Peter von Zahn's Cold War broadcasts to West Germany : assessing America

Description

This book examines the pioneering radio broadcasts and television documentaries about the United States made in the 1950s by the influential West German journalist Peter von Zahn. Part intellectual biography, part analysis of significant debates in West Germany, part study of an intensive encounter with the United States, the book helps explain the transformation of postwar West Germany. As a soldier in the Wehrmacht in World War II, Zahn held the militantly elitist views typical of young men in Germany’s educated middle class. He reconsidered these positions in his postwar broadcasts. At the same time he coldly assessed the capacity of the United States to win the Cold War. His broadcasts examined McCarthyism, the African-American civil rights movement, and numerous aspects of American culture and politics. Zahn’s broadcasts were one important voice in West German debates about the defects and virtues of modern democratic societies and especially of the United States, debates whose intensity reflected recent German experiences with the failure of the Weimar Republic and with Nazism. Zahn’s analyses of the United States remain startlingly relevant today. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxi Introduction (Eli Nathans)....Pages 1-10 Front Matter ....Pages 11-11 Student and Soldier in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany (Eli Nathans)....Pages 13-51 Survival (Eli Nathans)....Pages 53-74 Journalist at the Northwest German Radio Station (Eli Nathans)....Pages 75-109 Front Matter ....Pages 111-111 Public Audiences and Official Networks (Eli Nathans)....Pages 113-140 Critical Images of the United States in the Federal Republic (Eli Nathans)....Pages 141-167 Front Matter ....Pages 169-169 Tradition and Modernity in American Culture and Society (Eli Nathans)....Pages 171-196 American Public Opinion: Optimistic but Often Ignorant (Eli Nathans)....Pages 197-213 A Weak Executive, an Irresponsible Congress, and a Courageous Judiciary (Eli Nathans)....Pages 215-237 From Understanding to Indignation: Zahn on American Racism and the Civil Rights Movement (Eli Nathans)....Pages 239-268 Front Matter ....Pages 269-269 Audience Responses (Eli Nathans)....Pages 271-292 A Difficult Return to West Germany (Eli Nathans)....Pages 293-319 Conclusion (Eli Nathans)....Pages 321-326 Back Matter ....Pages 327-334