Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T02:13:46.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Transatlantic Reflections: German and American Television

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2013

Detlef Junker
Affiliation:
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany
Get access

Summary

NAZIS FOREVER? GERMANS ON AMERICAN TELEVISION

Paradoxically, the period between the end of the Nuremberg trials and the late 1950s saw, by and large, the most positive portrayals of Germans on American television in the half-century after World War II - positive, that is, to the point of distorting recent realities. West Germans figured as model capitalists and brave defenders on the frontline of the Western alliance, whereas East Germans were cast in the part of victims of communist oppression. In a 1953 See It Now special on West Berlin, journalist Edward R. Murrow visited both parts of the divided city, though filming in the East was possible only by using a concealed camera. The report emphasized the heroic struggle of West Berliners, embodied by Mayor Ernst Reuter, who was interviewed and quoted at length. Although there are numerous allusions to Germany's past, the primary frame of reference is World War II, not the Holocaust. Similarly, a 1961 two-part ABC close-up titled Germany West of the Wall and Behind the Wall contains no reference to the Third Reich, except for a mention of “the last World War, started by Hitler,” made by a spokesman for the German foreign office. The narration introducing the first part of the documentary places the images of shoppers on a busy Cologne shopping street in the proper ideological framework:

West Germany is more prosperous than either France or England, the nations that helped to defeat it. West Germany is threatened by the communists, it is prodded by its allies. And in its prosperity, it can never forget either the nearness of the communists or its separate island, Berlin.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×