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How did the rapid influx and appropriation of American popular culture—from jazz and blue jeans to Hollywood cinema and consumer goods—function as a decisive form of “soft power” that modernized West German society, creating a cultural firewall against both Soviet communism and the resurgence of authoritarian nationalism? This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the cultural transformation of West Germany from 1945 to the late 1960s, focusing on the phenomenon of “Americanization” (Amerikanisierung). It challenges the narrative of American culture as merely an imposed imperialist tool, arguing instead that it was enthusiastically appropriated by the younger West German generation as…
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This article examines the pervasive and vehement antijazz crusade of the 1920s as a significant cultural phenomenon that reveals profound anxieties about race, modernity, and social order in post-World War I America. It argues that the widespread condemnation of jazz music by medical authorities, religious leaders, social reformers, and public intellectuals functioned as a proxy war against the rapid social transformations of the Jazz Age, with the music serving as a potent symbol for broader fears regarding racial integration, sexual liberation, and the erosion of Victorian morality. Through analysis of primary source discourse from the period, this article categorizes the…