Abstract
Der Monat was the oldest and perhaps, at least in the German-speaking world, most influential magazine of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF). To be more precise: the Berlin Congress of 1950 and the organisation of the CCF were immediate results of Der Monat, which had been founded already in 1948 by the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS). Edited by Melvin Lasky, the monthly magazine rapidly became an instrument of both, the intellectual Cold War with Marxist totalitarianism, and the liberal Westernisation of post-war West Germany.
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- 1.
The literature on Der Monat is relatively sparse: Joachim Gmehling, Kritik des Nationalsozialismus und des Sowjekommunismus in der Zeitschrift ‘Der Monat’, PhD dissertation, Hamburg University, 2010, provides us with a rich and detailed analysis of the ideological and political contents of the magazine; Francis Stonor Saunders, Wer die Zeche zahlt…: Der CIA und die Kultur im Kalten Krieg (Berlin: Siedler, 2003) offers plenty of information, but is rather conspiratorial. Somewhat paradoxically, her book was published by Wolf-Jobst Siedler, who himself worked for the CCF for a time. Marko Martin, Orwell, Koestler und all die andere: Melvin J. Lasky und ‘Der Monat’ (Asendorf: Mut Verlag, 1999) is quite apologetic, but his ‘Eine Zeitschrift gegen das Vergessen’: Bundesrepublikanische Traditionen und Umbrüche im Spiegel der Kulturzeitschrift Der Monat (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2002) serves as a well-annotated sourcebook. Still useful: Margit Ketterle, Literatur und Politik im Nachkriegsdeutschland der Zeitschrift ‘Der Monat’, 1948–1955, MA thesis, Munich University, 1984; Michael Hochgeschwender, Freiheit in der Offensive? Der Kongreß für kulturelle Freiheit und die Deutschen (München: Oldenbourg, 1998); Giles Scott-Smith, ‘“A Radical Democratic Political Offensive”: Melvin Lasky, Der Monat, and the Congress for Cultural Freedom’, Journal of Contemporary History 35 (2) (2000), pp. 263–280.
- 2.
There is still no useful biography on Melvin J. Lasky, but Maren Roth (Lasky Center, Munich) is preparing an intellectual biography based on new sources covering his personal development. See Charlotte A. Lerg and Maren M. Roth (eds.), Cold War Politics: Melvin J. Lasky: New York-Berlin-London (Munich: Lasky Center for Transatlantic Studies, 2010).
- 3.
See Gmehling, Kritik des Nationalsozialismus, pp. 70–152, 161–191, and Hochgeschwender, Freiheit in der Offensive?, pp. 139–158.
- 4.
For all information about the young Melvin J. Lasky, I want to thank Dr Maren M. Roth.
- 5.
See Bernhard Ganton, ‘Melvin J. Lasky und der 1. Deutsche Schriftstellerkongreß’, in Ursula Heukenkamp and Ursula Reinhold (eds.), Literatur im politischen Spannungsfeld der Nachkriegszeit: Protokoll der internationalen Konferenz anläßlich des 50. Jubiläums des 1. Deutschen Schriftstellerkongresses vom Oktober 1947 (Berlin: Institut für deutsche Literatur, 1998), pp. 59–70; Hugh Wilford, The New York Intellectuals: From Vanguard to Institution (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp. 193–215.
- 6.
One hint of a possible intervention by the CIA was the presence of CIA field agent Michael Josselson, then serving as a cultural officer with OMGUS.
- 7.
For this information, I thank Dr Maren M. Roth.
- 8.
John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York: Norton, 2003), pp. 166–169.
- 9.
Gmehling, Kritik, pp. 239–801, with subtle analyses and very rich empirical data; Hochgeschwender, Freiheit in der Offensive?, pp. 170–203 and 253–264.
- 10.
Hochgeschwender, Freiheit in der Offensive?, pp. 204–252; for the broader context, see Giles Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and Post-War American Hegemony (London: Routledge, 2002); Giles Scott-Smith and Hans Krabbendam (eds.), The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe, 1945–1960 (London: Frank Cass, 2003); Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008); David Caute, The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy during the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
- 11.
Hochgeschwender, Freiheit in der Offensive?, pp. 442–444.
- 12.
Scott Krause, ‘“Neue Westpolitik”: The Clandestine Campaign to Westernize the SPD in Cold War Berlin, 1948–1958’, Central European History 48 (2015), pp. 79–99.
- 13.
Julia Angster, Konsenskapitalismus und Sozialdemokratie: Die Westernisierung von SPD und DGB (München: Oldenbourg, 2003).
- 14.
Hochgeschwender, Freiheit in der Offensive?, pp. 164–170.
- 15.
See Giles Scott-Smith, ‘The Congress for Cultural Freedom, The End of Ideology, and the 1955 Milan Conference: Defining the Parameters of Discourse’, Journal of Contemporary History 38 (2002), pp. 437–53.
- 16.
Hochgeschwender, Freiheit in der Offensive?, pp. 548–558.
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Hochgeschwender, M. (2017). Der Monat and the Congress for Cultural Freedom: The High Tide of the Intellectual Cold War, 1948–1971. In: Scott-Smith, G., Lerg, C. (eds) Campaigning Culture and the Global Cold War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59867-7_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59867-7_4
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