Occupation and reconstruction: a historical perspective

With the outbreak of the Korean War, the West German state of Rhineland-Palatinate became home to some of the largest American military installations outside the USA. In this book, Hohn offers a social history of this German-American encounter and provides new insights into how West Germans negotiated their transition from National Socialism to a consumer democracy during the 1950s. Focusing on the conservative reaction to the American military presence, Hohn shows that Germany's Christian Democrats, though eager to be allied politically and militarily with the United States, were appalled by the apparent Americanization of daily life and the decline in morality that accompanied the troops to the provinces. Conservatives condemned the jazz clubs and striptease parlours that Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe opened to cater to the troops, and they expressed scorn toward the German women who eagerly pursued white and black American GIs. While most Germanys rejected the conservative effort to punish as prostitutes all women who associated with American GIs, they vilified the sexual relationships between African-American men and German women. Hohn demonstrates that German anxieties over widespread Americanization were always debates about proper gender norms and racial boundaries, and that while the American military brought democracy with them to Germany, they also brought Jim Crow.

GIs and Fräuleins: The German-American Encounter in 1950s West Germany

Classical music was central to German national identity in the early twentieth century. The preeminence of composers such as Bach and Beethoven and artists such as conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler and pianist Walter Gieseking was cited by the Nazis as justification for German expansionism and as evidence of Aryan superiority. In the minds of many Americans, further German aggression could be prevented only if the population's faith in its moral and cultural superiority was shattered. In Settling Scores, David Monod examines the attempted "denazification" of the German music world by the Music Control Branch of the Information Control Division of Military Government. The occupying American forces barred from the stage and concert hall all former Nazi Party members and even anyone deemed to display an "authoritarian personality." They also imported European and American music. These actions, however, divided American officials and outraged German audiences and performers. Nonetheless, the long-term effects were greater than has been previously recognized, as German government officials regained local control and voluntarily limited their involvement in artistic life while promoting "new" (anti-Nazi) music.

Settling Scores: German Music, Denazification, and the Americans, 1945-1953

Introduction 1. The World of War in the Late Eighteenth Century 2. Empires Rise and Fall 1800-30 3. Moulding States 1830-80 4. Building Empires 1830-1913 5. World War One 6. Between Two World Wars 7. World War Two 8. Wars of Decolonization 1945-75 9. The Cold War 10. Wars between Non-Western Powers 1945-90 11. War in the 1990s 12. War in the 2000s 13. Conclusions

Occupation and reconstruction: a historical perspective

References

GIs and Fräuleins: The German-American Encounter in 1950s West Germany

Settling Scores: German Music, Denazification, and the Americans, 1945-1953

Introduction to Global Military History: 1775 to the Present Day

The Shock of America: Europe and the Challenge of the Century

Oxford History of Modern Europe : The Shock of America : Europe and the Challenge of the Century