Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 “Through a Glass, Darkly”: Changing German Ideas of American Freedom, 1776-1806
- 2 “Germans Make Cows and Women Work”: American Perceptions of Germans as Reported in American Travel Books, 1800-1840
- 3 Weary of Germany - Weary of America: Perceptions of the United States in Nineteenth-Century Germany
- 4 “Auch unser Deutschland muss einmal frei werden”: The Immigrant Civil War Experience as a Mirror on Political Conditions in Germany
- 5 Different, But Not Out of This World: German Images of the United States Between Two Wars, 1871-1914
- 6 From Cultureto Kultur : Changing American Perceptions of Imperial Germany, 1870-1914
- 7 The Reciprocal Vision of German and American Intellectuals: Beneath the Shifting Perceptions
- 8 Germany and the United States, 1914-1933: The Mutual Perception of Their Political Systems
- 9 Between Hope and Skepticism: American Views of Germany, 1918-1933
- 10 “Without Concessions to Marxist or Communist Thought”: Fordism in Germany, 1923-1939
- 11 The Continuity of Ambivalence: German Views of America, 1933-1945
- 12 Cultural Migration: Artists and Visual Representation Between Americans and Germans During the 1930s and 1940s
- 13 Representations of Germans and What Germans Represent: American Film Images and Public Perceptions in the Postwar Era
- 14 Chancellor of the Allies? The Significance of the United States in Adenauer's Foreign Policy
- 15 American Policy Toward German Unification: Images and Interests
- 16 Unification Policies and the German Image: Comments on the American Reaction
- Index
11 - The Continuity of Ambivalence: German Views of America, 1933-1945
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2013
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 “Through a Glass, Darkly”: Changing German Ideas of American Freedom, 1776-1806
- 2 “Germans Make Cows and Women Work”: American Perceptions of Germans as Reported in American Travel Books, 1800-1840
- 3 Weary of Germany - Weary of America: Perceptions of the United States in Nineteenth-Century Germany
- 4 “Auch unser Deutschland muss einmal frei werden”: The Immigrant Civil War Experience as a Mirror on Political Conditions in Germany
- 5 Different, But Not Out of This World: German Images of the United States Between Two Wars, 1871-1914
- 6 From Cultureto Kultur : Changing American Perceptions of Imperial Germany, 1870-1914
- 7 The Reciprocal Vision of German and American Intellectuals: Beneath the Shifting Perceptions
- 8 Germany and the United States, 1914-1933: The Mutual Perception of Their Political Systems
- 9 Between Hope and Skepticism: American Views of Germany, 1918-1933
- 10 “Without Concessions to Marxist or Communist Thought”: Fordism in Germany, 1923-1939
- 11 The Continuity of Ambivalence: German Views of America, 1933-1945
- 12 Cultural Migration: Artists and Visual Representation Between Americans and Germans During the 1930s and 1940s
- 13 Representations of Germans and What Germans Represent: American Film Images and Public Perceptions in the Postwar Era
- 14 Chancellor of the Allies? The Significance of the United States in Adenauer's Foreign Policy
- 15 American Policy Toward German Unification: Images and Interests
- 16 Unification Policies and the German Image: Comments on the American Reaction
- Index
Summary
German views of America have not attracted much attention in the historiography of Adolf Hitler, National Socialism, and the Third Reich. Indeed, no exhaustive analysis of the topic has yet appeared. However, the specialized studies published so far suggest that it is now possible systematically to assess the “views of America” held by Germans between 1933 and 1945; or, to be more specific, to evaluate judgments, prejudices, clichés, stereotypes, and images. The following remarks represent an attempt to provide such a systematic review. It will also incorporate this author's own research on Hitler's perception of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the United States of America.
A chronological summary of the years between 1933 and 1945 leads us to a rather basic and unsurprising observation, namely, that Nazi foreign policy largely determined opinions about the United States and its president. After all, published opinion under the National Socialist regime was the product of a severely controlled press, censorship, and propaganda. During the first few years of the Nazi regime coverage of the New Deal also served to legitimize Nazi rule. The predominant interest that Hitler and the Nazis took in U.S. foreign policy was the crucial factor that finally led to a marked change in the presentation of German views of America.
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- Information
- Transatlantic Images and PerceptionsGermany and America since 1776, pp. 243 - 264Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997
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