Book contents
- Frontmatter
- POLITICS: Détente and Multipolarity: The Cold War and German-American Relations, 1968-1990
- SECURITY: German-American Security Relations, 1968-1990
- ECONOMICS: Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict: Economic Relations Between the United States and Germany, 1968-1990
- CULTURE: Culture as an Arena of Transatlantic Conflict
- 1 American Cultural Policy Toward Germany
- 2 The Third Pillar of Foreign Policy: West German Cultural Policy in the United States
- 3 The Study of Germany in the United States
- 4 American Studies in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945-1990
- 5 In the Shadow of the Federal Republic: Cultural Relations Between the GDR and the United States
- 6 American Literature in Germany
- 7 The American Reception of Contemporary German Literature
- 8 The Americanization of the German Language
- 9 Between Blight and Blessing: The Influence of American Popular Culture on the Federal Republic
- 10 Popular Music in Germany: Experimentation and Emancipation from Anglo-American Models
- 11 Hollywood in Germany
- 12 New German Cinema as National Cinema
- 13 Transatlantic Reflections: German and American Television
- 14 Performance Theater in the Age of Post-Drama
- 15 Beyond Painting and Sculpture: German-American Exchange in the Visual Arts
- 16 The Rediscovery of the City and Postmodern Architecture
- 17 Modernity and Postmodernity in a Transatlantic Perspective
- 18 Confrontations with the Holocaust in the Era of the Cold War: German and American Perspectives
- SOCIETY: German-American Societal Relations in Three Dimensions, 1968-1990
- 1 “1968”: A Transatlantic Event and Its Consequences
- OUTLOOK: America, Germany, and the Atlantic Community After the Cold War
- Index
13 - Transatlantic Reflections: German and American Television
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2013
- Frontmatter
- POLITICS: Détente and Multipolarity: The Cold War and German-American Relations, 1968-1990
- SECURITY: German-American Security Relations, 1968-1990
- ECONOMICS: Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict: Economic Relations Between the United States and Germany, 1968-1990
- CULTURE: Culture as an Arena of Transatlantic Conflict
- 1 American Cultural Policy Toward Germany
- 2 The Third Pillar of Foreign Policy: West German Cultural Policy in the United States
- 3 The Study of Germany in the United States
- 4 American Studies in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945-1990
- 5 In the Shadow of the Federal Republic: Cultural Relations Between the GDR and the United States
- 6 American Literature in Germany
- 7 The American Reception of Contemporary German Literature
- 8 The Americanization of the German Language
- 9 Between Blight and Blessing: The Influence of American Popular Culture on the Federal Republic
- 10 Popular Music in Germany: Experimentation and Emancipation from Anglo-American Models
- 11 Hollywood in Germany
- 12 New German Cinema as National Cinema
- 13 Transatlantic Reflections: German and American Television
- 14 Performance Theater in the Age of Post-Drama
- 15 Beyond Painting and Sculpture: German-American Exchange in the Visual Arts
- 16 The Rediscovery of the City and Postmodern Architecture
- 17 Modernity and Postmodernity in a Transatlantic Perspective
- 18 Confrontations with the Holocaust in the Era of the Cold War: German and American Perspectives
- SOCIETY: German-American Societal Relations in Three Dimensions, 1968-1990
- 1 “1968”: A Transatlantic Event and Its Consequences
- OUTLOOK: America, Germany, and the Atlantic Community After the Cold War
- Index
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.
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- Information
- The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945–1990A Handbook, pp. 365 - 372Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004