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Book cover Peter von Zahn's Cold War Broadcasts to West Germany

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media ((PSHM))

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Abstract

From January 1952 Zahn broadcast weekly radio reports about American culture, society, and politics, reaching an audience of two to four million in the northern and western part of West Germany. In late 1955 he began making monthly documentaries for the infant West German television industry. “Pictures from the New World” was an immediate hit, and quickly became even more popular than Zahn’s weekly radio program. Zahn’s broadcasts also influenced West German political leaders.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Peter Pauli, “Der Peter von Zahn Story,” Hören und Sehen, Hamburg, Nr. 35 (August 28–September 3, 1960), NDR Pressearchiv, Peter von Zahn.

  2. 2.

    “McCarthy oder Die Verschwörung der Tugendhaften,” 1954; “Die dunkle Karte Nordamerikas,” October 1958; “Sturz in die Ohnmacht. Ein Dokumentarbericht ueber die deutsche Kapitulation vor zehn Jahren,” April 1955, all in BArch N 1524/419.

  3. 3.

    Peter von Zahn to John Metcalf, March 11, 1955 (regarding an engagement to speak at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, for an honorarium of $1,000); April 5, 1955 (regarding an engagement to speak in Alabama, for $750); April 29, 1955 (regarding an engagement to speak in Saginaw, Michigan for $500); May 9, 1955 (regarding engagements to speak in Jackson, Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana, each for $500). BArch N 1524/929. See also letters in BArch N 1524/421, 429.

  4. 4.

    Contract of October 31, 1956 between Zahn and the NWDR, StAHH 621–1/144, Nr. 1193.

  5. 5.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, August 23, 1942, BArch N 1524/423.

  6. 6.

    Peter von Zahn to Walter D. Schultz, undated but presumably December 1951, p. 1, BArch N 1524/428, File S. See also Peter von Zahn to Walter D. Schultz, September 2, 1952, ibid.

  7. 7.

    Peter von Zahn to Ernst (Schnabel), December 17, 1951, BArch N 1524/428.

  8. 8.

    “Amerika in simplen Bildern. Peter von Zahn zog viele Mittwochsgesprächler an,” Bonner Rundschau, October 16, 1954, BArch N 1524/1052.

  9. 9.

    “Gespräch mit jungen Deutschen,” BArch N 1524/917.

  10. 10.

    Peter von Zahn to Walter D. Schultz, September 9, 1952, BArch N 1524/428, file S.

  11. 11.

    Walter D. Schultz to Peter von Zahn, December 13, 1951, BArch N 1524/428, File T; Walter D. Schultz to Peter von Zahn, December 21, 1951, p. 1, BArch N 1524/428, file S.

  12. 12.

    Peter von Zahn to Herr Starke, January 1, 1953, StAHH 621–1/144, Nr. 1193.

  13. 13.

    Walter Schulz to Peter von Zahn, February 12, 1953, StAHH 621–1/144, Nr. 1193.

  14. 14.

    Peter von Zahn to Walter D. Schultz, September 1953, StAHH 621–1/144, Nr. 1193.

  15. 15.

    Broadcast of November 6, 1956, Nr. 229, StAHH 621–1/144, Nr. 1194. Zahn also broadcast live from the Republican convention of 1952. “Wie Eisenhower gewann,” BArch N 1524/408.

  16. 16.

    Peter von Zahn to Walter D. Schultz, February 15, 1957, pp. 1–2, BArch N 1524/433. See Walter D. Schultz to Peter von Zahn, September 6, 1956, BArch N 1524/433. The letter described the reasons for a missing broadcast a few days earlier. The Post Office had mistakenly sent Zahn’s taped broadcast by regular instead of express mail.

  17. 17.

    Zahn’s broadcast from Little Rock, Arkansas, of October 1, 1957, Nr. 273, referred to events that had taken place on the previous day. StAHH 621–1/144, Nr. 1194. When the NDR gave the radio station in Saarbrücken permission to carry Zahn’s Tuesday evening broadcasts at the end of 1958, it asked that Saarbrücken not broadcast the program before the NDR. This implied that the program was still not carried live. Walter D. Schultz to Fritz Brühl, November 26, 1958, WDR Historisches Archiv, Nr. 3834.

  18. 18.

    Peter von Zahn to Ernst Schnabel, December 17, 1951, p. 1, BArch N 1524/428, File S. See also Walter D. Schultz to Peter von Zahn, January 18, 1952, ibid.

  19. 19.

    Peter von Zahn, Reporter der Windrose. Erinnerungen 1951–1964 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1994), 227–28, 253.

  20. 20.

    Peter von Zahn to Werner Pleister, July 9, 1955, BArch N 1524/929.

  21. 21.

    Volker Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe. Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 66–72, 297–98.

  22. 22.

    Peter von Zahn to Walter Hilpert, Director of the NDR, February 5, 1959, p. 3, BArch N 1524/1005. See also Zahn, Reporter der Windrose, 232.

  23. 23.

    Rolf Seelman-Eggebert, “Peter von Zahn wird 70,” an NDR film documentary based on an interview with Zahn in January 1983, NDR Archiv, Nr. 6002691/01.

  24. 24.

    Zahn, Reporter der Windrose, 237–38.

  25. 25.

    Horst Jaedicke, Tatort Tagesschau. Eine Institution wird 50 (Munich: Allitera, 2002), 32.

  26. 26.

    Ronald Granieri, The Ambivalent Alliance. Konrad Adenauer, the CDU/CSU, and the West, 1949–1966 (New York: Berghahn, 2003), 60.

  27. 27.

    Mr. Riesser to the Foreign Office in Bonn, February 21, 1952, BArch B 145/7626.

  28. 28.

    Konrad Adenauer to Gerhard Ritter, April 7, 1952, in Konrad Adenauer, Briefe 1951–1953, ed. Hans Peter Mensing (Berlin: Siedler, 1987), 196. Adenauer referred to Zahn as someone who “certainly is not friendly to the government.”

  29. 29.

    Monika Boll, Nachtprogramm. Intellektuelle Gründungsdebatten in der frühen Bundesrepublik (Münster: Lit, 2004), 67 n. 32.

  30. 30.

    Peter von Zahn, Diary, entry of October 31, 1947, BArch N 1524/427, folder A. The entry records a discussion in Wiflingen with von dem Bussche, Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, and Alexander Graf von Stauffenberg. Zahn found Bussche’s politics too simple: “Bussche embodies the new form of cleansed nationalism, one that is not less dangerous than the old form.”

  31. 31.

    On Axel von dem Bussche and his service at the German Embassy in Washington, see Axel von dem Bussche, with a foreword by Richard von Weizsäcker (Mainz: v. Hase & Koehler, 1994), 51–54, 191–207. On his relations with Zahn, see Zahn, Reporter der Windrose, 202–06.

  32. 32.

    Carl von Murtius to Walter Gong, October 30, 1953, p. 1, BArch B 145/7626.

  33. 33.

    Ibid.

  34. 34.

    Walter Gong to Carl von Murtius, November 9, 1953, p. 1, BArch B 145/7626.

  35. 35.

    Memorandum of March 19, 1952, signed Walter Gong, BArch N 1524/421.

  36. 36.

    Zahn, Reporter der Windrose, 37–38.

  37. 37.

    Peter von Zahn to Heinrich von Brentano, West German Foreign Minister, May 18, 1959, BArch N 1524/383.

  38. 38.

    Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany (signature illegible) to Peter von Zahn, July 19, 1957, BArch N 1524/429 (filed under “B”).

  39. 39.

    E. Raederscheidt, Pressereferent in the Office of the President, to Peter von Zahn of February 5, 1957, BArch N 1524/429.

  40. 40.

    See evaluation of the March 4, 1957 documentary in BArch B 145/163.

  41. 41.

    Peter von Zahn to Walter D. Schultz, January 6, 1952, BArch N 1524/428; Walter D. Schultz to Peter von Zahn of January 28, 1952, p. 1, BArch N 1524/428, File S; Friedrich von Zahn to Peter von Zahn, September 16, 1952, BArch N 1524/940.

  42. 42.

    Peter von Zahn to Walter Hilpert, February 16, 1957, p. 3, BArch N 1524/433.

  43. 43.

    Walter Hilpert to Peter von Zahn, February 9, 1957; Peter von Zahn to Walter Hilpert, February 16, 1957, both in BArch N 1524/433.

  44. 44.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, May 28, 1943, BArch N 1524/423.

  45. 45.

    The copies of Zahn’s letters to Friedrich periodically contain notations indicating that they were forwarded to Friedrich’s superiors. On the history of the Ministry of All-German Affairs, see Stefan Creuzberger, Kampf für die Einheit. Das gesamtdeutsche Ministerium und die politische Kultur des Kalten Krieges 1949–1969 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2008).

  46. 46.

    Konrad Adenauer, Briefe 1951–1953, ed. Hans Peter Mensing (Berlin: Siedler, 1987), 196, 560. See also Friedrich von Zahn to Peter von Zahn, April 10, 1952, BArch N 1524/940. Zahn’s former Doktorvater Gerhard Ritter had circulated a very irate letter to leading politicians and journalists in March calling for Hallstein’s dismissal – “Hallstein must immediately disappear” – and threatening to end his support for Adenauer in part on the basis of Hallstein’s supposed remarks and what he considered Adenauer’s decision to give priority to rearmament over reunification. Zahn was one of the recipients of this imperious letter. BArch N 1524/421. Adenauer obtained a copy of the letter and replied to Ritter directly, in his response quoting Zahn’s report regarding Hallstein’s comments. Adenauer, Briefe 1951–1953, 196.

  47. 47.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, June 28, 1952, BArch N 1524/428. This letter was copied and given to both State Secretary Thedieck and Minister Kaiser.

  48. 48.

    “Unser Jahrhundert – Unternehmen Barbarossa, Interview mit Peter von Zahn for the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen,” 1998, p. 46, BArch N 1524/762.

  49. 49.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, November 23, 1953, p. 3, BArch N 1524/940. The population of West Germany was 50 million. East and West Germany together would have had roughly 70 million inhabitants.

  50. 50.

    Ibid., p. 5.

  51. 51.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, December 12, 1956, p. 2, BArch N 1524/940.

  52. 52.

    Peter Graf Kielmansegg, Nach der Katastrophe. Eine Geschichte des geteilten Deutschlands (Berlin: Siedler, 2000), 156.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., 150–51.

  54. 54.

    Pertti Ahonen, After the Expulsion. West Germany and Eastern Europe. 1945–1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 89.

  55. 55.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, November 20, 1955, BArch N 1524/940.

  56. 56.

    As Friedrich noted in a letter to his brother of December 5, 1956, p. 2, BArch N 1524/940.

  57. 57.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, February 3, 1951, BArch N 1524/940.

  58. 58.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, January 22, 1952, BArch N 1524/428.

  59. 59.

    Broadcast of May 31, 1955, Nr. 159, p. 3, BArch N 1524/413.

  60. 60.

    Broadcast of February 17, 1959, Nr. 336, p. 2, StAHH 621-1/144, Nr. 1194.

  61. 61.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, December 14, 1952, BArch N 1524/940. This letter was copied by Friedrich for further distribution to his superiors; Zahn’s papers contain the excerpted version.

  62. 62.

    Georgetown University Forum, Germany: First Anniversary of Sovereignty, May 27, 1956, p. 4, BArch N 1524/414.

  63. 63.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, December 12, 1956, p. 2, BArch N 1524/940.

  64. 64.

    On the commitment of expellee organizations in West Germany in the 1950s to regaining German territory lost to Poland and Czechoslovakia, and Adenauer’s efforts to avoid antagonizing these groups, see Ahonen, After the Expulsion, 39–53, 110–54.

  65. 65.

    John Wheeler-Bennett and Anthony Nicholls, The Semblance of Peace. The Political Settlement after the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1972), 588.

  66. 66.

    Ibid., 590–91.

  67. 67.

    Ibid., 587, 595, 597.

  68. 68.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, January 10, 1954, BArch N 1524/940. See also Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, December 14, 1952, BArch N 1524/940.

  69. 69.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, undated, p. 2, BArch N 1524/940. The contents of the letter make clear that it was written in January 1954.

  70. 70.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, November 23, 1953, p.3, BArch N 1524/940. This letter was copied and forwarded to Friedrich’s superiors. Friedrich apparently shared Zahn’s fears of a French–Soviet alliance. After the end of the Berlin conference of February 1954 Friedrich wrote to Peter that the chief accomplishment of the conference had been a negative one, that no rapprochement of France and the Soviet Union had taken place. Friedrich von Zahn to Peter von Zahn, February 23, 1954, p. 1, BArch N 1524/940.

  71. 71.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, November 23, 1953, p. 2, BArch N 1524/940.

  72. 72.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, December 14, 1952, p. 1, BArch N 1524/940.

  73. 73.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, probably January 1954, p. 1, BArch N 1524/940.

  74. 74.

    Ibid., pp. 1–2.

  75. 75.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, November 23, 1953, p. 3, BArch N 1524/940.

  76. 76.

    Wheeler-Bennett and Nicholls, The Semblance of Peace, 598–600.

  77. 77.

    Anthony Nicholls, The Bonn Republic. West German Democracy 1945–1990 (New York: Longman, 1997), 120–21, 136–37; Thränhardt, Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 74–77.

  78. 78.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, October 10, 1955, p. 2, BArch N 1524/940.

  79. 79.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, January 21, 1956, p. 2, BArch N 1524/940.

  80. 80.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, October 10, 1955, BArch N 1524/940.

  81. 81.

    Patrick Major, The Death of the KPD. Communism and Anti-Communism in West Germany 1945–1956 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 288–92.

  82. 82.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, January 21, 1956, p. 2, BArch N 1524/940.

  83. 83.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, November 25, 1956, BArch N 1524/429.

  84. 84.

    Ibid., p. 2.

  85. 85.

    Thränhardt, Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 82.

  86. 86.

    Friedrich von Zahn to Peter von Zahn, June 6, 1956, p. 3, BArch N 1524/940.

  87. 87.

    Peter von Zahn, “Die Neue Welt und die Freiheit,” in the series “Gedanken zur Zeit,” May 17, 1953, p. 6, BArch N 1524/411.

  88. 88.

    Nicholas Schlosser, Cold War on the Airwaves. The Radio Propaganda War against East Germany (Urbana: University of Illinois Press: 2015), 78–93.

  89. 89.

    Peter von Zahn to Friedrich von Zahn, September 16, 1955, p. 2, BArch N 1524/940.

  90. 90.

    Thränhardt, Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 84.

  91. 91.

    Broadcast of August 4, 1959, Nr. 359, StAHH 621–1/144, Nr. 1194.

  92. 92.

    Ibid., p. 4.

  93. 93.

    Zahn, Reporter der Windrose, 271–72.

  94. 94.

    “Rundfunkansprache zum zwanzigsten Jahrestag des Überfalls auf Polen und Beginn des Zweiten Weltkriegs,” Bulletin des Presse- und Informationsamts der Bundesregierung Nr. 159, 1. September 1959, accessed on January 1, 2016, www.konrad-adenauer.de/dokumente/reden/rundfunkansprache4.

  95. 95.

    Elisabeth Noelle and Erich Peter Neumann, The Germans. Public Opinion Polls 1947–1966 (Allensbach: Verlag für Demoskopie, 1967), 199.

  96. 96.

    Konrad Adenauer, Teegespräche 1959–1961, ed. Hanns-Jürgen Küsters (Berlin: Siedler, 1988), 177. Zahn’s papers contain a statement dated January 21, 1960 that elaborates on this argument. It is not clear whether this statement was made as part of a broadcast or whether it was used for different purposes. BArch N 1524/418.

  97. 97.

    Adenauer, Teegespräche 1959–1961, 178.

  98. 98.

    The West German government’s response to the anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi vandalism in December 1959 and January 1960 is described in more detail in Kristina Meyer, Die SPD und die NS-Vergangenheit 1945–1990 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2015), 227–39.

  99. 99.

    Statement for NBC “Heart of the News” broadcast on July 26, 1955, BArch N 1524/413; Georgetown University panel presentation of May 27, 1956 and interview with WRC-TV on October 28, 1956, BArch N 1524/414.

  100. 100.

    Peter von Zahn, “What can you expect from the Germans,” (undated) p. 3, BArch N 1524/1039. This document was drafted in English.

  101. 101.

    Ibid., p. 6.

  102. 102.

    Ibid., p. 4.

  103. 103.

    Ibid., p. 9.

  104. 104.

    Peter von Zahn, “from Germany,” in As Others See Us. The United States through Foreign Eyes, ed. F. Joseph (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959), 99.

  105. 105.

    Ibid., 99. He had suggested a similar conclusion in a broadcast from 1953. Zahn, Fremde Freunde, 280.

  106. 106.

    Zahn, “from Germany,” 114.

  107. 107.

    Ibid., 99.

  108. 108.

    Ibid., 96.

  109. 109.

    Ibid., 98.

  110. 110.

    Review by Harold Isaacs, in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 329 (1960): 154. Not all of the responses were so critical, either of the book as a whole or of Zahn’s contribution to it. See the review by Gilbert Abcarian, in The American Political Science Review 54, no. 2 (1960): 535.

  111. 111.

    Zahn, “From Germany,” 114.

  112. 112.

    Ibid., 114–15.

  113. 113.

    Ibid., 116.

  114. 114.

    Broadcast of April 11, 1958, BArch N 1524/913.

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    Eli Nathans

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Nathans, E. (2017). Public Audiences and Official Networks. In: Peter von Zahn's Cold War Broadcasts to West Germany. Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50615-9_5

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