School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses

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Vorsprung durch Technik?: selling Britons the new Germany

Long, Brian Gordon ( 2011)

German reunification and the Federal Republic’s post-reunification emergence as one of the Europeans Union’s two most economically and politically powerful states has presented unique challenges for British public opinion and government policy. This thesis investigates to what extent German post-war cultural diplomacy has facilitated and fostered acceptance of these developments. Faced with unprecedented political challenges in the aftermath of the terrifying reign of the Third Reich and its genocidal prosecution of World War II, Germany set about rehabilitating its international standing in the years after 1945. In the shadow of the Cold War in Europe, the German states that emerged out of the 1949 partioning became satellites of their respective superpower masters. It was the largely unexpected end of this “serfdom” in 1989 that presented the first major test of international opinion on the prospect of a re-emergent Germany. British attitudes and policy in particular were challenged by this development and it provides a useful milestone from which an assessment of German cultural diplomacy in the preceding four decades can be made. The thesis provides an outline of German cultural diplomacy initiatives in the post-war era and is rounded off with a background consideration of theoretical aspects of contemporary cultural diplomacy.