Maria Fritsche

The US government launched the European Recovery Programme, otherwise known as the 'Marshall Plan', in order to save war-torn Europe from collapse in 1948. Yet while much is known about the economic side of the Marshall Plan, the extensive film campaign that accompanied it has been largely overlooked until now. The American Marshall Plan Film Campaign and the Europeans is the first book to explore the use of the Marshall Plan films and, importantly, their distribution and reception across Europe. The study examines every available film – the 170 that remain from the 200 estimated to have been made – and looks at how they were designed to instil hope, argue the case for economic restructuring and persuade the Europeans of the superiority of the liberal-capitalist system. The book goes on to reason that the films served as a powerful weapon in the cultural Cold War, but that the European audiences were by no means passive victims of the US propaganda effort. Maria Fritsche discusses the Marshall Plan films in the context of countries across Western, Northern and Southern Europe, covering the majority of the 17 European countries that participated in the Plan in the process. The book incorporates 70 images and utilises a vast number of archival sources to explore the strategies the US adopted to sway the minds of the Europeans, the problems they encountered in the process and, not least, the varied responses of the European audiences. It is a vital study for any scholar or student keen to know more about postwar recovery in Europe, the legacy of the Second World War or America's relationship with Europe in the 20th century.

A Captivated Audience?

The American Marshall Plan Film Campaign and the Europeans

Inken Schmidt-Voges

Claudia Opitz-Belakhal

Das Verhältnis von Öffentlichkeit und Privatsphäre ist in der Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte seit ihren Anfängen ein wichtiges Thema. Mit dem Slogan »Das Private ist politisch« trat die Neue Frauenbewegung an, nicht nur das Feld der Politik, sondern auch die Wissenschaftslandschaft zu verändern. In dieser Ausgabe wird neuerlich die Frage nach geschlechtspolitischen Ein- und Ausschließungsmechanismen mit Blick auf die historische Kategorie Raum gestellt. Die Beiträge reichen von der Raum- und Geschlechterordnung in der Renaissance und der höfischen Kultur der Frühen Neuzeit über queere Geschlechterperformanzen in der New Yorker Unterwelt des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts bis zu aktuellen Erinnerungskämpfen im öffentlichen Raum in der Osttürkei. Aus dem Inhalt: Die Verortung der Geschlechter in »Haus« und Gesellschaft in Leon Battista Albertis »Libri della famiglia« (1433/34) / Gender, Space und Agency in der Casa de Austria im 16. Jahrhundert / Voyeurismus und die Macht des Blicks in den Sexualwissenschaften und der New Yorker Unterwelt um 1900 / Gendered Dynamics of the Making of Tunceli and Commemorating Seyyid Rıza in Dersim / Im Gespräch mit Sigrid Ruby / Umkämpfte Räume. Konflikte zwischen Besatzern und Besetzten im Zweiten Weltkrieg. The relationship between the public and the private has been a central issue in women’s and gender history. By claiming that the “private is political”, second wave feminists set out to change not just the political, but also the scholarly landscape. This themed issue revisits the debate, linking it (once again) to the discussion of space as a historical category. Its topics range from the spatial and gender order in the Renaissance and court culture of the early modern period to New York’s “underworld” in the early 20th century to the gendered public memory discourse in modern Eastern Turkey.

Innenräume – Außenräume

Despite the massive influx of Hollywood movies and films from other European countries after World War II, Austrian film continued to be hugely popular with Austrian and German audiences. By examining the decisive role that popular cinema played in the turbulent post-war era, this book provides unique insights into the reconstruction of a disrupted society. Through detailed analysis of the stylistic patterns, narratives and major themes of four popular genres of the time, costume film, Heimatfilm, tourist film and comedy, the book explains how popular cinema helped to shape national identity, smoothed conflicted gender relations and relieved the Austrians from the burden of the Nazi past through celebrating the harmonious, charming, musical Austrian man.

Maria Fritsche

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