Abstract
In 1948, the United States military government (OMGUS) played a crucial but invisible role in helping Germans in the western zones of occupation celebrate the centennial of the German Revolution of 1848. American officials viewed these celebrations as an important component in the democratization of Germany and as a means of demonstrating German-American cultural reconciliation in a highly public manner. Caught in an ambiguous, transitional period between punitive occupation and full civilian control, OMGUS pursued cultural diplomacy in the hopes that concretizing an ideological and cultural relationship based on history and shared values would help reorient German democracy and create a stable partner in central Europe, thereby serving long-term strategic goals in the Cold War.
Read the full article
Members: read on EBSCO
Use the access code from this quarter's member email. Every issue since 1937 is online, with no embargo.
Lost your code? Email jmhsmh@vmi.edu or sign in at the EBSCOhost member login.
Not a member? Buy this article
A PDF sent by email from the Journal office during business hours, $10.
Through a library: sign in with your institution
Full text is in EBSCO's America: History and Life with Full Text and Historical Abstracts with Full Text, and through EBSCO Discovery.
Join: read everything, every year
Membership includes the printed journal and full online access to the archive.
Cite this article
Brandon Kinney, “Fête Diplomacy and the American Military Government’s Cultural Mission in Postwar Germany,” The Journal of Military History 88, no. 4 (October 2024): 979–1001.