The Politics of Culture in Soviet-Occupied Germany, 1945-1949

The Politics of Culture in Soviet-Occupied Germany, 1945-1949
Author: David Pike
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 722
Release: 1992
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780804720939

They allow for a painstaking analysis of the political and "aesthetic" priorities of a developing Stalinist culture while raising intriguing questions about the early stages of the Cold War and the subsequent division of Germany. In particular, the gradual introduction of Zhdanovist or socialist-realist political norms and aesthetic forms into Soviet-occupied Germany closely paralleled developments in the Soviet Union during the infamous zhdanovshchina (1946-1948). Smear campaigns against "formalism," "decadence," and "cosmopolitanism," carefully tailored to local circumstances, were the natural consequence. Simultaneously, the German Communists worked behind the scenes with the Soviet occupation regime to establish the administrative apparatus for the enforcement of these standards, imported from the Soviet Union and calculated to infuse German art and literature with the proper political priorities.

The Russians in Germany

The Russians in Germany
Author: Norman M. Naimark
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 634
Release: 1995
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780674784055

In 1945, when the Red Army marched in, eastern Germany was not "occupied" but "liberated." This, until the recent collapse of the Soviet Bloc, is what passed for history in the German Democratic Republic. Now, making use of newly opened archives in Russia and Germany, Norman Naimark reveals what happened during the Soviet occupation of eastern Germany from 1945 through 1949. His book offers a comprehensive look at Soviet policies in the occupied zone and their practical consequences for Germans and Russians alike--and, ultimately, for postwar Europe. In rich and lucid detail, Naimark captures the mood and the daily reality of the occupation, the chaos and contradictions of a period marked by rape and repression, the plundering of factories, the exploitation of German science, and the rise of the East German police state. Never have these practices and their place in the overall Soviet strategy, particularly the political development of the zone, received such thorough treatment. Here we have our first clear view of how the Russians regarded the postwar settlement and the German question, how they made policy on issues from reparations to technology transfer to the acquisition of uranium, how they justified their goals, how they met them or failed, and how they changed eastern Germany in the process. The Russians in Germany also takes us deep into the politics of culture as Naimark explores the ways in which Soviet officers used film, theater, and education to foster the Bolshevization of the zone. Unique in its broad, comparative approach to the Soviet military government in Germany, this book fills in a missing--and ultimately fascinating--chapter in the history of modern Europe.

The Antifascist Classroom

The Antifascist Classroom
Author: B. Blessing
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2006-11-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0230601634

This study explores the history of the New School that developed in the postwar period and its role in communicating antifascism to young people in the Soviet zone. Blessing traces how the decisions about how to educate young people after the National Socialist dictatorship became part of a broader discussion about the future of the German nation.

The Politics of Religion in Soviet-occupied Germany

The Politics of Religion in Soviet-occupied Germany
Author: Sean Philip Brennan
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 0739151258

The Politics of Religion in Soviet-Occupied Germany illuminates the religious policies of the Soviet military authorities and their allies in the Socialist Unity Party in the Soviet zone, and more importantly, who devised these policies and how they implemented them. Brennan illustrates how the Soviet authorities recreated the Soviet zone along Stalinist lines with regard to religious policy, focusing on the Soviet zone, and in particular its most important province, Berlin-Brandenburg. This book also demonstrates how the church leaders responded to these policies, especially as they became increasingly antireligious. Book jacket.

Bringing Culture to the Masses

Bringing Culture to the Masses
Author: Esther von Richthofen
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781845454586

This text explores how cultural life in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) was strictly controlled by the ruling party, the SED, through attempts to dictate the way people spent their free time. It shows how people's cultural life in the GDR developed a dynamic of its own.

The Perils of Peace

The Perils of Peace
Author: Jessica Reinisch
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2013-06-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199660794

An archive-based study examining how the four Allies - Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union - prepared for and conducted their occupation of Germany after its defeat in 1945. Uses the case of public health to shed light on the complexities of the immediate post-war period.

Capturing the German Eye

Capturing the German Eye
Author: Cora Sol Goldstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2009-08-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0226301710

Shedding new light on the American campaign to democratize Western Germany after World War II, Capturing the German Eye uncovers the importance of cultural policy and visual propaganda to the U.S. occupation. Cora Sol Goldstein skillfully evokes Germany’s political climate between 1945 and 1949, adding an unexpected dimension to the confrontation between the United States and the USSR. During this period, the American occupiers actively vied with their Soviet counterparts for control of Germany’s visual culture, deploying film, photography, and the fine arts while censoring images that contradicted their political messages. Goldstein reveals how this U.S. cultural policy in Germany was shaped by three major factors: competition with the USSR, fear of alienating German citizens, and American domestic politics. Explaining how the Americans used images to discredit the Nazis and, later, the Communists, she illuminates the instrumental role of visual culture in the struggle to capture German hearts and minds at the advent of the cold war.

Antifascist Humanism and the Politics of Cultural Renewal in Germany

Antifascist Humanism and the Politics of Cultural Renewal in Germany
Author: Andreas Agocs
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2017-07-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1107085438

A study of German traditions of cultural renewal from their origins in antifascist activism in German exile communities in Europe and Latin America during World War II to their failure during the emerging Cold War in occupied Germany and the early German Democratic Republic.

Lukács and Brecht

Lukács and Brecht
Author: David Pike
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1985
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780807816400

The life and work of Susan Glaspell, the pioneering, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and novelist, who is best known as the author of Trifles and Alison's House and for her involvement with the Provincetown Players.

The Miracle Years

The Miracle Years
Author: Hanna Schissler
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 510
Release: 2020-12-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 069122255X

Stereotypical descriptions showcase West Germany as an "economic miracle" or cast it in the narrow terms of Cold War politics. Such depictions neglect how material hardship preceded success and how a fascist past and communist sibling complicated the country's image as a bastion of democracy. Even more disappointing, they brush over a rich and variegated cultural history. That history is told here by leading scholars of German history, literature, and film in what is destined to become the volume on postwar West German culture and society. In it, we read about the lives of real people--from German children fathered by black Occupation soldiers to communist activists, from surviving Jews to Turkish "guest" workers, from young hoodlums to middle-class mothers. We learn how they experienced and represented the institutions and social forces that shaped their lives and defined the wider culture. We see how two generations of West Germans came to terms not only with war guilt, division from East Germany, and the Angst of nuclear threat, but also with changing gender relations, the Americanization of popular culture, and the rise of conspicuous consumption. Individually, these essays peer into fascinating, overlooked corners of German life. Together, they tell what it really meant to live in West Germany in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Volker R. Berghahn, Frank Biess, Heide Fehrenbach, Michael Geyer, Elizabeth Heineman, Ulrich Herbert, Maria Höhn, Karin Hunn, Kaspar Maase, Richard McCormick, Robert G. Moeller, Lutz Niethammer, Uta G. Poiger, Diethelm Prowe, Frank Stern, Arnold Sywottek, Frank Trommler, Eric D. Weitz, Juliane Wetzel, and Dorothee Wierling.