“Oh, German! I Thought There Was Something Wrong with You.”
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“Oh, German! I thought there was something wrong with you.” Beiträge zur England‐Forschung Band 68 Schriftenreihe des Arbeitskreis Deutsche England‐Forschung German Association for the Study of British History and Politics Herausgegeben von Ursula Lehmkuhl “Oh, German! I thought there was something wrong with you.” West Germany in British Perceptions, 1969‐1975 Alexander Heinz Wherever possible licenses for the use of images have been obtained; in those cases where inspite of all best efforts this has not been possible because of the time passed since the images were originally produced, license holders are asked to contact the author. “Oh, German! Iʹm sorry, I thought there was something wrong with you.” Hotel owner Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) welcoming West German guests to Fawlty Towers in 1975. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d‐nb.de abrufbar. ISBN 978‐3‐89639‐901‐4 © Wißner‐Verlag, Augsburg 2013 www.wissner.com Das Werk und seine Teile sind urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung in anderen als den gesetzlich zulässigen Fällen bedarf deshalb der vorherigen schriftlichen Einwilligung des Verlags. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The History and Historiography of British‐German Perceptions Before 1945 11 From 1945 into the 1960s 14 Perceptions and the historical context: 1960s and 1970s 18 Past attempts to structure British perceptions of the Germans. 24 The concept of the ‘two Germanies’ and its reframing along ideological fault lines Understanding negotiations of national perceptions: 27 a methodology Chapter 2 From “Total War to Total Trust”? Re‐Negotiating (West) German National Character in the Foreign Office The Foreign Office in research 35 Challenges for the Foreign Office 39 Attitudes towards the FRG 41 Conclusion 62 Chapter 3 Negotiating Politics – Negotiating Perceptions amongst British Politicians Between “traditionalism” and “transitionalism”? 66 Perceptions in the context of the British entry into the EC 68 Perceptions in the context of Ostpolitik 84 Germanness in the context of Frenchness 87 Conclusion 92 Chapter 4 Perceptions and Public Opinion of West Germany Perceptions and public opinion: reconstructing a multi‐ 96 dimensional phenomenon with historical sources Perceptions in public opinion: polls, letters and The Times Index 102 Qualitative analysis of media perceptions 114 Conclusion. Re‐negotiating Germanness: reinforcement and 151 character‐modification Conclusion 155 Primary Sources 170 Secondary Sources 173 Acknowledgements Seeing or hearing the unexpected can be a most powerful experience in life. My first academic and for me surprising encounter with the wider problems discussed on these pages took place during my first term in a socio‐linguistics class led by John J. Gumperz (University of California, Berkeley) at the University of Constance. National mentalities, he argued passionately, do not exist in the way most people think they do. He was convinced of the importance of different linguistic and non‐verbal communicational codes that make intercultural life difficult. Over the years that followed I was taught by teachers with very different approaches and views who encouraged me to think about how we relate and how people in the past related to people from other nations. When I became a postgraduate student, Christoph Jahr (Humboldt University Berlin) acquainted me with research on historical attitudes between Britain and Germany. My stint at the Media Diversity Institute in London, my encounter with the academic and journalist Robert Leicht (Die Zeit) at a seminar in Prague, and the teachings of Patrick Evano at the Sorbonne all challenged my concept of the influence and history of the media. Robert Frank, my MA supervisor at the Sorbonne, encouraged me to write on European perceptions. I am very grateful to Jan Palmowski (King’s College London) for accepting me as his doctoral student and for tirelessly reading and commenting on previous drafts of this text. The ideas that he shared with me when I was developing my narrative have contributed immensely to the clarity of my argument. At a crucial early stage Stefan Berger (now at Ruhr University Bochum) gave his backing to my research project. Christian Fandrych (now at Leipzig University), Chris Thornhill (now at the University of Glasgow), Sandra Pott (now at the University of Stuttgart) and Thomas Müller (University of Münster) helped me shape the text with valuable advice. Charmian Brinson (Imperial College London) and Marianne Howarth (Nottingham Trent University), my examiners, kindly encouraged me to publish my work. Tamara Fathi and Niamh Campbell have taken the time to read everything. All errors and inaccuracies remain my own. The student and doctoral scholarships of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes provided me with much intellectual inspiration over the years and also with the funds that only made my work possible. My first stay in England was generously funded by the German Academic Exchange Service. Those colleagues of different disciplines who have kindly pointed me to literature are mentioned in the footnotes. I am indebted to the staff of the Labour History Archive in Manchester, the Conservative Party Archive and the personal papers sections of the x Bodleian Library in Oxford, the National Archives in Kew, the Political Archive of the London School of Economics, the archivists at the Newspaper Archive of the British Library in Colindale, the librarians of the German Historical Institute London, of the Wiener Library and of the British Library in St Pancras. Dan nva der Vat (formerly of The Times) and Ian Mitchell (formerly of the BBC) welcomed me in the comfort of their homes for interviews. Baroness Falkender (Marcia Williams) corresponded with me despite her advanced age. Eva‐Maria and Bent Gebert generously offered me to stay under their roof in Oxford whilst I was on research there. The German Association for the Study of British History and Politics and the editor of the series, Ursula Lehmkuhl, offered me the opportunity to publish this book for which I am most thankful. I would like to thank John Cleese and Connie Booth for allowing me to use a line from Fawlty Towers in the title. My colleagues at King’s and at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shared their amusement with me, and showed keen interest and understanding. On a personal level, the people who were never short of a word of encouragement over the years were my parents, Richard and Eveline Heinz, my brother Joachim and my friends. My deepest thanks go to Julian, for his humorous support, his own blend of impatience and patience, and his dignity. This book would never have been written without my grandparents whose at times painful journeys through life first awoke my interest in history as a little boy. I dedicate it to them. London, November 2012 Introduction As Europeans dealt with the burden of memory left by the Second World War, it became apparent that Western European integration was in many ways dependent on two states with a disharmonious, brutal and shared recent history, as well as – to date – contrasting levels of engagement with the integration project. Great Britain had ended the war victorious, whilst the West German republic was now part of a defeated and divided nation. While Germany’s history was a motivating factor in integration, and while a democratic West Germany lay at the centre of the European project, Britain remained notoriously reluctant to entero int the EC. Having been repeatedly refused entry in the 1960s, the country continued to be split on the issue of Europe even after it had joined the community, and remains so to the present day. The late 1960s and early 1970s presented new economic, geopolitical and cultural contexts within which the British‐German relationship evolved. In economic terms, the British economy declined relative to West Germany; as a result, the UK needed an economically vibrant Germany, and its access to the EC as one of its key members. Yet, playing a different role, Britain at the same time reasserted its occupation rights over Germany as a whole. New departures were made to make the Cold War world more hospitable. With the Neue Ostpolitik Willy Brandt was leading the way. How would Britain respond? It was an ambiguous situation for the British, not just in terms of power relations. Who were these post‐war West Germans whom the British now had to trust? What did the British make of them? In this book I will focus on a factor in the relationship between the two countries that accompanied all decisions without being the object of conscious political negotiations itself: perceptions of the national other. So far, there have been no systematic analyses of perceptions of Germany within the different spheres of British post‐war society. Brechtken considers this lack “surprising” given the intense interest in British‐ German political relations by historians.1 How were perceptions in ‘high’ politics and public opinion interrelated? What happened when memories of war evolved, when new generations born after 1945 came of age and new times favoured views that were opposed to the old ones? Frequently looking beyond the political and analysing different spheres of British society, this study intends to foster a more complex understanding of how different Britons oriented themselves in the post‐war relationship. 1 Magnus Brechtken, “Personality, Image and Perception: Patterns and Problems of Anglo‐ German Relations in the 19th and 20th Centuries,” in An Anglo‐German Dialogue, ed. Adolf M. Birke, Magnus Brechtken and Alaric Searle, 17 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2000). 2 “Oh, German! I thought there was something wrong with you.” To what degree were people’s perceptions shaped by the war and its aftermath? The tormented hotel owner Basil Fawlty in the British 1970s TV series Fawlty Towers embodies a confusing situation in a hightened way.