AHA Annual Meeting, CGCEH Session 10: From Enemy to Ally: Reconciliation Made Real in Postwar Germany. American Historical Association.
Reviewed by James F. Tent
Published on H-German (January, 2004)
Prof. Granata kept the session on time throughout, introduced all speakers well, and fielded questions and answers with finesse. Attendance was light (ca. fourteen persons), but it was very lively. <p> Prof. Hoehn's paper, "Garrision Friendships: German-American Friendships in the Postwar Era," examined the "bottom up" process that started with the American military establishment's efforts to forge closer ties between its soldiers and Germans at the local level. Obviously, the Cold War and especially the Korean War played a central role in this decision. Prof. Hoehn gave numerous examples of "West Integration" whereby garrison commanders in the enlarged U.S. military presence of the 1950s attempted--successfully--to convince German officials and populations in towns and villages surrounding American military centers that they should consider themselves as being reintegrated into Western confidences. <p> Mayors and other local VIPs were invited to join military leaders during public ceremonies, parades, remembrances, social functions, and traditional holidays. Then, Americans were quick to accord recognition and respect to the Bundeswehr from 1956 onward. Americans did much volunteer work in the 1950s, building sports fields and schools, donating to charities and participating in local German civic activities. Germans responded well, inviting soldiers into their homes for Christmas, etc. Americans rapidly became a part of the social fabric of surrounding communities, renting dwellings, some U.S. dependent children even entering German schools, and soldiers socializing in pubs and elsewhere. Young Germans rapidly acquired a taste for American popular culture, so that the initial "top down" efforts by American commanders were quickly followed by an enormous "bottom up" rise in individual ties. Hoehn's paper, based on extensive research, shows that the Atlantic Alliance did not result only from diplomatic ties. Close proximity and daily interaction between Germans and Americans played a major role in the endeavor too. <p> Prof. Lockenour's paper, "Friend or Foe? The Image of the Enemy in Post-World War II West German Combat Films," examines the efforts of West German film makers of the 1950s to create films that dealt with Germans' experiences in the recent war that were commercially appealing as well as acceptable to both Germans and to the Allies, who now had large numbers of troops stationed in West Germany. The American-made but British directed film of 1951, "The Desert Fox," about Rommel had had wide appeal in Germany. Thus, German film makers began producing successful films in 1954 such as "08/15" and "Die Bruecke." This genre of films created three enemies: the Soviets, the Americans, and the Nazis. The films depicted the Nazis as the worst enemy, setting them apart from the common German soldiers who fought well but against hopeless odds and who thus had to make accommodations with the eventual victors. The Soviets were trickier to portray. Simply depicting them as savages would renew suspicions of racism. Therefore, the film makers resorted to plots involving individual Russians (usually women) connected somehow to individual German soldiers (who were sexually alluring), the two parties finding means, somehow, to retain human ties despite the hellish combat raging around them. Americans were depicted as the most benign enemy: indifferent soldiers, slovenly, and naïve. They were also wealthy, and in final scenes they often walked off with a German woman hanging on one arm. Prof. Lockenour concludes that films like "08/15" were not vehicles for reconciliation. Rather, they served as a kind of forum for Germans to discuss or relate to their wartime experiences. Americans are naïve; Russians are violent. Innocent Germans are sometimes saved, sometimes not. Those films helped define a West German society identity free of wartime atrocities, one that had been victimized by Nazis. But now it was now using its sharp wits and military expertise to defend Europe against communism. <p> Prof. Peifer's paper, "Stages of Reconciliation: German Naval Veterans and the Transition from Involuntary Labor to Joint Collaboration," focuses on relations at the local level between two sets of former enemies. Britain's Royal Navy and its German counterparts in the British Zone from post-1945 into the 1950s plus American and German naval opposites in the same period. The contrast is significant. Britons could not forgive the Kriegsmarine's role in two world wars. Thus, Royal Navy (RN) leadership remained distant to the point of hostility towards discharged German naval personnel, holding at arm's length the stalwart members of the postwar German Minesweeping Administration that cleared vast minefields after 1945, as well as nascent German maritime police in the 1950s. The RN even used Germany's scenic island of Helgoland as a bombing range until the end of 1950 when German student protesters landed there. German police refused to aid British efforts to evict them until finally a face-saving compromise was reached. The RN played almost no role in the creation of the Bundesmarine. By contrast, the U.S. Navy (USN) had long viewed Japan as its rival and had not developed hardened grievances against the German Navy. In consequence, certain USN professionals with experience of the pre-1939 Kriegsmarine, such as Captain Arthur "Speed" Graubart, stationed in the American maritime enclave at Bremen, established close ties with former Kriegsmarine officers such as Friedrich Ruge. <p> Together, they built a Naval Historical Team Bremerhaven in 1948, which despite its innocuous title, became a nascent planning group in which USN and former German naval officers moved quickly from historical topics to planning for a future German navy. The Berlin Air Lift of 1948, followed by the Korean War in 1950 added urgency to the talks. Ruge and others were invited to the United States to lecture at the Naval War College. Thus, informal contacts between USN and former German naval officers blossomed immediately into concrete planning efforts to create the Bundesmarine, once Germany entered NATO in 1956. The U.S. Navy became a senior partner to the Bundesmarine. The Royal Navy played almost no role in this outcome. Prof. Peifer concludes that his "bottom up" examination explains much better why a German navy was so quickly reconstituted in the mid-1950s than explanations ascribing it to complex diplomatic negotiations. Bitterness on the part of one former adversary (the RN), but open-mindedness on the part of another (USN) played a central role. One provided a psychological stumbling block for one former adversary, a rapid path to reconciliation to another--all of this under the lash of the Cold War. <p> "Bottom up" contacts had provided the means to dramatically accelerate the growth of an American-friendly Bundesmarine when it came time for diplomats to conclude formal treaties. Prof. Tent's comment praised all three papers for their acute observations about the process of transformation in the 1950s that had initiated a basic change in attitudes between West Germans and Americans. Much investigation has taken place with respect to the Occupation period, 1945 to 1949. As the CGCEH Session's three papers note, it is now time to examine the process that took place in the 1950s. All three conclude that examination of causes for change in that understudied decade must take into account "bottom up" developments. Prof. Hoehn's paper shows the grass roots effects that began once garrison commanders, under orders from above, attempted to reach out to surrounding communities. Prof. Lockenour's paper reveals the tricky, convoluted strategy that German filmmakers evolved to add to a West German popular culture that appealed to wide audiences without offending the Americans unduly, insulting the Russians unduly, or eviscerating the already defeated Germans even more. <p> Finally, Prof. Peifer's paper reveals that "bottom up" contacts between former enemies that overcome past differences can dramatically reduce the time needed to produce friendly new military establishments. Americans with less historical baggage and confronted with the task of shouldering the main burden of the Cold War achieved that result in the creation of the Bundesmarine. Britain's sadly reduced Royal Navy could not find a place in its heart to do so. <p> All three papers were well delivered. Each employed extensive sources and benefited from meticulous research. Discussion was extremely animated!
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-german.
Citation:
James F. Tent. Review of , AHA Annual Meeting, CGCEH Session 10: From Enemy to Ally: Reconciliation Made Real in Postwar Germany.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
January, 2004.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=15292
Copyright © 2004 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at hbooks@mail.h-net.org.