Description
Book SynopsisStaging West German Democracy examines how political founding discourses of the nascent Federal Republic (FRG) were reflected, reinforced, and actively manufactured by the Federal government in conjunction with the West German, state-controlled newsreel system, the Deutsche Wochenschau. By looking at the institutional history of the Deutsche Wochenschau and its close relationship to the Federal Press Office, Jan Uelzmann traces the Adenauer administration's project of maintaining a government channel in an increasingly diverse, de-centralized, and democratic West German media landscape.
Staging West German Democracy reconstructs the company's integral role in the planning, production, and dissemination of pro-government PR, and through detailed analyses reveals the films to celebrate the FRG as an economically successful and internationally connected democracy under Adenauer's leadership. Apart from providing election propaganda for Adenauer's CDU party, these films prov
Trade ReviewUelzmann’s exciting new study invites us to rethink the terms of West German democratization through an incisive analysis of government-sponsored public relations films. Focusing on how state-made PR films contributed to the project of postwar nation-building, this book poses broader questions about the role of cinema in shaping the collective imaginary and contributing to political change. * Jennifer Kapczynski, Honorary Associate Professor of German, Washington University in St. Louis, USA, and author of The German Patient: Crisis and Recovery in Postwar Culture (2008) *
Staging West German Democracy is a book for all those who are part of the framework of contemporary history and/or film history ... [it is] a book to be used within television research. * MEDIENwissenschaft (Bloomsbury Translation) *
Staging West German Democracy is a major new addition to the scholarly literature of media and history. Jan Uelzmann draws upon extensive archival research to document the role of the Deutsche Wochenschau in promoting and shaping the popular image of Adenauer’s modern German state. This is an important work not just for media historians but for all scholars working on the history of post-war Germany. * James Chapman, Professor of Film Studies, University of Leicester, UK, and editor of Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Introduction. Governmental PR in the “Chancellor Films:” A Sociopolitical Archeology of the Adenauer Period
1. Foundational Narratives
2. The Deutsche Wochenschau as “Government Channel”
3. Stability Discourse: The US State Visit Films
4. Cold Warrior Discourse: The Return of the “Hero-Father” in
Meeting in the Kremlin (1956)
5. The Reconciliation Discourse: The PR Films on the Rapprochement with France
6. The Discourse of Connectedness: Adenauer’s Bonn as Reluctant, yet Effective “World City”
7. The Father of the Nation Discourse: Building Adenauer’s Legacy
Conclusion. Staging West German Democracy Through PR Films List of Illustrations Archival Records Consulted Bibliography Index
