The Long-Burning Embers of Latent Anti-Americanism

On February 22, 2005, just one day before President Bush visited Mainz, Germany on his tour of Europe, this highly interesting interview was published in "Die Welt" on anti-Americanism in the German and European media. Here, now, is a full English translation:

Swaths Bombed Through Baghdad

How German media fall out of their role when reporting on the USA – A talk with anti-Americanism researcher Lutz Erbring

Everywhere that President Bush turns up these days on his trip to Europe he is received by public protests. At the beginning of his second term, the rift between Europe and the United States of America does not seem to have diminished, even though the diplomatic signs have since moved towards reconciliation. According to a poll from the US foundation German Marshall Fund, 59 percent of Germans and 62 percent of the French clearly reject the foreign policy of the US President. Nonetheless, 34 percent of those questioned believe it is possible that an improvement could come about in President Bush’s second term. What role do the media play in this process? Franz Solms-Laubach spoke about it with the Berliner journalism professor and anti-Americanism researcher Lutz Erbring.

DIE WELT: How objective are the German media when it comes to reporting on, for example, the USA?

Lutz Erbring: It is amazing, but journalistic expectations of professionalism quickly go lost when it comes to reporting on foreign nations. With domestic topics no journalist would consider composing such texts such as those he writes, without further consideration, on events in nations like France, Great Britain or the USA. These texts typically reflect the official line of the government in relation to foreign policy. This is, however, how it also is in the USA. It happens entirely unconsciously, but is simply unprofessional.

DIE WELT: The line between news and opinion is not maintained?

Erbring: In reporting on foreign nations it is definitely significantly weaker. A whole lot of daily journalistic routines that maintain behavioral controls stop at the German border.

DIE WELT: Why?

Erbring: One can only speculate about the psychological mechanism. Domestic news reporting is closer to daily life for most journalists, they are more sensitive to partisanship in the context of domestic politics. Beyond the borders there is no learned restraint. It is empirically clearly provable that themes having to do with foreign politics are weighed with far less care.

DIE WELT: And that is how anti-American stereotypes come through in the media?

Erbring: We attempted to classify those stereotypes related to the USA that break through time and again. They range from arrogance to non-culture, double-standards, prudishness to superficiality and are transmitted and reinforced by media such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines. A favorite example for that was an ARD news program at the beginning of the invasion of Iraq about two years ago, when the moderator, I believe it was Anne Will, at a time when the active bombing was fully underway and the Americans were picking out military targets with high-tech equipment and "intelligent missiles," said: The American Air Force has again "bombed swaths through Baghdad." "Swaths" – The word naturally reminds many Germans of the carpet bombings in the Second World War. If one were to use such a formulation in the news about a controversial domestic political topic: The telephones would be ringing off the hooks. I am certain that in this case there was barely a call.

DIE WELT: What differences do you see between the right-wing and left-wing political spectrum in Germany?

Erbring: From the right comes more the diminishment of everything American in a cultural sense as flat, superficial, worthless, false, cheap and loud. In other words, that which seems to be a horror for every person of culture. From the left comes the anti-capitalistic related diminishment of everything American with anti-Coca-Cola cries and the perceived threat of McDonaldsification. But these streams of thought are actually not all that different when one takes a more precise look. In the media it remains pretty much the same.

DIE WELT: Where do the roots lie?

Erbring: The anti-Americanism related to culturalism is tied together with the European cultural arrogance that sees itself as the counterpiece to the America it perceives to be without culture, and its beginnings reach back into the 19th century. After the Second World War, it was initially not very strongly defined because of the impacts of the Marshall Plan and other US measures to help Germany. The view of America first became overshadowed in the German public again in the late sixties with the student unrest of 1968 and the worldwide protests against the war in Vietnam. In this period the term "Americanization" became a virulently negative word.

DIE WELT: The criticism of Bush is then, in line with that explanation, an escalation of old stereotypes?

Erbring: This newest form of anti-Americanism is marked, not insignificantly, by the especially high ability to irritate that President George W. Bush jr. possesses in the German and European public. At the end of 2003, shortly before the invasion of Iraq, only around nine percent of Germans still felt near to the Americans, 45 percent said: "America is distant to me." Five years prior to that, the relation was basically the opposite. The feeling reversed itself in the shortest time.

DIE WELT: Through the influence of the media?

Erbring: The media provide an interpretation, with potential political and cultural impacts, of complex phenomena for everyday life. On the other hand, the stereotypes must also already be present as a thought pattern among the media consumers. Only so can the silent agreement between broadcaster and consumer function when it comes to stereotypical shortcuts. There must, in other words, be a common denominator, otherwise the one would not understand what the other was saying.

DIE WELT: Can such thought patterns be changed?

Erbring: Our analysis has shown that personal experience does not protect against the sweeping use of stereotypes. Anti-Americanism therefore requires no Americans. Stereotypes live their own lives, are relatively immune to reality and resistant to change.

DIE WELT: No hope for improvement?

Erbring: In five years there will be a different President and Iraq will likely be pacified. That would naturally have impacts on the strength of the resentments that have fixed themselves onto certain individuals in the present situation. But beneath the surface smolder the long-burning embers of latent anti-Americanism. It has a long tradition and will remain, also when President Bush is no longer in office and Palestine is peaceful.

Mr. Erbring makes a point worth repeating: Anti-Americanism in the German media and society did not begin with, nor will it end with the Presidency of George W. Bush. President Bush is simply a convenient lighting-rod upon which the inherently anti-American elements in Germany and Europe can focus their hatreds without appearing to be anti-American on a wider scale. We've all heard it before. Many Europeans try to draw a clean and distinct dividing line when they say: "I am just anti-Bush, not anti-American."

But for many Europeans still filled with deep-seated anti-American resentments and condescension, this supposedly clean and distinct dividing line is often far more blurry than they would ever really care to admit...

(Note: Emphasis in quoted sections ours. Translation by Ray D.)

Comments

[Jewels (aka Julian)]

The feelings will never go away. Even if they ask us to come an help again when they start another continental war. Except for those decent people who live there (a pair of border guards who helped me out when my family was there). And of course the posters here.

[Pogue]

A very good piece - thanks so much for the translation - esp helpful to this uncultured American :)

It seems to me that quite a lot of the current anti-Americanism in Europe is related to the way we have reacted to being attacked and slaughtered in great numbers some 3+ years ago

Or actually the very fact that we have reacted to this threat at all

The european answer to such things is to ignore the problem and try to pacify the terrorists - sadly that was our position for far too long

9-11 changed this

And frankly I have never accepted the "I don't hate America - just Bush" line - its an outright lie

Bush is the elected President of the United States - what he says and does are part of America

[Solyom]

Anti-americanism will get worse in the near future, not better. Anti-americanism is, partially, the glue that binds the soul-less EU together.

[ATM]

The unfortunate thing is that we Americans just aren't very good anymore at dishing out the hatred like the Europeans. This is largely because of multiculturalism and the fact that we are a nation of immigrants and if you start directing hate speech at a foreign nation, you are inevitably going to offend some section of the American population that still has ties to that nation.

[Mike Perry]

I'm not sure if I posted this before or not, but it bears repeating. A history professor I heard on C-Span offered an interesting explaination for why Germans are so ignorant of the U.S. It seems that almost no one studies U.S. history in German universities. According to him, the state of North Carolina, with a mere 8.4 million people, has more university professors who's speciality is German history than all of Germany, with 70 million people, has professors specializing in U.S. history.

In the U.S., if you get together a few dozen people who're college graduates, you're likely to find someone who majored or minored in German history and culture. In Germany, I suspect you'd need to ask hundreds of Germans before you found one educated as well in U.S. culture and history.

Much like the French, Germans are living in a long-departed past when Germanic Kultur dominated scholarship and arts such as music. That preeminence crossed the Atlantic during the Nazi years and in the years immediately after the war. Ranting and raving with barely concealed envy will do nothing to bring it back. If the French and Germans want to play a major role on the world's stage, they need to stop whining and get to work. The world won't be changed by saying nasty things about someone as good and decent as Bush.

It might also help if Western Europeans would do something about their below replacement birthrates. To paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, the first President to project the U.S. onto the world stage, no children means no future.

--Mike Perry, Seattle
Author: Untangling Tolkien
Editor: Dachau Liberated

[PacRim Jim]

Germans are the largest ethnic group in the United States, so German anti-Americanism is a form of self-hatred. Nobody said Germans were logical.

[Tom Penn]

I am chronically confused about the dynamics at work in Europe. The disconnect between what I know to be the truth about America and the European interpretation is simply too wide for me to comprehend. I am afraid this article and the comment of Solyom hits pretty close to the truth, and that this is something beyond the power of Americans and whoever our chosen President happens to be to fix. The fact that this dishonest interpretation of me and my country absolutely flies in the face of our common history leaves me feeling used, disgusted, and cold.

[Jeff]

This may be the most interesting post and thread I have read on this site.

PacRimJim is of course right: except for the British Isles, more people in the US have ancestors from Germany than any other European nation.

Despite the myth in Europe that Americans are a bunch of ill-educated louts, there are many more Americans who have studied European history than Europeans who have studied American history.

And the roots of anti-Americanism are very deep in European soil: after all, most Americans are descended from those who left Europe behind, which is the ultimate insult

[kid charlemagne]

Apropos Mike Perry's post about German ignorance of American history: When I tell Germans my last name, which is German-Jewish (actually Yiddish), they are often surprised and tell me it's an unusual name for an American. Apparently, they (and to be fair, many more people around the globe) think that real Americans are named "Smith" and "Jones" and that America is an Anglo-Saxon country with a homogenous "Volk". The character of America as a country composed of diverse immigrants from all over the world is not part of European common knowledge.

[Ambrose Wolfinger]

My own observations:

1. We had many visitors from Germany last year (the price I pay for having a German wife, living in a popular tourist area, the six weeks vacation everyone in Germany receives and a weak dollar). Every visitor told me the following about American history:

a) The US would have forced the "Morgenthau Plan" on Germany until we decided that we needed Germany to protect ourselves from the Soviet Union
b) There was a proposal 200 years ago to make German the official language of America and it failed by one vote in Congress
c) The US treatment of the Indians paralleled the Nazi treatment of the Jews
d) The US has never experienced the destruction of war on her own soil
e) The US has no history since it has only been around for 200 years.

2. Every time we visit Berlin we spend a lot of time visiting bookstores. I've seen no books about US history in any bookstore, even the equivalent of a Barnes & Noble (Hugendubel). About the only books on the US were travel books and Michael Moore's publications. I will point out that the Barnes & Noble nearest to me has at least 25 different hard bound volumes on German history, with close to half covering topics other than the Nazi era/World War II.

Of course Americans aren't always very knowledgable about their own history. Years ago, I believe I was the only one in the theater who laughed at John Belushi's line in "Animal House" about the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor. Lack of knowledge of US history is one common trait that Germans and Americans appear to share.

[Blue]

Agreed, the comments are very good. "Anti-americanism will get worse in the near future, not better. Anti-americanism is, partially, the glue that binds the soul-less EU together." Wow. That should be printed on the bottom of the EU flag.

I have German ancestry. So what? I also have Irish and Finnish ancestors. I feel no special affinity for Germany, Ireland, or Finland for that. I'm one of the "German History" minors mentioned above. When I was living there, I found that I had a much better education on both US _and_ German history.

Having been raised fully aware of the experiences of my Uncles, I grew up hating the Japanese with a passion. I didn't much care for the Germans. The actions of the Japanese year after year have changed my feelings about them greatly. My feelings about the Germans are changing too but not in the same direction. I think we all hoped to see Germany get over it's new insanity but, with regrets, maybe it's time to just move along. The future is the Pacific anyway. I wish I had studied Japanese instead of German.

[Jeff]

@ ambrose wolfinger

I can hardly believe that the Morgenthau Plan REALLY comes up among Germans. This was Nazi propaganda SIXTY years ago. Did no one notice that Morgenthau's plan was proposed by someone who was not involved in foreign policy and that it was never adopted? The only occupying power that did anything about de-industrializing Germany was the USSR who carted off trainloads of equipment to Russia. I am not necessarily surprised that Germans in 1944 worried that it might be true: Morgenthau was in fact a US Cabinet officer who had proposed a pretty inane plan. BUT, when nothing even remotely like it was ever put into effect in the western zone, rational people might have concluded that Goebbels had fed them another lie. Nope, I guess it is still going strong despite the Berlin Airlift, the German "economic miracle," etc. It is no wonder that religious faith in Europe is weak: their faith is all used up in crediting anti-American myths that their own experience ought to discredit.

Credo quia impossible.

[Pogue]

Don't worry about it Blue - the whole world will be speaking english in the near future - or maybe Chinese

[Sock Puppet of Doom]

What is surprising in this and I doubt was left out of the article is, and Germans don't realise I guess, there is no correspondence to the German medias anti-Americanism in the US. There is no negative or anti-German bias in our mainstream media, none, nada, nothing like it. Only on some blogs will to get a slight hint of anger at the lack of support in the WOT on the part of Germany. France however is portrayed as anti-American and at odds with US foreign and domestic policy quite plainly.

I find it outrageous that the German Media ignores this. It makes no sense for them to do this unless the bias is intentional. The translated interview gives no indication of this apparently intentional act of omission by the German MSM.

I am confused why Germans want appear so short sighted, insular and shallow.

[Lou Minatti]

I've pretty much accepted the fact that Germany has cut the cord that bound us together. So much for the tens of millions of Americans who can trace their ancestry back to Germany. Nothing we can do about it.

Whenever I read Der Speigel or Deutsche Welle it's pretty clear that Germany's gonna do whatever France tells them to do, whether it's to sell arms to the Chinese Communist dictators, or fund terrorists groups like the Hezbollah. So be it.

Question, though. Have the powers that be in Germany stepped back lately to look at the Big Picture? The German government, like France, is sucking up to China and Russia, but I'll wager that there will be some serious economic problems in those two countries in the near future. Not a run-of-the-mill recession, but a full-blown Indonesia-style meltdown. My wager will be safe, because centrally-controlled dictatorships (I know Russia is currently only a quasi-dictatorship) ALWAYS melt down.

I think the French and the Germans are hitching their horse to the wrong wagon. Does anyone in charge in Germany consider this?

[Christian K.]

@pogue

>>And frankly I have never accepted the "I don't hate America - just Bush" line - its an outright lie

But it's true sometimes. My mother is an example. She likes Americans and America (being born in WWII, she remembers many good things about Americans). But due to the reports in our media about Bush and that Michael Moore Movie (sadly, she is a bit naive), she doesn't like Bush very much. I do my best to convince her and sometimes I succeed.
So I just wanted to say, that there is the possibility that someone dislikes Bush while not being anti-american.

[RastaBasta]

Education, information, information. Internet-(Blogs!) are a giant step.
But they reach too few people.

Germany needs a moderate-rightwing/conservative radio station.
Can´t some of you guys buy a station and get it started ?
Next step is dito TV Station.

All the Left will call the stations ultra-rightwing / fascist whatever, but so what. They would do that no matter how mellow the content.
Broadcast, broadcast, broadcast. Let the people decide. Give them a straw of communion to be able to dissent and voice what they really think.

[Christian K.]

There are possibilities. It's called "Bürgerfunk". Private citizens have an hour of time once a week for their programs. But I don't know if there are restrictions (no politics, etc.).

[Joe]

Below is a link to a short Brooking Instution paper with the title.

"Anti-Americanism and Ambivalence in the New Germany"....U.S.-Europe Analysis, January 2005

What you will find I think will be interesting. It is only 4 short pages and gives some historical background on anti-Americanism starting at the turn of the 20th Century, then throught the two World Wars, V-N, right up to today.

Realize this paper is a bit from the left side of the political spectrum as it is being sponsored by BI. It is still interesting as backgroud information. In many of you have lived in much of the periods covered.

I think when you read this you will find anti-Americanism is not new and it would appear it is going to continue to be one of the underlying principles of German attitudes.

http://www.brookings.edu/printme.wbs?page=/fp/cuse/analysis/werz20050101.htm

[Huan]

More and more i am led to believe that German anti-Americanism is a cultural thing. That this culture is fed by the media, not created by the media. Had the german media taken it upon themselves to be fair and objective, with time, the German anti-Americanism culture may change. But i suspect by then it would hardly matter as the US, and the World as a whole, would have moved on, while Germany will continue to move away from the West, as it still will not be able to assimilate its immigrant population while the native German population will only dwindled that much more.

[George M]

@ Jeff

I spoke about the Morgenthau Plan in an earlier thread. You are right....it was offered only as a course of action by Henry Morgenthau, when Rooselvelt asked his cabinet to come up with a plan for post-war Germany. Roosevelt died before any post-war plan for Germany was ever adapted. However, Joseph Goebels found out about the Plan and made it a propaganda master piece...to encourage Germans to resist to the bitter end.

The West German education establishment brushed off Goebel's propaganda and started teaching it to its children as fact, right after the war. (Don't know whether it was taught in the DDR)

German school kids have been taught that the Morgenthau plan is real and fact for the last sixty years.

Americans like us, with knowledge of German and German history, need to work hard to debunk this myth. We also need to stop the German education establishment from teaching 60 year old Nazi propaganda.

[Del Hoeft]

My father visited East Germany a few years before the wall came down. As Russian troops goose-stepped an East Berliner whispered in his ear "It won't always be like this". Looking back in retrospect, I wish my father would have replied 'the Russian can have you, you can have the Frogs and the Muslims can pick at the carcass, you've made your bed, lie in it'.

[Ambrose Wolfinger]

@Jeff

I mentioned in an earlier post that at least one-third of the permanent exhibition at the Cecilienhof in Potsdam (the actual site of the 1945 Potsdam summit) is devoted to the Morgenthau Plan. There is no explanation in the exhibit of the Morgenthau Plan's connection to the Potsdam summit, presumably because there is none. Certainly there is no mention that the Plan was never considered by Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. The purpose is simply to make sure that every German who visits knows about it (at that time, the permanent exhibit was only in German).

@ George M

My former East German wife tells me that she does not recall any mention of the Morgenthau Plan in her history classes, although she admits she paid as little attention to her history courses as possible (the government changed everything every year, so she thought was a waste of time to learn history). That makes sense, since there was virtually no mention in the East German education system of the US or British role in World War II, except for the bombing of Dresden.

[Del Hoeft]

Dateline: Europe 2020.
An International army of Jihadists invests a major European capital and Kultur center, with orders to then march on the Rhine and Tiber and to desecrate St Peters Cathedral. France out of percieved self interest does nothing, German resistance is minimal, some Europeans ally with invaders. The Poles fight heroicaly.

Oooops, my bad, That's Dateline: Vienna 1683.

[BMC]

@ Tom Penn: Hear, hear!

All the time we Americans are told, you know nothing of Europe, our culture etc etc. Many Amercans will freely admit that if you ask them about it, they simply do not care to know. Yet many Europeans know equally nothing of America, our culture, etc etc. but will not admit it. They seem very sure they are correct about America & Americans from their lessons in history class, what they've read in the papers and seen on TV. It's an astonishing & dangerous mix of arrogance and ignorance, to say the least.

[RastaBasta]

I´ll check up on this Morgenthau thing. That may be a misinformation that it is taught (and stressed) at schools.

I don´t really recall it being a big deal during history classes other than it was " a possible remote policy" .

[Jeff]

@ AW

Yes you had said that before. I had forgotten. My apologies.

@ George

I remember that you had talked about the Morgenthau plan, but not that it was taught as something relevant in German schools. You probably did. I have early onset Alzheimers I think.

[Andrew X]

Stunning that in all the analysis above, I fail to see one mention of the word that is at the heart of this.

That word is "socialism".

Socialism, as a construct, has had an enemy that must be overcome to realize it's dream since moment one. There has never been a five minute period in a 150 years that socialism has not had "the enemy", who is always at fault for the reality that socialism does not exist today. It would, of course if it wern't for the damn (Bourgousie, plutocrats, industrialists, kulaks, landlords, running dogs, imperialists, Americans, Jews.....).

That is what this is about, more than anything. Western Europe has replaced the Christian God with one that is failing, and will always fail. But "God" can't be at fault, thus it is the fault of the fallen Americans and of Lucifer himself, GWB.

Easter Islanders had Gods of Stone that gave them a paradigm to view the world. Then they went stark raving mad and toppled them all in a civilization-ending rage.

I find myself thinking of them more and more as I watch and listen to the catastrophically misbegotten European Left.