Culture and generational tensions in FRG (4)

Question 1

Cultural tensions

Answer 1

• Germans had traditionally seen themselves as a leader of European culture, so after the war, many Germans (esp older) wanted to find a way to regain that position.
• Easy to remove Nazi controls and reintroduce the ‘degenerate’ culture banned by the Nazis and to re-establish a free press, although this ran alongside Allied-influenced newspapers which promoted democratic themes.
• Harder to retain culture such as music; many found it easier to adopt the cultural offerings from the Allies flooded their zone with (Hollywood/Shakespeare by USA/UK).

Question 2

What aspects of culture did not divide the generations?

Answer 2

• Social movements during the 1950s - the anti-nuclear movement and various ecological and alternative lifestyles.
• Shared a rejection of consumerism and a desire for a peaceful, equal society.
• Shared a desire to change established society, creating a better society and others felt this change was the only way to save society from destruction.

Question 3

Generational tensions

Answer 3

• 1960s - older generations wished to see 1945 as ‘year zero’ and many of the younger generations wanting to confront the past.
• Expressed itself in culture too - older people wanting a familiar, traditional German culture and a comfortable consumerist lifestyle.
• Young people, especially students, pressed for a less consumerist lifestyle and a culture that tackled both the present and past, rather than embracing America or the distant past = view even shared by some elders.

Question 4

What did psychoanalusts Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich state about Germans who lived through Nazi Germany?

Answer 4

Behaved as if Nazism was an infectious disease, something that they caught, recovered from and were not responsible for.