Anjana Buckow. Zwischen Propaganda und Realpolitik: Die USA und der sowjetisch besetzte Teil Deutschlands 1945-1955. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2003. 697 S. EUR 90.00 (gebunden), ISBN 978-3-515-08261-7.

Reviewed by Mathilde von Buelow (Faculty of History, University of Cambridge)
Published on H-German (October, 2004)

U.S. Perceptions of a

U.S. Perceptions of a "Lost German Territory"

According to the Cold War historian Geir Lundestad, American policy towards Eastern Europe during the 1940s was fundamentally a "non policy." The Soviet Union's "satellites" played no significant, let alone independent, role in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy, not even during this formative phase of the Cold War.[1] In her doctoral dissertation, completed under the supervision of Professor Hermann-Josef Rupieper at the Martin-Luther-Universitaet Halle-Wittenberg, the German historian Anjana Buckow examines Lundestad's argument in a detailed study that concentrates specifically on the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1945 to 1955. Buckow's dissertation, which was published last year in the Franz Steiner Verlag's series on "USA-Studies," aims to determine the importance of the Soviet zone and the GDR in American foreign policy and to explain U.S. behavior towards this eastern part of Germany during the first decade of the Cold War (p. 12). To accomplish this goal, Buckow focuses primarily on the perceptions of American diplomats and politicians towards "East Germany" and then tries to establish how these perceptions factored into the U.S. policy-making process.[2]

Buckow's conclusions do not deviate from established opinion. She concurs with the American historian Karin L. Johnston, who argues that "the GDR was never perceived as an independent political actor by U.S. policymakers; rather, it was always viewed through the prism of U.S.-West German or Soviet-U.S. relations" (p. 31).[3] Given the prominent role played by East Germany, and especially by the city of Berlin, in the Cold War confrontation between the two superpowers, an examination of American perceptions of this territory is nonetheless justified, not least to explain why the United States opted for a "non policy" towards this strategically vital region in the first place. Perceptions, after all, constitute "a significant political fact" (p. 28). They influence relations between states and play an important role in the policy-making process. Indeed, perceptions represent one of the foundation stones of policy, as Robert Jervis pointed out almost three decades ago.[4]

Precisely this focus on perceptions, combined with thorough archival Research, ensures that Buckow's dissertation is quite innovative. As one can discern from her sizeable bibliography, the literature on the Cold War and on American-West German relations is extensive. Most studies on American-East German relations, however, focus on the period after the two states took up diplomatic relations in 1974. Few scholars have analyzed American relations to East Germany before this date, let alone how American policy-makers perceived the eastern part of Germany. Buckow's thorough study of American documents thus provides a much firmer basis for the conclusion that American policy towards Eastern Europe represented a "non policy," at least with respect to the Soviet zone of occupation and the GDR. Moreover, Buckow's meticulous analysis of American perceptions of East Germany does go a long way to explain why the United States opted for a "non policy" towards this territory.

After a discussion of the theoretical basis of perception, Buckow commences her study by examining the diverse sources through which U.S. policy-makers obtained information on the Soviet zone and the GDR. Through official and unofficial visits by American diplomats, soldiers and civilians; interviews with East German refugees or with West Germans who maintained contacts to the East; newspaper reports or secret intelligence; the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) and the Office of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany (HICOG) kept abreast of developments in the eastern part of Germany. These agencies were thus able to form a relatively accurate picture of life behind the Iron Curtain. American officials were interested in five factors when they focused on East Germany: Soviet intentions and aims; political changes; developments in the social realm; economic transformations; and advances in the military sphere. Buckow examines U.S. perceptions of these key domains in five exhaustive chapters. She concludes her study with a detailed assessment of U.S. policy towards the Soviet zone of occupation and GDR. Here, Buckow focuses on the activities of RIAS (the famous broadcasting station in the American sector of Berlin) and various other propaganda efforts, particularly those aimed at East Germany's youth. She also looks at humanitarian aid efforts, such as the distribution of food packages, and, to a lesser extent, at U.S. support of resistance groups such as the Untersuchungsausschuss Freiheitlicher Juristen (Investigative Committee of Free Jurists) or the Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit (Action Group against Inhumanity).

Again and again, the reader is told that East Germany was of "relatively small importance" (p. 489) to American policy-makers; that the territory was "written off" (p. 474) almost from the onset of the occupation period. Indeed, the GDR was never even mentioned in key U.S. policy papers towards Germany, such as NSC 71 of June 8, 1950 (p. 488). Hence, Buckow maintains that U.S. officials were utterly indifferent to East Germany (p. 476). She emphatically writes that American archives for the period under examination contain no report, no analysis and no political statement in which the GDR, let alone the Soviet zone of occupation, is depicted as an independent and separate entity (p. 91). Indeed, from early on, American officials, whether they were military personnel or diplomats, Republicans or Democrats, viewed East Germany as the Soviet Union's exclusive sphere of influence. They could exert little influence over this region, and they hardly tried. Americans thus looked to the western occupation zones and the Federal Republic "as the image of Germany's future" (p. 9) and focused on defending that territory "against infiltration and subversion through totalitarian machinations from the East" (p. 471).

At the same time, however, Buckow shows how U.S. officials were convinced that East Germans themselves were fundamentally pro-Western and consequently anti-Soviet. American policy towards East Germany was thus geared towards keeping these sentiments alive. Yet Buckow also maintains that U.S. policy never went so far as to encourage open and physical opposition in the Soviet zone and the GDR. Indeed, the workers' revolt of July 17, 1953, came as a complete surprise to U.S. officials (p. 360). American diplomats only ever hoped to instill in East German society a sense of hope for better times to come. Consequently, U.S. policy towards the Soviet zone and the GDR during this first decade of the Cold War was always negative (ablehnend) and defensive rather than active and constructive (p. 12). In the final analysis, Buckow thus argues that U.S. policy towards the Soviet zone of occupation and the GDR was characterized by a fundamental paradox: on the one hand, Americans treated the Eastern zone as a "lost German territory" by accepting the fact that it belonged to the Soviet sphere of influence; on the other, U.S. policy-makers strove to influence East German society so that it would not simply accept the Soviet-imposed regime unconditionally (p. 9).

The mandatory publication of doctoral dissertations in Germany has its advantages and drawbacks. While it generally ensures that the study at hand is empirical, methodical and well-referenced, dissertations also tend to have a narrow focus and to be written in a factual style that can make for an awkward read (largely as a result of constraints on time and funding). Anjana Buckow's monograph displays both these positive and negative characteristics. Buckow quotes from countless documents, showing an extraordinary command of American archival sources and the vast secondary literature. Yet her use of anecdotes and citations is almost excessive, for it tends to give the thesis a descriptive quality. Indeed, considering that the dissertation comprises nearly seven hundred pages of finely printed text, the focus is almost too narrow. Buckow concentrates exclusively on the perceptions of a small group of American military and diplomatic policy-makers, ignoring the broader views of American domestic opinion. Her meticulous research could have paid more attention to the perceptions of the U.S. intelligence community, particularly since this group played a critical function during the Cold War (especially in Berlin), not merely in their role as furnishers of secret information to policy-makers but also as covert actors.[5] Buckow also ignores West German perceptions of the Soviet zone of occupation and the GDR, although she frequently mentions the influence exerted by West Germans on American views (pp. 31, 79). The inclusion of these actors will be a vital element in the broader study of U.S.-East German relations, which is still needed. In the meantime, any scholar or student of American policy towards Germany in the post-World War II era will find this an extremely valuable contribution to understanding U.S. perceptions and policy towards East Germany.

Notes

[1]. Geir Lundestad, The American Non-Policy Toward Eastern Europe 1943-47: Universalism in an Area not of Essential Interest to the United States (Tromsoe and London: Universitetsforlaget, 1978).

[2]. The term "East Germany" is used here to denote the Soviet zone of occupation and the GDR.

[3]. Karin L. Johnston, "A Break with the Past?" in Germany through American Eyes, ed. Gale A. Mattox (Boulder: Westview, 1989), p. 32.

[4]. Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: University Press, 1976).

[5]. See, for instance, David E. Murphy, Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997); or David Stafford, Spies beneath Berlin (London: John Murray, 2002).

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Citation: Mathilde von Buelow. Review of Buckow, Anjana, Zwischen Propaganda und Realpolitik: Die USA und der sowjetisch besetzte Teil Deutschlands 1945-1955. H-German, H-Net Reviews. October, 2004.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9875

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