EVERYBODY HAS A CHANCE: CIVIL DEFENSE AND THE CREATION OF COLD WAR WEST GERMAN IDENTITY, 1950-1968 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Nicholas J. Steneck, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2005 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Alan D. Beyerchen, Advisor Professor Carole Fink Professor Allan R. Millett Advisor Department of History Copyright by Nicholas J. Steneck 2005 ABSTRACT In the opening decades of the Cold War, West Germans faced a terrifying geo-strategic dilemma. Located on the frontlines of the Cold War between nuclear-armed superpowers, they were forced to consider how best to protect their nascent democracy from the possibility of a devastating war fought with weapons of mass destruction. For Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the right-of- center coalition that governed West Germany in the 1950s and 1960s, the answer to the country’s dilemma was threefold. Close rapprochement with the West and a strong national military were combined with civil defense—protecting the country’s civilian population and its societal and cultural institutions from the worst effects of a future war through a tripartite strategy of mass evacuation, protective shelters, and post-attack rescue and recovery units. This chronologically and topically-organized dissertation examines the origins, evolution, and demise of the West German civil defense program during the Cold War’s opening decades. In doing so it presents three major arguments. First, as a result of unique historical and cultural influences West Germany’s early-Cold War civil defense program exhibited remarkable conceptual continuity with its Weimar and National Socialist predecessors. Second, the program’s political failure in the mid-1960s was due in large part to the inability of West German civil defense planners to make a clean break with the past. Finally, the Federal Republic’s early- Cold War civil defense experience provides a new understanding of the process by which West ii Germans individually and collectively worked to create a new national identity in the post-1945 world. Specifically, in rejecting the highly-centralized program proposed by civil defense proponents West Germans individually and collectively rejected the sacrifice of their democracy called for by Adenauer and his allies. In doing so, the dissertation concludes, West Germans made a momentous decision about the fundamental nature of the Federal Republic’s existence, its new and untested political institutions, and the structure of its society—a decision that has lost little of its relevance to contemporary democracies debating fundamental beliefs about personal freedom and the limits of government authority in an era of a global war on terrorism. iii This dissertation is dedicated to my entire family, but most especially my wife, Karen. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Like all academic projects, this dissertation’s successful completion was possible only with the support and encouragement of others. Several institutions kindly provided the financial support necessary to support this project, including the German Academic Exchange Service, the German Historical Institute, the Graduate School of The Ohio State University, the Ohio State University’s Mershon Center and Department of History, and Oberlin College. Many of my intellectual debts are acknowledged in the footnotes, but a few deserve particular mention here. Special thanks are due to the many wonderful people I met and worked with in Germany and Belgium. I was fortunate enough to have Professor Axel Schildt of the Unviersity of Hamburg as my Betreuer during my initial research year, and I am indebted to him both for his advice and his support. The support staffs of the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz, the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg, the Archiv der sozialen Demokratie in Bonn, the Archiv für Christlich-Demokratische Politik in Sankt-Augustin, the Staatarchiv der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg, the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv in Munich, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organziation Archive in Brussells extended considerable assistance to my research. I am very grateful to them all. In the course of presenting portions of this work at conferences and workshops I received extremely useful feedback from a number of different readers, including Roger Chickering, Andreas Daum, Martin Geyer, Elizabeth Heineman, Konrad Jarausch, Thomas v Lindenberger, and Eric Weitz. I also wish to thank all the participants of the German Historical Institute’s 2002 Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute and Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Seminar. Closer to home I must extend grateful thanks to my many friends and colleagues in the History Department at The Ohio State University, especially my fellow “team” members Amy Alrich, David Dennis, Brian Feltman, Laura Hilton, Jeffrey Lewis, Emre Sencer, Mark Spicka, and John Stark. Mentorship is extremely important for all young scholars, and in this respect I am extremely fortunate to have received advice, encouragement, and practical wisdom from Professors John Burnham, Carole Fink, John F. Guilmartin, and Allan Millett. My advisor, Alan D. Beyerchen, deserves special mention and warm thanks, for without his patience, encouragement, and advice this project may never have had its chance. My special gratitude goes out to my friends—especially Kevin Amidon, Victoria Clement, Ned Harris, and Rob Padilla— and family—Margaret, Nicholas, and Alex Steneck, and Lynda, Terry, and Martin Huber (and the creatures!)—who provide much-welcomed breaks from the rigors of thinking about nuclear war and civil defense. Finally, my wife, Karen, is the colleague, proofreader, cheerleader, and patient saint that made this project possible. If only all budding historians were as lucky as I. vi VITA December 17th, 1969 Born in Madison, Wisconsin 1988 B.A., University of Michigan 1996 M.A., George Washington University 2000 M.A., The Ohio State University 1997-present Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of History and the Undergraduate International Studies Program, The Ohio State University 2004 Adjunct Instructor, Department of History, Wittenburg University 2005 Artz Pre-Doctoral Fellow in Modern European History, Oberlin College FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History Major Concentration: Modern European History Minor Concentration: Modern Military History and Comparative Business History vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract............ ............ ............ .....................................................................................................ii Dedication........ ............ ............ .................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments ........ ............ ..................................................................................................... v Vita...... ............ ............ ............ ...................................................................................................vii Table of Contents.......... ............ ..................................................................................................viii List of Figures.. ............ ............ .................................................................................................... xi List of Abbreviations .... ............ ..................................................................................................xiii Chapters 1. Introduction...... ............ ..................................................................................................... 1 Major Arguments and Organizing Themes....................................................................... 11 Civil Defense Historiography ........................................................................................... 18 Archival Sources ...................................................................................................30 The Dissertation’s Organization ....................................................................................... 33 2. German Civil Defense Prior to 1945 ................................................................................ 39 Civil Defense in Wilhelmine Germany............................................................................. 42 Uncertain Lessons: German Civil Defense in the Interwar Period................................... 50 National Socialism and Civil Defense Prior to the Second World War ........................... 61 German Civil Defense and the Experience of World War................................................ 68 Conclusion: Evaluating an Uncertain Legacy................................................................... 95 viii 3. Recreating West German Civil Defense ......................................................................... 109 Conceptualizing War in the Ruins of Defeat .................................................................. 112 Initial Efforts to Rebuild West German Civil Defense................................................... 119 First Attempts to Create a Legislative Framework ......................................................... 131 A Provisional Program, Draft Law, and Cabinet Dissention.......................................... 144 Parliamentary Debate, 1955-1957 .................................................................................. 158 Conclusion ....... ............ ................................................................................................

Load more