United States, East German Perception of the
The East German perception of the United States was always interconnected with the political relations between the two countries: It depended on confrontations in the cold war period and in times of detente, on ideological disputes, on cultural and scientific exchanges, and, especially, on relations between the two German states.
However, it would be inadequate to state that there was only one perception of America. On the contrary, a plurality of positive and negative images existed in the country. First, there was an official perception of America, defined by the East German government and ruling Socialist Party (SED). A second, private and less politicized view was held by most East German citizens, which could differ quite profoundly from the official line. The country’s intellectuals, on the other hand, thought of the United States in yet another way. These perceptions, however, underwent changes during the forty years of the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR’s) existence, usually depending on the country’s political relations with the United States.The GDR’s official perception of the United States was based on five principles, largely influenced by Socialist ideology. First, the United States was viewed as the world’s leading capitalist country, which stood in sharp contrast to the GDR’s Socialist ideals. Second, the American monopolistic situation was regarded as creating a threat of fascism. Third, there was the theory of “two nations,” meaning that the United States was not only a country of capitalists, but also one of exploited workers, who had to be supported in their fight against their oppressors (SED party officials kept in close contact with the Communist Party of the United States). Fourth, the old European stereotype of America being a land without culture was still existent. And fifth, it was recognized by GDR officials that the United States had contributed to the liberation of Germany from the Nazi dictatorship.
Yet, it was declared to be the fault of the United States that the former anti-Hitler coalition had not lasted, which in turn had led to the cold war. These official negative perceptions of America were supported by the state-controlled media. A stereotypical Uncle Sam was portrayed as holding a bomb in his hand or as strangling an unarmed worker. In the 1970s, however, when the GDR used its diplomatic channels in order to gain international recognition as an independent state, state officials tried to tone down the anti-American propaganda in the country. For the first time, citizens were allowed to read Western literature and magazines.The private perception of America was less politicized and more a reflection of the people’s wishes and hopes. Many people, especially younger ones, thought of the United States as the “Land of the Free,” of affluence, and individuality. East Germans who had lived in Berlin before the wall was built in 1961, had been able to see for themselves the consumer goods that were available to people living in the western half of the city. Many of them wanted to participate in the economic upswing and left the GDR, which in turn led to the building of the wall. From then on, televisions and radios picking up West German programs were used to keep track of American music, TV shows, and films. The most influential of these radio stations was RIAS (Radio Inside the American Sector) based in West Berlin. East German state officials believed it to be an American propaganda station determined to undermine the GDR (especially during the uprising in East Germany in 1953). They tried to prevent their citizens from receiving this station and West German television, but were mostly unsuccessful in these efforts. The private perception of America was shaped by rock music, jeans, and TV series such as Bonanza and, in later years, Dallas. State officials tried to stop this “imperialistic influence” in the 1960s; young adults, however, viewed it as an opportunity to escape to another, highly idealized world.
All efforts to prohibit jeans, Mickey Mouse comic books, and long hair on boys were hopeless. The GDR experienced a cultural Americanization from below, which became part of the youths’ everyday life. After 1971, officials used some of the “American ideals” for their own purposes and somewhat opened society to Western culture. Books by Upton Sinclair and Jack Kerouac became popular among the young, and in 1971, a GDR “Woodstock” festival was held where thousands of young citizens wore jeans and sang peace songs. This peaceful event was considered to coincide with Socialist ideals. The same was true for any show of solidarity with the civil rights movement in the United States (see for example the thousands of letters written by East Germans to protest the imprisonment of Angela Davis in 1971, who in return came to East Berlin two years later) and a sympathetic attitude toward Native Americans. The latter was based on a traditional positive German view of “Indians” (in East and West Germany), which had been created in the late nineteenth century through adventure stories by widely read authors like Karl May. Several movies were made in East Germany in the 1960s and 1970s that focused on the cruel mistreatment of Native Americans in the settlement of the West. “Indian novels” were immensely popular, the best-known author being Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich, who even went to the United States to get herself acquainted with living conditions on the reservations and spent a night in prison for doing so. The best-known American in East Germany was Dean Reed, the so- called American rebel, who had come to live in the country in 1973. Using his popularity as a singer, songwriter, and goodlooking actor, he became an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in East Asia and attended several international peace conferences. The realization that some groups were being discriminated against in the United States and that the United States had invaded Vietnam led to a more critical perception of America. But whenever officials tried to strengthen the negative image of America, many people in the GDR took a contradicting position: it was precisely this officially ordered anti-Americanism that led to a defiant belief that there must be something good about America.The intellectual perception of America had three components, which were a combination of the official and the privately held images of the United States. First of all, many intellectuals and scientists were members of the SED and supported the official line toward America. The second perception was based on the old European stereotype of America being a land without culture, which was also in accordance with the official view. Yet many artists, authors, and scientists missed the liberty to work independently of governmental control and regarded the United States as the beacon of individual rights. In the 1950s and 1960s, any scientific study of the United States was allowed as long as it supported the view that the United States was a capitalistic and exploitative country. Books written in English that were critical of America were translated and published in the GDR. In the 1970s and 1980s, after the country had been officially recognized by the United States, the discussion about America became more relaxed and open. Exchange programs for students and scientists were initiated, which led to a more pluralistic and realistic view of the United States. However, these exchanges were only available to those persons who were regarded as truly loyal, Socialist citizens and who would, therefore, not use the opportunity to flee the country. Many qualified academics were thus never allowed to attend international conferences in Western countries. The same can be said for artists and athletes. Sports were basically the only field in which the GDR gained international ac- knowledgement—often at the cost of their
athletes’ health. But sports competitions were also used for political statements, as can be seen by the boycotts of the Olympic Games in Moscow and Los Angeles.
Many intellectuals’ perceptions of America were thus more politicized and more critical than those held by most citizens in the GDR.The perception of America took various shapes during the existence of the GDR. It proved to serve a very flexible ideology and was tied to many different ideas, such as the peace discourse or the comparison between the United States and the Soviet Union. Most of these discourses, however, disappeared in the 1970s. East German official and intellectual antiAmericanism contained traditional motifs of German anti-Western thought in general, but also a type of Sovietized antiAmericanism, which used images imported from Soviet propaganda. But although these attempts failed and American culture was just as successful in everyday life in East as well as in West Germany, it can be argued that the regime did succeed in instilling deep skepticism or even distrust toward American politics and society in large segments of the East German population. This could still be observed in Germany’s reaction to the Iraq war in 2003: A majority of Germans was against the war, but the rejection of U.S. policies and the distrust of American motives were a great deal stronger in the eastern part of the country than in the west.
Katja Wuestenbecker
See also Americanization; Berlin Wall; Davis, Angela; Indian Films of the Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschaft; Indians in German Literature; May, Karl Friedrich; Olympic Games; Radio Inside the American Sector; Reed, Dean; Welskopf-Henrich, Liselotte
References and Further Reading
Ettrich, Frank. “Feindbild Amerika in der
DDR? Alltagskultur versus Ideologie.” Die politische Meinung 405 (August 2003): 42-46.
Grosse, Juergen. Amerikapolitik und Amerikabild der DDR 1974—1989. Bonn: Bouvier, 1999.
Hoerningk, Therese, and Alexander Stephan, eds. Jeans, Rock und Vietnam: amerikanische Kultur in der DDR. Berlin: Theater der Zeit, 2002.
Spanger, Hans-Joachim. The GDR in EastWest Relations. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1989.