American Literature in Cold War Germany

During the Cold War period following World War II, the United States made a decision to reestablish culture in Germany rather than risk Soviet expansion into Western Europe. Due to the atrocities committed by Germany during the war, it was hard to understand why the United States switched political partners in the immediate postwar period, but publishing American views in Germany was regarded as essential to propagating democratic principles in Europe. The intention was to reach German intellectuals through literature so they would become mouthpieces for democratic principles and a market economy. Germans were reeducated through books and magazines containing scholarly works, fiction, plays, and poetry. Armed Services Editions (ASE), paperback books shipped to American soldiers during the war, and Overseas Editions (OSE), books printed in English and translated into other languages after the war, were the backbone of American published materials. In addition, American money was channeled to European political magazines, such as Der Monat and Encounter, thought of as having influence on the intellectual elite of Western European countries. Several international literary conferences held during the late 1940s and early 1950s became battlegrounds for words. The conflicts centered on cultural freedom and the spreading of capitalist and Communist ideas by the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively.