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Cold War Germany in News Maps

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British and American News Maps in the Early Cold War Period, 1945–1955

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

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Abstract

This chapter discusses the specific example of maps of divided Cold War Germany in news journals. Although the governments and presses of England and America recognized Germany as a barometer of Cold War tensions, their cartographic responses differed. American news maps were far more anticommunistic and characterized the nation as a bipolar Cold War battleground. British maps, by contrast, portrayed Germany (and Cold War Europe in general) as less polarized and more geopolitically multilateral. In this chapter, British and American news maps are compared with West German-made maps which revealed a longing for the return of a unified German state.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    U.S. News and World Report, v. 18, n. 6 (Feb. 9, 1945): 20–21.

  2. 2.

    Ibid., see article “Tightening Noose on Berlin: Nazi Fight Against Panic,” 19.

  3. 3.

    Mary Fulbrook, The Divided Nation: a History of Germany, 1918–1990 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 94. See map set entitled “Territorial annexation, 1935–9.”

  4. 4.

    Facts In Review, v. 2, n. 5 (February 1940): 33. See Mark Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 102–103.

  5. 5.

    For a summary of these changes, see J. Robert Wegs and Robert Ladrech, Europe Since 1945: a Concise History (4th ed.) (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 8–10.

  6. 6.

    Louis Liebovich, The Press and the Origins of the Cold War, 1944–1947 (New York: Praeger, 1988), 43.

  7. 7.

    See maps entitled “How Germany Will Be Occupied” in U.S. News and World Report, v. 18, n. 12 (Mar. 23, 1945): 23; “Trouble Spots” in Time, v. 45, n. 22 (May 28, 1945): 21; “Three Worlds and Their Problem Spots” in Newsweek, v. 27, n. 5 (Feb. 4, 1946): 35; “Behind the Iron Curtain” in Time, v. 47, n. 11 (Mar. 18, 1946): 24; and “How the Communist Vote has Varied in Europe’s Elections” in New York Times v. 95, n. 32,278 (Jun. 9, 1946): E5.

  8. 8.

    F.S. Northedge and Audrey Wells, Britain and Soviet Communism: the Impact of a Revolution (London: Macmillan, 1982), 112–113.

  9. 9.

    D.F. Fleming, The Cold War and its Origins, 1917–1960 (vol. 1) (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961), 506.

  10. 10.

    Wegs and Ladrech, 9–11.

  11. 11.

    GDR officials traditionally have not voiced concerns over losing “Polish Germany” since doing so would have conflicted with Soviet state policy.

  12. 12.

    Time magazine, v. 62, n. 9 (Aug. 31, 1953): 19.

  13. 13.

    See Christiane Lemke’s essay “Citizenship Law in Germany: Traditional Concepts and Pressures to Modernize in the Context of European Integration,” published in the proceedings of Harvard Focus: Europe, Spring 2001, p. 6. Online text: http://www.gps.uni-hannover.de/europe/citizenlaw01.pdf.

  14. 14.

    (no author), Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Stutgartt and Köln: W. Kohlhammer, 1955).

  15. 15.

    Time magazine, v. 62, n. 9 (Aug. 31, 1953): 19.

  16. 16.

    See Serial Map Service, v. 9, n. 1 (Oct. 1947): 1.

  17. 17.

    See Denis Wood, The Power of Maps (New York and London: The Guilford Press, 1992), 85–87; Mark Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps (2nd ed.) (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), 118–122; and J.B. Harley, The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 2001), 83–108.

  18. 18.

    Julius W. Pratt, A History of United States Foreign Policy (2nd ed.) (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965), 460.

  19. 19.

    For a full text of Churchill’s speech, see http://www.historyguide.org/europe/churchill.html

  20. 20.

    Peter G. Boyle, “The British Foreign Office View of Soviet-American Relations, 1945–46” in Diplomatic History, v. 3, n. 3 (Summer 1979): 314.

  21. 21.

    Fraser J. Harbutt, The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America, and the Origins of the Cold War (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 199.

  22. 22.

    Ibid.

  23. 23.

    Harbutt, 198–199.

  24. 24.

    Time magazine, v. 47, n. 11 (Mar. 18, 1946): 24.

  25. 25.

    Radomir Luža, “Czechoslovakia between Democracy and Communism” in Charles S. Maier’s The Cold War in Europe: Era of a Divided Continent (Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1996), 94. Stalin’s intention to solidify his control over Eastern Europe became known in the summer of 1947 and ended any Western ideas of East–West cooperation through Czechoslovakia.

  26. 26.

    The New York Times, v. 95, n. 32,278 (Jun. 9, 1946): E5.

  27. 27.

    By this time, the Polish and Romanian democratic governments were not freely elected under Soviet direction, since such elections would surely have ousted the dominant Communist parties in both nations. See Wegs and Ladrech, pp. 30–33.

  28. 28.

    The New York Times, v. 97, n. 32,796 (Nov. 9, 1947): E1.

  29. 29.

    Quote was taken from an anonymous journalist reacting to Walter Lippmann’s promotion of balance-of-power treaties between the Soviet Union, Britain, and the United States. See article “Mr. Lippmann at the Ringside” in New Statesman and Nation, v. 31, n. 783 (Feb. 23, 1946): 131.

  30. 30.

    Godfrey Turton, “The Comity of Europe” in Truth, v. 140, n. 3648 (Aug. 9, 1946): 128. A “danegeld” describes a medieval European tribute paid to avoid conquest by marauding Vikings.

  31. 31.

    Aldo Cassuto, “Ports and Politics” in Time and Tide, v. 30, n. 15 (Apr. 9, 1949): 345.

  32. 32.

    Ibid.

  33. 33.

    See “Government, Press and Newsprint,” in Time and Tide, v. 29, n. 21 (May 22, 1948): 1.

  34. 34.

    Time and Tide, v. 29, n. 12 (Mar. 20, 1948): 301.

  35. 35.

    Guntram Henrik Herb, Under the Map of Germany: Nationalism and Propaganda, 1918–1945 (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 173.

  36. 36.

    Martin Ira Glassner, Political Geography (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1993), 228–289.

  37. 37.

    James Wilkinson, Contemporary Europe: a History, 9th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998), 374.

  38. 38.

    See “Ghilchik” cartoons in Time and Tide: v. 27, n. 11 (Mar. 16, 1946): 249; v. 28, n. 21 (Jun. 6, 1947): 593; v. 29, n. 3 (Jan. 17, 1947): 65; v. 29, n. 9 (Feb. 28, 1948): 217; v. 29, n. 15 (Apr. 10, 1948): 373; v. 29, n. 28 (Jul. 10, 1948): 717; v. 30, n. 36 (Sep. 3, 1949): 883.

  39. 39.

    Liebovich, 46.

  40. 40.

    Newsweek, v. 23, n. 3 (Jan. 17, 1944): 29.

  41. 41.

    U.S. News and World Report, v. 18, n. 10 (Mar. 9, 1945): 22–23.

  42. 42.

    Northedge and Wells, 76. For information on the 1942 Red Scare, see James Curran’s and Jean Seaton’s book Power without Responsibility: the Press, Broadcasting and the New Media in Britain (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 55.

  43. 43.

    See Horrabin’s map entitled “The European Chess-Board: 1925–1945” in the London Tribune, n. 450 (Aug. 10, 1945): 7.

  44. 44.

    John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: a Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 9–10.

  45. 45.

    Les K. Adler and Thomas G. Paterson, “Red Fascism: The Merger of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in the American Image of Totalitarianism, 1930’s–1950’s” in The American Historical Review, v. 75, n. 4 (April 1970): 1055.

  46. 46.

    Ibid., 1046.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., 1047.

  48. 48.

    (no author), “Communism: Heir to Fascism” in Look, v. 12, n. 3 (Feb. 3, 1948): 28–29.

  49. 49.

    Time, v. 55, n. 1 (Jan. 2, 1950): 36.

  50. 50.

    Time and Tide, v. 29, n. 20 (May 15, 1948): 509; New Statesman and Nation, v. 48, n. 1239 (Dec. 4, 1954): 729.

  51. 51.

    Time and Tide, v. 30 n. 36 (Sept. 9, 1949): 883.

  52. 52.

    E. Colston Shepherd, “America’s Place in the Air—New York: Port of Exchange” in Serial Map Service, v. 7, n. 1 (October 1945): 2.

  53. 53.

    London Tribune, v. 15, n. 725 (Feb. 9, 1951): 4.

  54. 54.

    Adler and Patterson, 1053.

  55. 55.

    Ibid.

  56. 56.

    Ibid., 1053–1054.

  57. 57.

    Kenneth Osgood. Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 40–41.

  58. 58.

    Look, v. 12, n. 3 (Feb. 3, 1948): 28–29.

  59. 59.

    Ibid., v. 11, n. 16 (Oct. 28, 1947): 35–36.

  60. 60.

    Ibid., v. 11, n. 16 (Oct. 28, 1947): 35–36.

  61. 61.

    See cover of Time, v. 62, n. 2 (Jul. 13, 1953).

  62. 62.

    Newsweek, v. 44, n. 19 (Nov. 8, 1954): 46.

  63. 63.

    Ibid., v. 27, n. 14 (Apr. 8, 1946): 53.

  64. 64.

    Wilfrid Hardy Callcott, The Western Hemisphere: Its Influence on United States Policies to the End of World War II (Austin, TX and London: University of Texas Press, 1968), 412–414.

  65. 65.

    Gaddis, 8–9.

  66. 66.

    Adler and Paterson, 1056.

  67. 67.

    U.S. News and World Report, v. 20, n. 22 (May 24, 1946): 21.

  68. 68.

    The Yalta Conference of February 1945 gave the Soviet Union the Kurile Islands, lower Sakhalin, and control of railroads in South Manchuria. The United Nations mandated North Korea to the Soviet Union and South Korea to the United States. See Gaddis’s The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1972), pp. 78–79.

  69. 69.

    C.J. Bartlett, British Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 71.

  70. 70.

    Godfrey Turton, “The Comity of Europe” in Truth, v. 140, n. 3648 (Aug. 9, 1946): 128.

  71. 71.

    See British Overseas Airways Ads in Time and Tide, v. 27, n. 29 (Jul. 20, 1946): 691; Spectator, v. 177, n. 6161 (Jul. 26, 1946): 99; and Truth, v. 141, n. 3670 (Jan. 10, 1947): 45.

  72. 72.

    Gaddis, 10.

  73. 73.

    Thomas G. Paterson, On Every Front: the Making and Unmaking of the Cold War (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1992), 41–42.

  74. 74.

    Rhoads Murphey, A History of Asia (4th ed.) (New York and London: Longman, 2003), 386.

  75. 75.

    Pratt, 494.

  76. 76.

    Newsweek, v. 36, n. 3 (Jul. 17, 1950): 14.

  77. 77.

    See maps in U.S. News and World Report, v. 33, n. 2 (Jul. 11, 1952): 22; Time, v. 54, n. 23 (Dec. 5, 1949): 30; The American, v. 149, n. 3 (March 1950): 25.

  78. 78.

    See maps in Time, v. 54, n. 23 (Dec. 5, 1949): 30, and v. 55, n. 19 (May 8, 1950): 22; The American, v. 149, n. 3 (March 1950): 25; U.S. News and World Report, v. 33, n. 2 (Jul. 11, 1952): 22.

  79. 79.

    D.F. Fleming, The Cold War and its Origins, 1917–1960 (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1961), vol. 2, 584.

  80. 80.

    Ibid.

  81. 81.

    See Shuguang Zhang’s essay “Threat Perception and Chinese Communist Foreign Policy” in Melvyn P. Leffler’s and David S. Painter’s (eds) Origins of the Cold War: an International History (2nd ed.) (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), 279.

  82. 82.

    Ibid.

  83. 83.

    Roderick Mcfarquhar and John K. Fairbank (eds), The Cambridge History of China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), vol. 14, 64.

  84. 84.

    Ibid., 64–65.

  85. 85.

    (no author), “Key to Conflict and its Significance” in Newsweek, v. 36, n. 11 (Sept. 11, 1950): 25.

  86. 86.

    Marice Collins, “The Mind of China” in Time and Tide, v. 31, n. 49 (Dec. 9, 1950): 1249–1250.

  87. 87.

    See Douglas Jerrold, The Lie About the West: A Response to Professor Toynbee’s Challenge (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1954); Martin W. Lewis and Karen E. Wigen. The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 59.

  88. 88.

    New Statesman and Nation, v. 43, n. 1107 (May 24, 1952): 600.

  89. 89.

    Ibid., v. 45, n. 1162 (Jun. 6, 1953): 688.

  90. 90.

    Time, v. 54, n. 23 (Dec. 5, 1949): 30.

  91. 91.

    Michael Kahan, Media as Politics: Theory, Behavior and Change in America (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1999), 2–3.

  92. 92.

    Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2001), 154.

  93. 93.

    Time, v. 56, no. 6 (Aug. 1950): 26–27

  94. 94.

    East German city populations were taken from Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Deutsche Reich (Berlin: von Reimar Hobbing, 1949).

  95. 95.

    Harley, 67.

  96. 96.

    See Serial Map Service, v. 8, n. 3 (Dec. 1946): map 385.

  97. 97.

    Barclay’s Bank ad, Time and Tide, v31, n23 (Jun. 10, 1950): 590

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    Jeffrey P. Stone

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Stone, J.P. (2019). Cold War Germany in News Maps. In: British and American News Maps in the Early Cold War Period, 1945–1955. Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15468-4_5

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