Reeducation through Soviet culture: Soviet cultural policy in occupied Germany, 1945--1949

This dissertation explores Soviet reeducation plans and policies in Eastern Germany during World War II and the build-up to the Cold War. It argues that the Soviet state was poorly prepared for administering public affairs in Germany and did not have any longterm plans for the division of Germany.;In the first part, the dissertation explores some of the problems faced by Soviet policy-makers in reconciling Marxism with nationalism. During the war the Soviet state negotiated between the need to 'other' the German enemy while retaining the discourse of Marxist rationalism. The dissertation also explores Soviet war-time reflections of the German national character. Analyzing Soviet statements concerning the role of the German national psyche, this dissertation highlights divergent attempts at devising reeducation plans that stood in the service of altering the German psyche after the war. It shows that, in the end, the Soviets agreed upon cultural policy as the cornerstone of the reeducation program.;The collapse of the German state confronted the Soviets with challenges that hampered its reeducation designs. Soviet conservative etatism conflicted with the German communists' revolutionary radicalism. Concentrating on Soviet attempts to overcome anti-Soviet stereotypes, the dissertation demonstrates that the Soviet government sought to use cultural policy as the cornerstone of its reeducation program.;In 1947 numerous setbacks forced the Soviet state to abandon anti-fascism as the overarching paradigm of its cultural policy and replace it with anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism. When the Western Allies were considering dividing Germany and had implemented the Marshall Plan, the Soviet Union feared it would be left with an economically unviable rump state. To forestall the division of Germany, the Soviet Union attempted to create a nationalist movement from above. Cultural policy acquired an even higher significance, as culture was the only area in which claims to a unified Germany possessed legitimacy. Despite all efforts, the USSR failed in the end to achieve its objectives in Germany.