| The close relationship between the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany during the decades following the Second World War has provided the topic for a large variety of studies. While most research has been done on the political, economic, and military aspects of that relationship, however, the cultural diplomatic activities between the two countries have been largely neglected in the secondary literature. This study analyzes the official German and American cultural, educational, and information work activities from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s in an effort to show that cultural diplomacy deserves more scholarly attention as an element that influenced the quality, stability, and flexibility of German-American relations.; From the early beginnings, German and American cultural diplomacy has been directed--and delimited--by national objectives, and its importance as an instrument of foreign policy increased significantly during the cold war period under consideration in this study. The development of German and American cultural diplomacy efforts during the post-war decades clearly reflected the changes in their political relationship, the shift from West Germany's total dependency upon the United States toward a more self-assured, interdependent relationship with its most important ally. After West Germany regained its sovereignty in 1955, American unilateral "cultural pampering" was replaced by efforts to increase cooperation with regard to both countries' cultural and information efforts abroad, thus reflecting the more equal basis of their relationship.; Although both the United States and the Federal Republic began in the 1960s to shift their cultural diplomacy emphasis more and more toward third countries, they continued to be close political, economic, and military allies and thus important targets for their cultural diplomacy activities, despite of their alleged "drifting apart" toward the end of the period under consideration in this study. |
