books, libraries, reading, and publishing in the cold war || american literature in cold war germany

American Literature in Cold War GermanyAuthor(s): Martin MeyerSource: Libraries & Culture, Vol. 36, No. 1, Books, Libraries, Reading, and Publishing in theCold War (Winter, 2001), pp. 162-171Published by: University of Texas PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25548899 .

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American Literature in Cold War Germany

Martin Meyer

During the Cold War period following World War II, the United States made a decision to reestablish culture in Germany rather than risk

Soviet expansion into Western Europe. Due to the atrocities committed

by Germany during the war, it was hard to understand why the United States switched political partners in the immediate postwar period, but

publishing American views in Germany was

regarded as essential to

propagating democratic principles in Europe. The intention was to reach

German intellectuals through literature so they would become mouth

pieces for democratic principles and a market economy. Germans were

reeducated through books and magazines containing scholarly works,

fiction, plays, and poetry. Armed Services Editions (ASE), paperback books shipped to American soldiers during the war, and Overseas

Editions (OSE), books printed in English and translated into other

languages after the war, were the backbone of American published materials. In addition, American money was channeled to European

political magazines, such as Der Monat and Encounter, thought of as

having influence on the intellectual elite of Western European coun

tries. Several international literary conferences held during the late 1940s and early 1950s became battlegrounds for words. The conflicts centered

on cultural freedom and the spreading of capitalist and Communist ideas

by the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively.

American Literature in Defeated Germany

When Germany was finally defeated in the spring of 1945, the United

States was ready to offer new food for thought to all Germans who

wanted to catch up with international intellectual developments.

Cooperating closely with the U.S. government since the spring of 1942, the American book industry had already been shipping millions of

paperback books called Armed Services Editions (ASE) to U.S.

soldiers around the globe. Many of these ended up in German hands

Libraries & Culture, Vol. 36, No.l, Winter 2001 ?2001 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819



163

in 1945, and particularly the young readers were grateful for any material that did not have the taint of Nazi propaganda. Although the

ASE were never meant to serve reeducation purposes, they no doubt

fulfilled that function. Their successors, the Overseas Editions (OSE), were meant to "give the people of Europe a picture of what Americans

are like and what we had been doing since communications were

closed," as Robert Ballou and Irene Rakosky wrote in 1946.l

The OSE looked much like the ASE, but, unlike their senior part ners, the OSE were not only published in English but also in other

languages such as French, Italian, and German. They were distrib

uted in more than twenty countries, no doubt boosting interest in

American literature in Europe.2 In Germany, American literature was

certainly popularized by Alfred Kazin's On Native Grounds, which was first published in 1942. Kazin's Interpretation of Modern American

Prose, as the subtitle reads, was translated by the German emigrant Hans Sahl in the Office of War Information (OWI) and then distrib

uted in Germany in the OSE series in both English and German.

Even today, copies of both editions can be found in many German

university libraries. The fact that an American publisher's edition of

On Native Grounds is still in print today shows that the people in charge of selecting material for the ASE and OSE programs were literary

experts with a good sense of pragmatism.

Many other important books by first-rate American intellectuals were

made available in postwar Germany. Looking back on this period, the

German scholar Hans-Joachim Lang concluded in 1972: "There was

not a publication voluminous enough not to get translated. And

the selection made was excellent."3 For example, F. O. Matthiessen's

American Renaissance, first published in 1941, was available in German as early as 1948, as was the two-volume edition The Growth of the Ameri can Republic by Samuel Eliot Morrison and Henry Steele Commager (1930). These books could be read in German in 1949-50. By this time,

over three hundred American books had been translated, not count

ing the OSE.4 Clearly, this would have been impossible without active

support by American offices. The Office of the Military Government of the United States (OMGUS) in Germany had installed a so-called Information Control Division (ICD) within which the Publications Branch (PB) was in charge of supervising publishing in Germany.5 Officers of the PB were responsible for controlling what was published in the recently defeated country, and it was also their job to offer new

reading material suitable for reeducation purposes in the U.S. occupa tion zone. The PB selected titles for translation at a flat rate of $250 to

U.S. publishers for each title chosen, managed copyright questions, and ran a translation unit in Bad Homburg.6



164 L&C/ American Literature in Cold War Germany

Publishing in Germany after World War II

A brief look at the book-publishing situation in Germany during the immediate postwar years will help explain why new books were

hard to find. Many of the printing facilities had been destroyed during the war, and those that were still working were requisitioned

by the occupation forces. Paper, of course, was rationed, and pub lishers in the American occupation zone were often assigned their

contingent only after a license for a particular book project had been

granted by the Publications Branch, provided, that is, the publisher had received a license to run his publishing business in the first place. As a result, only 2,400 titles were published in Germany in the years

1945-46. This number reached 8,900 in 1947 and increased to 13,400 in 1948.7

Even books printed like newspapers were welcome. Between

December 1946 and October 1949, some 3 million copies of Rowohits

Rotations Romane were sold and read, even more with each copy pass

ing through many hands. If I may use the term "romance"

instead of "novel," the alliteration Rowohlts Rotations Romane even

translates into English as "Rowohlt's rotary [press] romances." Ernest

Hemingway's prewar publisher in Germany, Ernst Rowohlt, is some

times credited with having started this series, but it was actually his

son, Heinrich Maria Ledig-Rowohlt, who published these books. In

1946 Ledig-Rowohlt was contacted by the Information Control

Division in Stuttgart, which suggested that he should start publish

ing quality literature, especially for the younger generation. ICD

officers are also likely to have shown him how this could be done.

The ASE and OSE had been printed on "rotary presses," and this

method would also work in Germany.8 The main difference between

them and Rowohlt's novels was that Rowohlts Rotations Romanelooked

like newspapers whereas the American titles resembled paperback books. Later, in 1949, Ledig-Rowohlt traveled to New York to study

"pocketbook" production and started his first paperback series in

Germany in 1950.9

Morality and Politics

It is not easy to understand why America would have helped Ger

many in any way after discovering the atrocities committed, mainly by Germans, during World War II. In his autobiography, Arthur Miller

called it "an ignoble thing" that America switched political partners in

the immediate postwar period. During the war Russia had been the



165

ally and Germany the enemy. Yet within a year after the end of World

War II, America started to accept Germany as a new partner and looked

upon the Soviet Union as the new opponent: "[T]his ripping off of

Good and Evil labels from one nation and pasting them onto another," Arthur Miller wrote in Timebends in 1987, "had done something to wither

the very notion of a world even theoretically moral. If last month's

friend could so quickly become this month's enemy, what depth of

reality could good and evil have?"10

Who, except maybe politicians, would dispute that politics and

morality make strange bedfellows? More often than not, Realpolitik

prevails. While it is the writer's job to bring up painful subjects, it is

the politician's job to decide pressing political issues, sometimes even

"by making choices among soiling possibilities," as the American

novelist Thomas Berger phrased it in 1954.n In order to gain a fuller

perspective, we will look at what the Soviets were doing in terms of

Kulturpolitik in their occupation zone.

Soviet Kulturpolitik and the Battle of the Congresses

As early as August 1945, the Berlin-based Aufbau-Verlag received its requested publishing license from the Soviet Military Administra tion (SMAD). Only a month later the first issue of its magazine Aufbau: kulturpolitische Monatsschrift appeared as the official organ of the

Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands (Cultural Alliance for the Democratic Renewal of Germany). The president of the Kulturbund, Johannes R. Becher, had fled the Nazis in 1933,

finding refuge in Moscow. It had been Becher who had co-organized the First International Writers' Congress for the Defense of Culture in

Paris in June 1935.12 A number of famous writers had participated, including Andre Gide, Andre Malraux, E. M. Forster, Aldous Huxley,

Bertolt Brecht, Heinrich Mann, Boris Pasternak, and Theodore Dreiser, to name but a few. Ten years later, Becher was in charge of cultural affairs in Berlin in his new capacity as president of the Kulturbund, which became the center for all cultural activities in postwar Berlin.13 The writer and politician Ernst Niekisch (1889-1967), who had been sentenced to life in prison for opposing the Nazis in 1939, had left East

Germany in 1954 because he was disillusioned with its socialism. He

put it in a nutshell when he stated in his memoirs: "The Soviets were

trying hard to win over the bourgeois intellectuals for their cause."14 While the Soviets tried to convince the "bourgeois intellectuals,"

the Americans addressed the "non-Communist left" in Europe. Either

group could be reached through books and a proven commitment




to culture. Once convinced of either the capitalist route or the Communist way, these intellectuals would become mouthpieces, some

people apparently thought, and help to pave the way toward Commu nism or

capitalism. When mainly Western intellectuals met in West Berlin in the

summer of 1950, the battle of the congresses, begun in Paris in 1935, had long been resumed. Since 1945, writers had been meeting at inter national conferences in Wroclaw (August 1948), New York (March 1949), and Paris (April 1949).15 In the last days of June 1950, from 26

30 June, authors, scholars, and philosophers gathered in West Berlin for an international conference bearing the programmatic title

Congress for Cultural Freedom. Only a week later, the Second

Congress of German Writers was scheduled to take place in East Berlin (4-7 July 1950). Thus the stage was set for the battle of words. No director of a Cold War drama could have come up with a more

appropriate timing, for on 25 June, the day before the Congress for

Cultural Freedom started, North Korea began its assault on South Korea. By the end of the meeting, the Congress for Cultural Freedom

concluded with a manifesto read by Arthur Koestler calling for, among other things, the right to free speech, including the right to disagree

with political authorities. "Human beings become slaves when they are deprived of the right to say 'No!'" the second of twelve proposi tions read.16 All in all, the manifesto claimed that the West promised freedom, democracy, and tolerance, whereas the East had nothing to

offer but mind control, dictatorship, and totalitarianism.

The Second Congress of German Writers in East Berlin, meeting

only a few days later, was the forum that offered a chance to respond to the Congress for Cultural Freedom's manifesto. Perceived as a

provocation, it prompted reactions that revealed its meaning through the very language chosen. In the words of the president of the

Kulturbund, Johannes R. Becher, the participants in the Congress for Cultural Freedom were no longer writers but "henchmen of the

war-mongers" and "gangsters in literary disguise."17 A dialogue with these people, Becher claimed, was

impossible, and he therefore

refused any discussion. According to the magazine Aufbau, which

published Becher's speech, he also said: "We not only hate these

people who have humbled themselves into becoming writers of the

warmongers, we also feel repugnance and disgust for this anti

Bolshevist riff-raff. . . . No, we will not permit offensive material of

this kind to be distributed in the German Democratic Republic."18 No doubt, Becher's use of the first-person plural sent a signal to his

audience that said a discussion of the issue was not on the agenda.



167

American Weapons in the War of Ideas

In the mid-1960s it became known that the Congress for Cultural Free

dom had been funded at least in part by money made available through American intelligence offices. As was disclosed in a 1976 U.S. Senate

report, the Church Committee Report, the United States had taken up the challenge of Soviet cultural diplomacy at least as early as 1947. As far

as publishing books was concerned, it stated: "Well over a thousand books were produced, subsidized or sponsored by the CIA before the end of

1967. Approximately 25 percent of them were written in English. Many of them were published by cultural organizations which the CIA

backed."19 Some of these were written under the supervision of intelli

gence officers, while others were published without the writer having

any clue about his or her manuscript finding the approval of a third

party. Why the books were sponsored was addressed by a comment made

by the chief of the CIA's Covert Action Staff. In 1961 he stated: "'Books

differ from all other propaganda media, primarily because one single book can significantly change the reader's attitude and action to an

extent unmatched by the impact of any other single medium.'"20 Clearly, books were regarded as weapons in the war of ideas.

Money was also channeled to magazines thought of as having influence on the intellectual elite of the respective countries. Among the

best-known journals receiving support through the American taxpayer were DerMonat, founded in Berlin in October 1948, and Encounter, started in London in October 1953. Their focus was on politics and culture. Der

Monat, for example, published the proceedings of the Congress for

Cultural Freedom. As far as American literature in Germany is concerned, the highly regarded international journal Perspektiven was extremely influential.21 It was published simultaneously in various countries between 1952 and 1956, called Perspectives in the United States and Britain, Profils in France, and Prospettive and Prospetti in Italy. Funded through the Ford

Foundation and published by the New York-based organization Inter cultural Publications,22 the German edition, Perspektiven, absorbed the

literary periodical Das Lot, including its highly motivated international staff. Between 1947 and 1952 the editors of DasLotha.d been publishing avant-garde poetry from many countries, including the United States.

Once absorbed by Perspektiven, editorial control was gone. Addressing the transatlantic modes of transport for poetry in the postwar decade, the

German scholar and translator Klaus Martens came to the conclusion that Perspektiven*s main purpose was to exercise control over what was

published and to offer German readers more American poetry than had been published by Das Lot.23




Scholars in literature prefer discussing aesthetic dimensions of texts

rather than dealing with material issues such as why books get

published or translated. Therefore, not many studies are available on

the role American institutions played in reestablishing postwar culture

in Germany. It seems, however, that the literary experts working for

Perspektiven had less qualified colleagues in public relations offices who

wrote fiction intended to mold public opinion. In 1951, for example, the Frankfurt-based Rudl publisher came out with what was called a

"documentary novel" entitled The Big Rape by James Wakefield Burke.

The setting of the novel is Berlin in the spring of 1945 during the

Russian invasion. Predictably, the victims are German women, the

victimizers are Russian soldiers, and sharp Americans entering Berlin

in July 1945 are the saviors. Burke, who claimed he had been public relations advisor for General Clay in Berlin in 1947-48, published his

book in Germany in English a year before it came out in New York, where it was published by Farrar, Straus and Young in 1952.24 Here, I believe, we have a pretty good candidate for the list of books

sponsored by American authorities as described in the Church

Committee Report. Laudable as the publication of that report was in

the midseventies, would it not be wise now to envisage a date for

disclosing the information therein so far reserved for the eyes of U.S.

senators?25 Who were the authors, what were the titles, and what were

the names of the publishers in the United States and abroad that

received money to propagate messages and material deemed useful in

the days of the Cold War? If Washington and ideally also Moscow

opened their archives, we might learn from the mistakes made in the

past.

Conclusion

After 1945, in a unique historical situation, Washington's choice

was perceived as being one between helping Germany or risking Soviet expansion into Western Europe. Publishing American views

was regarded as essential to propagate democratic principles. The

publishing machinery that had worked so well during the war was

now used to reeducate Germans. Many scholarly works, plays, and

fiction by Americans were made available in English as well as in

translation. This clearly boosted American literature and had an

effect on postwar writers in Germany on the lookout for new literary

examples. The questionable role is that played by agencies not

under political control. What democratic legitimacy did they have

to publish books whose purpose seems to have been to incite

hatred? We have no reason to be self-righteous as today we are spared



169

the decisions that had to be taken then. We have a right, however, and an obligation, I believe, to study what was instrumental in shap

ing literary taste and Cold War sentiments in postwar Germany and

Europe, respectively. What has also been demonstrated is that the

role of American literature in Cold War Germany cannot be

comprehended without a basic understanding of Soviet policies and

of German commissars on a cultural mission defined in Clausewitz's

language. "Peace," Johannes R. Becher wrote in September 1944, "is

the continuation of war against fascism by other means, mainly ideo

logical means."26 The cultural Cold War was in full swing.

Notes

This article was written in memory of Martin Schulze (1928-2000). 1. Robert O. Ballou and Irene Rakosky, A History of the Council on Books in

Wartime, 1942-1946 (New York: Country Life Press, 1946), 85. 2. Whereas more than 120 million paperback books were published as ASE

between 1943 and 1947, OSE amounted to about 3.6 million. 3.

Originally: "Kein Werk war zu dick, um nicht doch iibersetzt zu werden.

Dabei muB man die Auswahl als hervorragend bezeichnen." Hans Joachim Lang,

"Vorbemerkung," in Nordamerikanische Literatur im deutschen Sprachraum seit 1945:

Beitrdgezu ihrer Rezeption, ed. Horst Frenz and Hans-Joachim Lang (Munich: Winkler,

1973), 106. For the history of American literature in Germany, see also Harold

Jantz, "Amerika im deutschen Dichten und Denken," Deutsche Philologie im Aujrifi, ed. Wolfgang Stammler, vol. 3, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1962), especially "Die amerikanische Literatur in Deutschland," 361-69. See also Lawrence Marsden

Price, The Reception of United States Literature in Germany, University of North Caro lina Studies in Comparative Literature, vol. 39 (Chapel Hill: University of North

Carolina Press, 1966), which includes a detailed bibliography. Political implica tions are discussed in Hansjorg Gehring, Amerikanische Literaturpolitik in Deutschland 1945-1953: einAspekt des Re-Education Programms, Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, vol. 32 (Stuttgart: DVA, 1976).

4. See Birgit Bodeker, Amerikanische Zeitschriften in deutscher Sprache, 1945 1952: ein Beitrag zur Literatur und Publizistik im Nachkriegsdeutschland, Neue Studien

zur Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 60 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1993), 194. 5. OMGUS was the successor of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters of the

Allied Expeditionary Forces). ICD was the successor of PWD (Psychological Warfare Division).

6. Bodeker, Amerikanische Zeitschriften, 194. 7. See Karl August Kutzbach, Autorenlexikon der Gegenwart: schbne Literatur

verfaft in deutscher Sprache mit einer Chronik seit 1945 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1950), 474, 479, 483. For comparison, 77,900 titles were

published in 1997.

8. Ballou and Rakosky, A History, 75. 9. See Kurt Pinthus, "Ernst Rowohlt und sein Verlag," in Rowohlt Almanach 1908

1962, ed. Mara Hintermeier and Fritz J. Raddatz (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1962), 36. 10. Arthur Miller, Timebends: A Life (New York: Grove Press, 1987), 160. 11. Thomas Berger, review of A Woman in Berlin (New York: Harcourt, Brace

and Co., 1954), Socialist ^//(November 1954): 24.



170 L&.C/American Literature in Cold War Germany

12. Erster internationaler SchriftstellerkongreB zur Verteidigung der Kultur. See Peter Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the Mind of Postwar Europe (New York: Free Press, 1989), 3f.

According to his biographer, Horst Haase, Johannes R. Becher played an

impor tant role in preparing, organizing, and staging the Paris congress in 1935. See

Horst Haase, Johannes R. Becher: Leben und Werk, Schriftsteller der Gegenwart, 1,

2nd ed. (Berlin: Volk und Wissen, 1987), 116f. Roger Shattuck even sees links between the Paris congress in 1935 and the First All-Union Congress of Soviet

Writers held in Moscow in August 1934. See Roger Shattuck, "Writers for the Defense of Culture," Partisan Review 51:3 (1984): 401.

13. See Horst Engelbach and Konrad Krauss, "Der Kulturbund und seine Zeitschrift Aufbau in der SBZ," in Zur literarischen Situation 1945V1949, ed. Gerhard

Hay (Kronberg/Ts.: Athenaum, 1977), 177. Horst Haase identifies Becher as the man who formed cultural policies in Soviet-occupied Germany after Becher's

return to Berlin in June 1945. See Haase, Johannes R. Becher, 187. 14. Originally: "Die Sowjets gaben sich Miihe, die burgerlichen Intellektuellen

fur sich zu gewinnen." Ernst Niekisch, Erinnerungen eines deutschen Revolutiondrs,

vol. 2: Gegen den Strom 1945-1967 (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1974), 53.

15. Congress of World Partisans of Peace vs. Sidney Hook's International

Day against Dictatorship and War.

16. Originally: "Der Mensch wird zum Sklaven, wenn er des Rechtes beraubt

wird, 'nein' zu sagen." Quoted

in "Als der Kriegzu Ende war": literarisch-politische

Publizistik 1945-1950, ed. Bernhard Zeller, 4th ed., Sonderausstellungen des

Schiller-Nationalmuseums, Katalog 23 (Munich: Kosel, 1995), 548. Among the men attending the Congress in 1950 were Ernst Reuter, Ignazio Silone, Sidney Hook, Arthur Koestler, MelvinJ. Lasky, Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, Raymon Aron,

Karl Jaspers, Alfred Weber, Dolf Sternberger, Peter de Mendelssohn, Nicolas

Nabokov, Eugen Kogon, Richard Lowenthal, and Theodor Plievier.

17. Originally: "Handlanger der Kriegshetzer" and "literarisch getarnte Gang ster." In ibid., 550.

18. Originally: "Wir hassen diese Leute nicht nur, die sich zu den Schreibern

der Kriegshetzer erniedrigt haben, wir empfinden auch Abscheu und Ekel vor

diesem antibolschewistischen Gesindel. . . . Nein, wir werden es nicht zulassen,

daB solch ein Schund und Schmutz in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik verbreitet wird." In ibid., 550f., originally published in Aufbau: kulturpolitische

Monatsschrift 6:8 (1950). 19. Final Report of the [U.S. Congress, Senate] Select Committee to Study Govern

mental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 94th Cong., 2nd sess., SR

94-755, Book 1 (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1976), 193. 20. Ibid.

21. "Nach Lot und fragmente ist die langerlebige Zeitschrift Perspektiven (1952 1956) von kaum zu iiberschatzendem EinfluB." Klaus Martens, "Wege und

Auswirkungen der ubersetzerischen Vermittlung amerikanischer Lyrik in der

Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1945-1956)," Mitteilungen des Verbandes deutscher

Anglisten 3:2 (September 1992): 15. 22. "Die Perspektiven wurden, so ist bereits dem Impressum der ersten Ausgabe

zu entnehmen, von der New Yorker Gesellschaft Intercultural Publications

herausgegeben, von der Ford Foundation finanziert und in Deutschland bei S.

Fischer (Frankfurt a.M.) verlegt." Ibid., 21.



171

23. "Vielmehr wird offenkundig, daB es nunmehr ganz deutlich in den

Perspektivenmn amerikaseitige zentralisierte Steuerung der vermittelten Literatur

ging. Eine zielseitige Auswahl durch deutsche-oder einer deutschen Zeitschrift

verbundene-Herausgeber, die auch ihre eigenen Texte lancierten, war nicht

erwunscht." Ibid., 23.

24. Frankfurt am Main: F. Rudl Verleger-Union, 1951. Also published as Die

grosse Vergewaltigung, trans. Werner Asendorf (Frarddrurt am Main: F. Rudl Verleger

Union, 1952) and as Frau komm: Berlin 1945, trans. Ursula Lyn, Amsel-Kriro, 9

(Berlin: Amsel Verlag, 1953, 1956). It was slightly rewritten and published once more as Arli (Ottawa, 111.: Caroline House, 1978).

25. "The material italicized in this report has been substantially abridged at the

request of the executive agencies. The classified version of this material is available

to members of the Senate under the provisions of Senate Resolution 21 and the

Standing Rules of the Senate." Final Report, 179. Frank Church wrote in his "Letter of Transmittal": "Despite security considerations which have limited what can

responsibly be printed for public release the information which is presented in this

report is a reasonably complete picture of the intelligence activities undertaken by

the United States, and the problems that such activities pose for constitutional

government." Ibid., iii.

26. "'Der Friede . . . ist, was unsere Aufgaben betrifft, die Fortsetzung des

Krieges gegen den Faschismus mit anderen Mitteln, vor allem mit ideologischen Mitteln.'" Quoted from a paper by Johannes R. Becher entitled "Zu unseren

Kulturaufgaben" dated 25 September 1944 in Haase, Johannes R. Becher, 187.

Becher became minister for cultural affairs in the German Democratic Republic in 1954.



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