the contemporary concept of “overseas” and studies how a local tradition drawing on the city’s overseas relations was recreated in the context of the postwar era. Whereas this tradition perceived the overseas world as being in a state of fundamental change, it emphasized Hamburg’s traditional role as a “bridge” to this world. The historicity of the link between the overseas world and the city of Hamburg became particularly tangible through the introduction of the Overseas Day in 1951 to celebrate the “harbor’s birthday.” Appealing to a tradition of turning overseas could provide the basis for a cosmopolitan worldview, while this tradition was simultaneously also combined with a pioneering and even expansionist outlook.