Verkannte Propheten? Zur 'Expertenkultur' (west-)deutscher Werbekommunikatoren bis zur Rezession 1966/67

Abstract

This is less a book about the history of advertising in modern Germany, a subject which has recently garnered some attention from cultural historians and those working on the history of consumerism, but rather a collective biography of the admen who pioneered and built the country’s advertising industry. Basing his work on an impressive sample of nearly four hundred independent advertisers and advertising executives in corporations, Hirt tells the story of a somewhat unsuccessful, or at least incomplete, professionalization process between the late Imperial era and the early Federal Republic. The heart of this study, in many ways, is the admen’s complicated relationship with the National Socialist regime, with its regulatory attempts to rein in the advertising market, and with the promise of social recognition some hoped this would entail. Lacking standardized professional requirements, German advertisers, Hirt argues, continuously saw themselves on the defensive against widespread critiques of commercial advertising. In this, they were part of a broader story of Germany’s sometimes uneasy embrace of commercial consumer culture from the late nineteenth century.