Description
Book SynopsisExplores such themes as the relationship between advertising and propaganda in Nazi Germany, the influence of the United States on German advertising, and the use of advertising to promote mass consumption in West Germany. This book focuses on the actors who had the greatest stake in successful merchandising.
Trade Review“
Selling Modernity is an excellent collection; every essay is superb. The contributors examine advertising and public relations in contrasting contexts: a monarchy, a liberal democracy, a popular dictatorship, a cold war democracy, a communist dictatorship, and a post–cold war reunited nation: what a historical laboratory!”—Claudia Koonz, author of
The Nazi Conscience“A highly readable and wide-ranging compilation of innovative essays on German advertising and the people who produced it under dramatically different political regimes. This major contribution to understanding the culturally specific workings of modern economies will be of interest to specialists, students, and a broader audience.”—Uta G. Poiger, author of
Jazz, Rock, and Rebels: Cold War Politics and American Culture in a Divided Germany“Advertising—this imaginative, erratic, and invasive aspect of capitalism—finds in
Selling Modernity a creative and resourceful interpreter. The book marks an important shift from recent studies on consumer culture by emphasizing advertising as the link between production and consumption. It excellently shows that the ethical and economic meanings of advertisements were above all a reflection of Germans’ fantasies and dreams between 1871 and 1990.”—Alon Confino, author of
Germany as a Culture of Remembrance: Promises and Limits of Writing HistoryTable of ContentsList of Illustrations ix
Foreword / Victoria de Grazia xiii
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction / Pamela E. Swett, S. Jonathan Wiesen, and Jonathan R. Zatlin 1
1. Marketing, Modernity, and “the German People’s Soul”: Advertising and Its Enemies in Late Imperial Germany, 1896-1914 / Kevin Repp 27
2. Visions of Prosperity: The Americanization of Advertising in Interwar Germany / Corey Ross 52
3. Branding Germany: Hans Domizlaff’s Markentechnik and Its Ideological Impact / Holm Friebe 78
4. “Planting a Forest Tall and Straight like the German Volk”: Visualizing the Volksgemeinschaft through Advertising in German Forestry Journals, 1933-1945 / Michael Imort 102
5. Selling the “Racial Community”: Kraft durch Freude and Consumption in the Third Reich / Shelley Baranowski 127
6. “Die erfrischende Pause”: Marketing Coca-Cola in Hitler’s Germany / Jeff Schutts 151
7. Lufthansa Welcomes You: Air Transport and Tourism in the Adenauer Era / Guillaume de Syon 182
8. “The History of Morals in the Federal Republic”: Advertising, PR, and the Beate Ushe Myth / Elizabeth Heineman 202
9. “Wowman! The World’s Most Famous Drug-Dog”: Advertising, the State, and the Paradox of Consumerism in the Federal Republic / Robert P. Stephens 230
10. “True Advertising Means Promoting a Good Thing through a Good Form”: Advertising in the German Democratic Republic / Anne Kaminsky 262
11. Promoting Socialist Cities and Citizens: East Germany’s National Building Program / Greg Castillo 287
12. “Serve Yourself!” The History and Theory of Self-Service in West and East Germany / Rainer Gries 307
Bibliography 329
Contributors 347
Index 351
