Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1353/gych.2023.a908771
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Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1353/gych.2023.a907657
Martina Steber, Tobias Becker, Anna von der Goltz
IntroductionCultures of Conservatism in Western Europe since the 1960s Martina Steber, Tobias Becker, and Anna von der Goltz Translated by Sinéad Crowe The hair trends for men presented by the Central Association of the German Hairdressing Trade in spring 1983 were strikingly reminiscent of men's hairstyles from a bygone era.1 "With their pompadours, the young men on view resembled none other than the seventy-year-old man who had become president of the United States of America in 1981: [they sported] an oiled, tightly combed structure that no gust of wind could knock out of shape," remarked Michael Rutschky. The sociologist and journalist saw the Reaganesque hairstyle, by then to be spotted on a stroll through any "mid-sized city," as indicative of a return to the styles of the 1950s. This was significant, he argued, because hair and fashion were more than fads; they communicated attitudes and group identities to the outside world: When, dressed in a suit and vest, I enter one of the establishments frequented by our teacher and his ilk, people who live by the code "emancipation" (positive) and "repression" (negative), people gape at me with amazement, if not hostility. It is as if a Seminole has entered Iroquois territory without following the rituals prescribed for such a border crossing. And our teacher encounters no less hostility when he enters one of those elegantly stylized cafés where these kids with Ronald Reagan haircuts hang out. The young men's attire and the "code" associated with it was "extremely conservative, immunized against the passage of time in many respects," and, most importantly, a rebellion against the 1968 generation, Rutschky was convinced.2 It was not only 1980s fashion that led observers to note that the German zeitgeist had taken a conservative turn. Depending on their political position, this diagnosis—which was almost always framed in political terms—was tinged with either regret or satisfaction. Conservative affinities in culture, [End Page 1] many argued, testified to the success of the so-called "reversal of tendencies" and the reality of "spiritual-moral change" since the Christian Democrats' return to power with Helmut Kohl's election as German chancellor in 1982.3 Commentators were quick to point out the international dimension of this putative conservative turn, whereby the changes of government in the UK and the US in 1979 and 1981, respectively, were seen as pivotal moments, and Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan as harbingers of a new conservative hegemony. Jürgen Habermas brought this reading into philosophical discourse when, in his 1980 Adorno Prize acceptance speech in Frankfurt, he described the "conservative" inclinations of the day—including postmodernism—as enemies of the Enlightenment project of modernity.4 Culture had become a key concept again, a "major principle for social cohesion," and therefore the subject of political debate.5 This edition of the German Yearbook of Contemporary History fo
1983年春天，德国美发贸易中央协会(Central Association of the German hair美发Trade)展示的男性发型趋势，让人不禁想起过去那个时代的男性发型。迈克尔·鲁茨基评论说:“这些梳着蓬蓬头的年轻人与1981年刚当上美国总统的70岁老人别无二致。(他们的)头发上了油，梳得很紧，任何一阵风都吹不乱。”这位社会学家和记者认为，里根式的发型是20世纪50年代风格的回归，当时在任何“中等城市”漫步都能看到这种发型。他认为，这很重要，因为发型和时尚不仅仅是时尚;他们向外界传达态度和群体身份:当我穿着西装和背心，走进我们的老师和他的同类经常光顾的一家场所时，他们以“解放”(积极的)和“压抑”(消极的)为准则生活，人们惊讶地瞪着我，如果不是敌意的话。这就好像一个塞米诺尔人进入易洛魁人的领土，却没有按照规定的越境仪式行事。当我们的老师走进一间风格优雅的咖啡厅时，他遇到的敌意也丝毫没有减少，那些孩子们都留着罗纳德·里根式的发型。鲁茨基确信，年轻人的服装和与之相关的“准则”“极其保守，在许多方面不受时间流逝的影响”，最重要的是，这是对1968年一代的反叛不仅是上世纪80年代的时尚让观察人士注意到，德国的时代精神已经转向保守。根据他们的政治立场，这种诊断——几乎总是用政治术语来描述——要么是遗憾，要么是满意。许多人认为，文化上的保守倾向证明了所谓的“趋势逆转”的成功，以及自1982年赫尔穆特·科尔(Helmut Kohl)当选德国总理后基督教民主党重新掌权以来的“精神-道德变化”的现实。评论人士很快指出了这种假定的保守转向的国际层面，即英国和美国分别于1979年和1981年的政府更迭被视为关键时刻。玛格丽特·撒切尔和罗纳德·里根是新保守主义霸权的先驱者。哈贝马斯(j根·哈贝马斯)在他1980年在法兰克福发表的阿多诺奖获奖感言中，将当时的“保守”倾向——包括后现代主义——描述为现代性启蒙运动的敌人，将这种解读带入哲学话语文化再次成为一个关键概念，成为“社会凝聚力的主要原则”，因此成为政治辩论的主题本版《德国当代历史年鉴》关注西欧，特别是英国的保守主义文化，尤其关注二十世纪最后几十年欧洲和美国之间思想、文化和生活方式的跨国和跨大西洋交流。年鉴中的所有文章和本导言的部分内容首次以德语发表于2022/23.6年的《时代周刊》(Vierteljahrshefte fr Zeitgeschichte)上，在采用这一重点的同时，年鉴探讨了这一时期政治与文化变革之间的关系。它问的是，实际上，我们应该如何解释突然出现的对里根发型的偏好，以及西装和背心的复兴。换句话说，这些仅仅是政治意识形态的文化表现——政治信仰的美学反映吗?或者他们是否预示着一种更微妙的转变，这种转变不一定与人们的政治偏好同步——或者可能实际上影响了人们的政治偏好?在保守主义政治主导的时代，我们应该如何解释保守主义文化与有组织政治之间的联系?在解决这些问题时，本书试图超越有组织的政治领域，挖掘保守主义吸引力的更深层次，并对20世纪最后几十年的主要政治和文化变革提供更细致入微的理解。当代观察家经常注意到……
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Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1353/gych.2023.a907663
{"title":"About the Contributions to this Yearbook","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/gych.2023.a907663","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gych.2023.a907663","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":237244,"journal":{"name":"German Yearbook of Contemporary History","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136002967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1353/gych.2023.a907659
Amanda Eubanks Winkler
Abstract: This article delineates the key tenets of Thatcherism and considers the ways they might be enacted in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1980's oeuvre. The author focuses on three shows that have often been linked with Thatcherite aesthetics: Cats (1981), Startlight Express (1984), and The Phantom of the Opera (1986). The article demonstrates how the musical language and dramaturgy of these musicals participated in larger cultural discourses shaped by Thatcherism, discourses that lauded "traditional values" and a "glorious" British past, that bridled against elitism, and that shifted the perception of the role of government and the relationship between the individual and the state.
{"title":"Thatcherism and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Musicals","authors":"Amanda Eubanks Winkler","doi":"10.1353/gych.2023.a907659","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gych.2023.a907659","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article delineates the key tenets of Thatcherism and considers the ways they might be enacted in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1980's oeuvre. The author focuses on three shows that have often been linked with Thatcherite aesthetics: Cats (1981), Startlight Express (1984), and The Phantom of the Opera (1986). The article demonstrates how the musical language and dramaturgy of these musicals participated in larger cultural discourses shaped by Thatcherism, discourses that lauded \"traditional values\" and a \"glorious\" British past, that bridled against elitism, and that shifted the perception of the role of government and the relationship between the individual and the state.","PeriodicalId":237244,"journal":{"name":"German Yearbook of Contemporary History","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136002970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1353/gych.2023.a907661
Tobias Becker
Abstract: Rock and roll traditionally appears to exhibit a rebellious, subversive, and progressive connotation. Such ascriptions, however, ignore not only subgenres such as Rechtsrock (right-wing extremist rock), but also criticism, present from the onset, that accused mainstream rock of merely portraying and supporting the status quo rather than questioning it. Is rock and roll therefore a conservative genre? What do terms such as conservative and progressive really mean when they are applied to pop culture, music, and specifically rock and roll? Which findings are used to support these attributions? The article investigates these questions along an abbreviated history of rock from the 1950s to the 1980s in transnational perspective. The contribution shows that, inasmuch as rock is rebellious at all, its rebelliousness can be directed against a mainstream culture which is perceived as progressive just as much as against one which is perceived as conservative.
{"title":"Only Rock and Roll? Rock Music and Cultures of Conservatism","authors":"Tobias Becker","doi":"10.1353/gych.2023.a907661","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gych.2023.a907661","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Rock and roll traditionally appears to exhibit a rebellious, subversive, and progressive connotation. Such ascriptions, however, ignore not only subgenres such as Rechtsrock (right-wing extremist rock), but also criticism, present from the onset, that accused mainstream rock of merely portraying and supporting the status quo rather than questioning it. Is rock and roll therefore a conservative genre? What do terms such as conservative and progressive really mean when they are applied to pop culture, music, and specifically rock and roll? Which findings are used to support these attributions? The article investigates these questions along an abbreviated history of rock from the 1950s to the 1980s in transnational perspective. The contribution shows that, inasmuch as rock is rebellious at all, its rebelliousness can be directed against a mainstream culture which is perceived as progressive just as much as against one which is perceived as conservative.","PeriodicalId":237244,"journal":{"name":"German Yearbook of Contemporary History","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136002964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1353/gych.2023.a907660
Martina Steber
Abstract: Since the 1980s it has largely gone unnoticed how the British composer, conductor, and music entrepreneur John Rutter has become a leading figure in popular music—successful on the global music market, popular in the English-speaking world, and regularly at the top of the classical music charts with his Christmas song compositions. Rutter embodies precisely the opposite of commercial pop culture: he is the antitype of a pop star, he succeeds with sacred music, he addresses the middle class and the bourgeoisie, and he personifies family values, community spirit, and the preservation of tradition. Using the example of Rutter, the author demonstrates the importance of conservative pop cultures for the emergence and development of a transnational conservatism in Europe and North America since the 1970s. The article reveals the interplay between nationalization and transnationalization in conservatism, and points out the variety of forms and contexts in which conservative dispositions can appear in popular musical cultures. They offer opportunities for politicization, but can also remain effective purely in the cultural sphere. Rutter's sound worlds clearly transcend English cathedrals and college chapels.
{"title":"\"A Very English Superstar\": John Rutter, Popular Classical Music, and Transnational Conservatism since the 1970s","authors":"Martina Steber","doi":"10.1353/gych.2023.a907660","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gych.2023.a907660","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Since the 1980s it has largely gone unnoticed how the British composer, conductor, and music entrepreneur John Rutter has become a leading figure in popular music—successful on the global music market, popular in the English-speaking world, and regularly at the top of the classical music charts with his Christmas song compositions. Rutter embodies precisely the opposite of commercial pop culture: he is the antitype of a pop star, he succeeds with sacred music, he addresses the middle class and the bourgeoisie, and he personifies family values, community spirit, and the preservation of tradition. Using the example of Rutter, the author demonstrates the importance of conservative pop cultures for the emergence and development of a transnational conservatism in Europe and North America since the 1970s. The article reveals the interplay between nationalization and transnationalization in conservatism, and points out the variety of forms and contexts in which conservative dispositions can appear in popular musical cultures. They offer opportunities for politicization, but can also remain effective purely in the cultural sphere. Rutter's sound worlds clearly transcend English cathedrals and college chapels.","PeriodicalId":237244,"journal":{"name":"German Yearbook of Contemporary History","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136002684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1353/gych.2023.a907658
Nikolai Wehrs
Abstract: What role did formats of popular culture play in the renaissance of political conservatism after 1968? The Britcom Yes Minister (1980–88) is generally viewed as a left-wing satire of the elitism of the British civil service. Nikolai Wehrs, however, shows how the authors of the TV series purposely merged the left-wing antiestablishment narrative with a new middle class populism, and thereby created a political-cultural space of possibility for the conservative ideology of Thatcherism. He argues that Yes Minister allows for the investigation of the central transformation processes of British conservatism under the aegis of Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s.
{"title":"\"Abolish Economists!\": The Britcom Yes Minister and the Transformation of British Conservatism in the Thatcher Era","authors":"Nikolai Wehrs","doi":"10.1353/gych.2023.a907658","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gych.2023.a907658","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: What role did formats of popular culture play in the renaissance of political conservatism after 1968? The Britcom Yes Minister (1980–88) is generally viewed as a left-wing satire of the elitism of the British civil service. Nikolai Wehrs, however, shows how the authors of the TV series purposely merged the left-wing antiestablishment narrative with a new middle class populism, and thereby created a political-cultural space of possibility for the conservative ideology of Thatcherism. He argues that Yes Minister allows for the investigation of the central transformation processes of British conservatism under the aegis of Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s.","PeriodicalId":237244,"journal":{"name":"German Yearbook of Contemporary History","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136002960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1353/gych.2023.a907662
Craig Griffiths
Abstract: The history of gay liberation in the 1970s has primarily been told through the prism of radical or left-alternative activists, focusing on groups like the Gay Liberation Front in New York or the Homosexual Action West Berlin. Complicating this narrative, this article analyses "cultures of conservatism" in male homosexual politics, comparing the Federal Republic with the United States in the 1970s. Zooming in on discourses of responsibility and caution, while focusing on the identifications of some gay men as "ordinary" and "sensible," and their rejection of confrontation and flamboyance, this article shows that concepts such as "liberation," "emancipation," or even "gay power" have no fixed meanings, far less meanings that are inherently "radical" or "conservative."
{"title":"\"Gay Equals Left?\": Conservatism in Male Homosexual Politics in 1970s West Germany and the United States","authors":"Craig Griffiths","doi":"10.1353/gych.2023.a907662","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gych.2023.a907662","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The history of gay liberation in the 1970s has primarily been told through the prism of radical or left-alternative activists, focusing on groups like the Gay Liberation Front in New York or the Homosexual Action West Berlin. Complicating this narrative, this article analyses \"cultures of conservatism\" in male homosexual politics, comparing the Federal Republic with the United States in the 1970s. Zooming in on discourses of responsibility and caution, while focusing on the identifications of some gay men as \"ordinary\" and \"sensible,\" and their rejection of confrontation and flamboyance, this article shows that concepts such as \"liberation,\" \"emancipation,\" or even \"gay power\" have no fixed meanings, far less meanings that are inherently \"radical\" or \"conservative.\"","PeriodicalId":237244,"journal":{"name":"German Yearbook of Contemporary History","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136002963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This article examines how the East German secret service reacted to the onset of the new Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt's Social Democrat–Liberal coalition in Bonn in 1969/70. Material from the GDR Ministry for State Security (MfS) shows that Minister Erich Mielke and his deputy Markus Wolf, the head of the department for espionage in Western countries (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, HVA), considered Brandt's variant of "imperialist" Ostpolitik especially dangerous for the GDR and the Socialist states, as it allegedly aimed at abolishing Socialism in the GDR and undermining the Eastern alliance system. In conversations with the KGB leadership, they warned their "Big Brother" and exhorted Moscow not to make any concessions to the West German government at the expense of the GDR. The core of this article consists of a presentation manuscript—translated into English for the first time—prepared by the Stasi as it sought to make its case to KGB chief Yuri Andropov in the summer of 1970. Wolf tried to exhibit a confident, sometimes even schoolmasterly attitude toward the Soviet representatives. The Stasi nevertheless failed to dissuade the Soviets from signing a renunciation of force treaty with Brandt's government in August 1970.
{"title":"Problems with the \"Big Brother\": The GDR's Ministry for State Security and the CPSU's Policy toward Germany in 1969/70","authors":"Siegfried Suckut, Sinéad Crowe","doi":"10.1353/gych.2022.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gych.2022.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article examines how the East German secret service reacted to the onset of the new Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt's Social Democrat–Liberal coalition in Bonn in 1969/70. Material from the GDR Ministry for State Security (MfS) shows that Minister Erich Mielke and his deputy Markus Wolf, the head of the department for espionage in Western countries (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, HVA), considered Brandt's variant of \"imperialist\" Ostpolitik especially dangerous for the GDR and the Socialist states, as it allegedly aimed at abolishing Socialism in the GDR and undermining the Eastern alliance system. In conversations with the KGB leadership, they warned their \"Big Brother\" and exhorted Moscow not to make any concessions to the West German government at the expense of the GDR. The core of this article consists of a presentation manuscript—translated into English for the first time—prepared by the Stasi as it sought to make its case to KGB chief Yuri Andropov in the summer of 1970. Wolf tried to exhibit a confident, sometimes even schoolmasterly attitude toward the Soviet representatives. The Stasi nevertheless failed to dissuade the Soviets from signing a renunciation of force treaty with Brandt's government in August 1970.","PeriodicalId":237244,"journal":{"name":"German Yearbook of Contemporary History","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128152002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Secret Services and the Arms Trade in German-Speaking Europe","authors":"W. G. Gray, Thomas Schlemmer","doi":"10.1353/gych.2022.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gych.2022.0000","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":237244,"journal":{"name":"German Yearbook of Contemporary History","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128930017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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