GERMANY’S WORKSHOP: EXPELLEE CRAFT AND POSTWAR NATIONAL REBRANDING by Kelly Lynn Cairns A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (History) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2016 © Kelly Lynn Cairns, 2016   ii   Abstract This work explores the use of culture to rebrand national identity in postwar West Germany from 1945-1955. It employs the story of Sudeten expellee craftspeople and their resettlement in the American Occupation Zone to demonstrate forced migrant agency, and to address national rebranding from a migrant perspective. It reveals how American and German governments employed the expellee story and their Selbsthilfe (self-help) initiative to bridge the recent Nazi past and sell German goods to global consumers. Rebranding emphasized tradition, Heimat and an idyllic handcraft lifestyle while also promising a future of innovation. Sudeten expellee communities proved exemplary for the task, as symbols of both “tradition” and innovation. In addition, their story of resilience from their lost Heimat to eventual economic prosperity proved useful in both advancing a German victimhood narrative and boasting a successful integration narrative. The American Military Government in occupation sought to manage, resettle and market expellees through export buyer tours, exchange visits and trade fair exhibitions, justifying the allocation of Marshall Plan funds and fostering a strong trade relationship. The expellee craft story became a powerful tool in making a tarnished “Made in Germany” label sellable once again. This study traces expellee musical instrument makers, toy makers and glass blowers, from the loss of their workshops to their conflict with local German communities, to the construction of new homes and the reconstruction of businesses. Taking small-scale craft industry and material culture as its focus, this work adds to and complicates an already rich literature on heavy industry and the German Wirtschaftswunder. As occupation governments dismantled heavy industries, they subsequently promoted skilled handcraft and small-scale manufacturing, granting expellees an opportunity to rebuild and advance their new workshops in enclave settlements. This study links scholarship in the fields of postwar German history, forced migration, and material culture to reveal the power of objects and forced migrant groups to alter the story and even identity of their new West German context.   iii  Preface This dissertation is original, unpublished, independent work by the author, Kelly Cairns. All German sources were translated into English by the author. All images used are not under copyright restriction. The research for this dissertation was completed with the generous support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).   iv  Table of Contents Abstract  ....................................................................................................................................................  ii  Preface  ....................................................................................................................................................  iii  Table  of  Contents.................................................................................................................................  iv  List  of  Images  ........................................................................................................................................  vi  Acknowledgements  ...........................................................................................................................  vii  Dedication  ...........................................................................................................................................  viii    Introduction  ...........................................................................................................................................  1    Chapter  One.  Becoming  Expellees:  The  Prewar  Heimat  and  the  Postwar  Expulsion  .  43                      1.1  Background  .........................................................................................................................  45                      1.2  Expulsions  ...........................................................................................................................  53                      1.3  Case  Study:  Gablonz  .........................................................................................................  56                      1.4  Early  Arrival  in  Germany  ................................................................................................  59    Chapter  Two.  Made  in  Germany:  Defining  Einheimische  and  Expellee  Craft  in  Postwar  Bavaria  ..................................................................................................................................................  68                      2.1  The  Instrument  Makers  of  Schönbach  .......................................................................  74                      2.2  Made  in  Germany  ..............................................................................................................  79                      2.3  Two  Paths  Diverge  ............................................................................................................  86                      2.4  Resettlement  Solution  ...................................................................................................  112    Chapter  Three.  Selbsthilfe:  New  Expellee  Settlements,  Buyer  Tours  and  the  Exportation  of  an  Ideal  ..................................................................................................................  124                      3.1  Waldkraiburg  ...................................................................................................................  141                      3.2  Neugablonz  ........................................................................................................................  152                      3.3  Buyer  Tours  ......................................................................................................................  158                      3.4  Expellee  Perspective  ......................................................................................................  164    Chapter  Four.  The  Export  Schau:  Exhibiting  and  Selling  Germany’s  Workshop  .........  177     v                      4.1  Trade  Fair  as  Tradition  .................................................................................................  183                      4.2  Expellee  Fairs  ...................................................................................................................  189                      4.3  Kunst  Haus  Exhibition  ...................................................................................................  197                      4.4  Export  Sales  .......................................................................................................................  227    Chapter  Five.  Enclaves  and  Innovation:  Going  Global  to  Sustain  the  Local  .................  235                      5.1  Expellee  Success  ..............................................................................................................  237                      5.2  Modernizing  Production  ...............................................................................................  259                      5.3  Educating  the  Next  Generation  ...................................................................................  279    Conclusion  ..........................................................................................................................................  303  Bibliography  ......................................................................................................................................  310       vi   List of Images 1.  A  Mittenwald  Geigenbauer  (violin  maker)  in  his  workshop  ..........................................  68    2.  Photographs of the Bubenreuth settlement site under construction (left) and the ground-breaking ceremony (right)    .....................................................................................................  121   3.  A man digs through the rubble to salvage a machine.    .........................................................  124   4. Waldkraiburg walking tour guidepost with photos of bunkers.  .........................................  141   5. Expellee-built clay home in Waldkraiburg.  .............................................................................  144   6. Craft wares on display at the Garmisch Expellee Fair      .......................................................  191   7. Mittenwald Deutsche Musikinstrumenten Messe 1949, program cover.  ..........................  193   8. OMGUS poster outside Kunst Haus Exhibition    ....................................................................  196   9. Export Schau catalogue cover  ...................................................................................................  201   10.  Export Schau visitors approach the Information Desk    .....................................................  217   11. Ceramics on display at the Kunst Haus Exhibition    ............................................................  218   12.  Glass maker’s exhibit at the Haus der Kunst, 1948  ..............................................................  227   13.  Newspaper article on the Musical Instrument Making Fair in Mittenwald.      ...............  266   14. Women working in an unidentified toy workshop    ..............................................................  267   15.  Framus Promotional Brochure    ...............................................................................................  268   16. Female craftspeople at work making toys for export  .........................................................  270   17. A look inside an expellee workshop  .......................................................................................  272   18.  Catalogue for A. R. Hüttl  .........................................................................................................  286   19.  Framus Promotional Brochure describing Note men method    .........................................  293     vii   Acknowledgements I want to thank Eagle Glassheim for encouraging me to pursue this history and for guiding me in my research and academic life. In his guidance I found genuine enthusiasm for the vocation and was inspired. I would also like to thank William French and Anne Gorsuch for opening my mind to new methods and approaches to history and for encouraging my creativity. In their presence I felt the need to push the boundaries of the discipline and was rewarded for doing so. I would also like to thank Joy Dixon and Henry Yu for pushing me to challenge widely accepted theories in cultural and migration history and strengthening my voice as a historian. Thank you to Michel Ducharme, Jessica Wang and Paul Krause for critiquing my writing. Thank you to the Department of History and the University of British Columbia in general for nurturing creative thought and providing ample opportunity to develop professionally. The support I received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in the form of a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship) was invaluable to the completion and success of my project. I would also like to thank the Collegium Carolinum in Munich, the Bayerisches Staatsarchiv, the Stadtmuseum Waldkraiburg, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Archives at College Park, Maryland and all the support I received from archivists along the way. Finally, I would like to thank my colleagues and students at UBC for posing questions of my work, for critiquing my writing and for inspiring me. Thank you especially to Laura Madokoro, Patrick Slaney, Christine Peralta, Max Fassnacht, Fred Vermote, Tom Peotto, Brendan Wright, Birga Meyer, David Meola, David Luesink, Denzil Ford and Jamie Sedgwick for reading my work, offering sound words of encouragement and moral support. I am honoured to have shared classrooms, commutes and coffee shop tables with you. Thank you to my parents Keith and Carol for everything they have taught me through their shining example and for encouraging me to be true to myself while following each and every path. Thank you to my brother and his wife and son for giving me strength and support. Thank you to Marilyn, Aimee and Robin for coaching me through over ten years of highs and lows. Thank you to my extended family and all of my friends for supporting my work and my well-being. It is through you that I have grown and come to know myself.   viii   Dedication to my late grandfather Walter Cairns and my grandmother Myrel Cairns for teaching me the joys of work and how to take pride in each task.   1   Introduction Crumbling monuments, buildings reduced to rubble, children scavenging in the street for food. This was the view that greeted residents of Germany’s cities in 1945. After Allied bombings and the violent Red Army advance had subsided, this is what remained. Though images of bombed-out German cities occupy a dominant space in visual representations of the postwar period, these images are often aerial photographs taken high above the city.1 They are lifeless and quiet as if the horror of Nazi crimes could be pulverized from above, as if the stories of the Germans below needed to be forgotten, erased, buried beneath the rubble. Meanwhile far from the crumbling cityscapes, American troops advanced eastward across Europe. They came upon Nazi concentration camps, unprepared for the overwhelming scenes of disease, death and deprivation that awaited them. With photo-journalists in tow, the Americans captured images of the Nazis’ victims.2 These horrifying scenes solidified Germany’s image in the eyes of the world, branding the German state and nation with the stain of collective guilt. Like the buildings around them, Germany’s global reputation at war’s end lay in ruins. But Germany’s streets were not lifeless and concentration camps contained the living as well as the dead. Those who survived the war had little choice but to struggle on, continue living amidst the ruins. Life kept moving, despite references to a Stunde Null (zero hour) marking the end of the Nazi era and total defeat. The remote rural regions of Germany like the mountainous and rural pockets of Bavaria, seemed untouched by war, and as such had already opened their doors to trainloads of urban bomb evacuees. The postwar landscape in Germany was not lifeless, 1Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (London: Penguin Press, 2005), 13. 2 Barbie Zelizer, Remembering to Forget: Holocaust Memory through the Camera’s Eye (University of Chicago Press, 2000); Robert Abzug, Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).   2  but was growing increasingly dense as massive groups of Eastern European forced labourers, liberated concentration camp victims and evacuees converged on German towns. In Eastern Europe, German speakers who had affiliated with the German Kulturnation in the 1930s still lived their lives with little beyond the occasional rumour to prepare them for the expulsion that was to come. Unbeknownst to German speakers living in Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland and the Sudetenland (borderland regions of Czechoslovakia), they were about to be expelled from their homes and forced to join the homeless masses arriving in Germany. The retributive “wild transfers” of radicalized Czech nationalists in 1945 soon reached the outer edges of the Sudetenland, followed quickly by the Allied-sanctioned “orderly and humane transfers” of 1946. The narrative of the Sudeten German expulsion often began with a sudden notification that they were to leave their homes, with many given just one hour to collect a small 50kg bag of their possessions. For some, this began a brutal journey of internment and even death. For others, it meant transportation in crowded trains to an uncertain future.3 Still clutching the key to their house or a hand tool from their workshops, they boarded the trains and arrived on the other side of the border in occupied Germany, to an overcrowded world of refugee camps and meagre food rations. In one case, those who arrived in the spring of 1946 to the area around Waldkraiburg found accommodations in the wooden barracks of the Pürten camp. Postwar society’s reliance on plundering and the black market meant that “everything that was not nailed down” had been robbed or dismantled. With “neither a complete window nor a closing door,” no electric or water lines, the expellees settled in. With little fanfare or welcome reception from the locals, they 3 Mathias Beer, Flucht und Vertreibung der Deutschen: Voraussetzungen, Verlauf, Folgen (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2011); R. M. Douglas, 'Orderly and Humane.' The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War (New Haven: Yale UP, 2012).   3  relied solely on their own aptitude for innovation. Working with very few tools at their disposal and against the clock of winter’s arrival, they constructed homes and workshops from the surrounding rubble. The task was quite difficult considering that, as one expellee describes it, they were living in “a time of decline in which all economic and moral principles were dead…when hardly a nail, let alone a much-needed piece of furniture were available for purchase.”4 Even with a flourishing black market in the area, the displaced did not have the networks or the resources to access it. Moreover, their barracks were located far from main traffic routes and local commercial industries. Creative self-reliance became necessity as they carved out a life in shoddy camps, huddled close to their neighbours as they slept, washed, cooked and crafted makeshift wares. They made toys from tin cans and wood and jewelry from scrap metal, in an attempt to continue their prewar way of life. In the Sudetenland, community identity was often tied to handcraft, as these mountainous, forested regions of Czechoslovakia had little agricultural value. A past of mountain villages, domestic lifestyles and craft workshops that could be depicted as idyllic, combined with an entrepreneurial work ethic, made the expellees fine exemplars of a postwar German ideal. When the expellees arrived on German soil after their expulsion, local populations did not welcome them. Soon, however, the regional German governments and the American occupation authorities recognized the value that lay in the expellees’ skill and the power that lay in their story. Upon their initial arrival, the expellees were considered forced migrants, but due to their status as ethnic Germans, they were not offered UNRRA (United Nations Relief and 4 Walter Lindner, Waldkraiburg: vom Bunker zur Siedlung; die vierjährige Geschichte einer Industriesiedlung von Heimatvertriebenen in Oberbayern (München: Verl. "Christ Unterwegs", 1950), 33.   4  Rehabilitation Administration) or IRO (International Refugee Organization) aid.5 Though initially labelled Umsiedler (re-settler) or Flüchtling (refugee), the more specific term Vertriebener (expellee) gradually came into use as expellee communities sought to distinguish their experience from that of their co-displaced, drawing attention to their specific victimhood narrative.6 Throughout the process of their resettlement, expellees used their story and other tools (an entrepreneurial mindset, global trade networks) to adapt to their new context, ultimately becoming successful contributors to the West German economy. In the American Zone, military personnel were charged with the task of reconciling conflicts between local and expellee craftspeople as they developed settlement schemes. Moreover, they sought to utilize skilled entrepreneurs for their vision of a capitalist, democratic West Germany. In the span of seven months, the economic directives of the Office of the United States Military Government in Occupation (OMGUS) of the Zone encompassing Bavaria, Hesse and Baden Württemberg in western Germany changed dramatically. From monitoring and controlling black market activity to orchestrating a complex international export trade scheme, OMGUS marketed their Zone as “Germany’s Workshop” to serve their own ends of postwar reconstruction through peaceful means. Rather than one of the world’s largest armaments producers, the US Zone in Germany was groomed to become a productive “workshop,”7 a peaceful realm of agriculture and handcraft. 5 W. Arnold-Forster, “U.N.R.R.A.’S Work for Displaced Persons in Germany,” International Affairs, Vol. 22, No. 1. (January, 1946): 1-13.. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 260, Box 50, File 1; NARA RG 260, 50, 1. 6 Helmut Schmitz, A Nation of Victims?: Representations of German Wartime Suffering from 1945 to the Present (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 99-112. 7 “Germany’s Workshop” With its processing and finishing facilities the US Zone will become, it is hoped, the workshop of Germany. OMGUS Weekly Information Bulletin, March 1947, No. 83, Vol., 4, 4.   5  Scholars have fueled the narrative of a successful American occupation and subsequent Wirtschaftswunder (Economic Miracle).8 However, the fact that Germany partly accomplished this feat through local production, exchange, exhibition and foreign consumption of objects like dolls, mechanical toys, chinaware, glassware and musical instruments, is unrecognized in the larger narrative. The history of the revival of craft in the late 1940s is valuable as it reveals the fruitful linkages between German material culture in the postwar period and larger questions of constructed identity, community, and nation. Craft was styled as symbol of both an idyllic past and hope for a productive, innovative future. Moreover, the study of craft objects aptly demonstrates the power dynamics inherent in the occupier/occupied relationship, as OMGUS first dismantled German industry, then regulated it and finally packaged it for American consumption. Though the expellee community did have the assurances and promises of their American occupiers and the Bavarian Ministry of the Economy to work towards reconstructing their industries, progress was too slow for many expellee entrepreneurs. Unsatisfied with their circumstances and unwilling to wait indefinitely for assistance, the expellees living in Waldkraiburg set to work creating workshop spaces from nearby concrete bunkers. Each nail required a half-hour to install and each window that was carved out required days of work. By October 1946, after the arrival of many more brass instrument makers from Graslitz, the craftspeople of the Pürten barracks had formed an association and opened a small repair shop to 8 For more on Germany’s reconstruction see Detlef Junker, ed. The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Robert Moeller, ed. West Germany Under Construction: Politics, Society, and Culture in the Adenauer Era (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997); Jeffrey M. Diefendorf, Axel Frohn, and Hermann-Josef Rupieper, eds. American Policy and the Reconstruction of West Germany 1945-1955 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Michael Ermarth, ed. America and the Shaping of German Society, 1945-1955 (Oxford: Berg, 1993); Greg Castillo, “Domesticating the Cold War: Household Consumption as Propaganda in Marshall Plan Germany,” Journal of Contemporary History Vol. 40, No. 2 (April, 2005): 261-288.   6  earn enough money to purchase machines and enough time to build a proper workshop.9 It was the beginning of what would later become a manufacturing and export hub. The chaotic, demoralized world the expellees discovered upon arrival in 1945-1946 transformed over the course of the next ten years into a landscape dotted with small, efficient manufacturing plants. Though they continued to exist in and alongside dwindling refugee camps, expellee craft industries flourished at a rate that impressed outside observers. Through hard work and cooperation, the expellees had lent their hands to Bavaria’s newfound identity as “Germany’s Workshop,” exporter of fine handcrafted goods. Like the expellees, craft objects underwent adaptation in order to survive and meet the demands of the global marketplace. As expellees produced ever more modern and innovative products in the 1950s, the meaning of these objects and their significance for the nation shifted as well. In the immediate postwar years, craftspeople and craft objects were marketed as exemplars of tradition, of expellee Selbsthilfe (self-help, a demonstration of individual initiative) and entrepreneurial potential. As time passed, craft objects came to represent economic prosperity, technological innovation, expellee autonomy and agency. In the larger reconstruction scheme, craft objects and their makers were beacons of hope for the German nation, agents of economic growth and national pride sold under a “Made in Germany” label. As expellees sought to hold onto the cultural practices of their past, so too did many local Germans. Postwar upheaval and displacement inspired simultaneous processes of identity reconstruction. The outside world had branded Germans as perpetrators of Nazi crimes. This collective guilt cast a shadow over all Germans, including those from the Sudetenland, making it difficult for Allied nations to acknowledge the experiences of postwar German victims. As the 9 Lindner, Waldkraiburg, 33-42.   7  complexities of individual and community identity eroded under the weight of imposed binaries of good and evil, both expellees and local Germans searched for ways to regain some semblance of their pre-Nazi selves. In rebranding themselves they also sought to revive their global reputation, choosing quality, “Made in Germany” handcrafts as their medium. Like craft objects, the German nation underwent a necessary process of re-branding. The product (German identity) and its meaning had fallen out of international favour, and a new element had been added to the product (skilled expellee influx), enhancing its potential. Moreover, it had new backing (US occupation policies and Marshall Plan funds). In order to sell the idea of a new German identity, Germans and occupation authorities turned to a rebranding scheme that gathered pace over time, one that focused on Bavaria as “Germany’s workshop,” that lumped expellee and local craftspeople together into one super-entrepreneurial population, and that linked “Made in Germany” objects directly to pre-Nazi tradition and seemingly ageless Heimat10 landscapes. The danger in this rebranding was that of glossing over the Nazi past, passing off expellee integration as simple and successful, and creating a false and overly simplistic and nostalgic sense of German “tradition.” Moreover, such rebranding risked positioning capitalism as the white knight of the postwar era, a notion that was quite popular with the onset of the Cold War, but had the potential to occlude alternative systems (GDR socialism) and the fact that Nazi Germany was also a capitalist state. In the end, rebranding worked to build stronger German-American ties through trade, economic prosperity and support 10 Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), x. “Heimat came to express a ‘feeling of belonging together’ (in German, the Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl), whether across class, confessional, or gender lines, or across the lines that divided the province from the nation surrounding it…Rescued from archaic German in the late eighteenth century, the word gathered political and emotional resonance in scattered legal reforms and popular literary invention of the Biedermeier period. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Heimat identified the diverse and mostly local efforts to appreciate provincial cultures and, simultaneously, to celebrate German nationhood. During the war, it served the Germans in the same way that the term home front served the English. By the 1920s and 1930s, a profoundly incompatible group of republican activists, conservative nationalists, and German racialists competed for control of Heimat.”   8  for expellee craftspeople and industries, to create a global appreciation for artisan craft and entrepreneurship and, from the American occupiers’ perspective, to accomplish nothing short of lasting peace and democracy. The power of the expellee story was employed by different groups for different ends. For forced migrants it served as a message of resilience, of possibility and hope after war. For the expellees in particular it told of reliance on oneself and one’s community for sustenance, of working together to continue old practices and make them fit in a new context. For those expellees and local Germans who wished to exploit it for political ends, the story stood as an example of German victimhood after the war. It served not just the victims of expulsion but the German women who were raped by Red Army soldiers, those who had suffered under Allied bombing campaigns and the POWs (prisoners of war). And for German collective memory of the war and those historians who choose to study it, the story unearthed new questions. It forced historians of the postwar era to confront episodes of ethnic cleansing that took place after the war under the watchful eye of the Allies, and to approach the postwar era with an eye on its dark complexities. For scholars of forced migration in particular, the story provides an opportunity to understand common obstacles that arise when integrating migrants into established communities and the difficulty of implementing policies that satisfy the needs of both locals and newcomers. Andreas Kossert and Rainer Schulze have both worked to complicate the postwar integration narrative, using the expellee story as a means to interrogate the supposed success of the resettlement process.11 This dissertation, in constrast to much of the scholarship on the expulsion, 11 Andreas Kossert, Kalte Heimat: Die Geschichte der deutschen Vertriebenen nach 1945 (Munich: Siedler Verlag, 2008), 12.; Rainer Schulze, “Growing Discontent: Relations between Native and Refugee Populations in a Rural District in Western Germany after the Second World War,” Germany History Vol. 7 (1989): 3-13.   9  shifts the view away from forced migrants as helpless victims, strengthening the argument that in fact expellees were agents of their own integraiton and any successes that followed. Host societies stood to benefit simply by acknowledging migrants’ unique skill sets and the strength that lay in their experience as expellees. They facilitated this by allowing migrants to work cooperatively within their own communities towards their own goals, and by seeing enclaves as an asset rather than a detriment to society or as sites one should fear. The expellee entrepreneur’s story tells us that when society invests in the proficiencies of its newcomers, rather than demonizing or demoting them to a lower rung of employment, economic successes can result. Forced migration is an ever present and urgent issue in today’s world, one that will require a great deal of forethought and historical awareness. The message of the expellees’ story is as powerful today as it was seventy years ago, and still has a very important lesson to convey. The question should not be why forced migrants and refugees are allowed entry but how governments can best employ them, investing in their futures to the benefit of all.12 As the Sudeten expellee craftspeople worked to rebuild their lives in postwar West Germany, their willingness to adapt to new circumstances while holding onto principles of entrepreneurship and cultural practices, served to lessen the blows of postwar loss. It also placed them in good stead with policy makers, who would oversee their resettlement and fund their new workshops through loans and export initiatives.13 By exploring expellee agency and cultural resilience, this dissertation opens a window into the larger German and American-led processes of reconstruction. My study reveals a link 12 For more on forced migration and resettlement see Justin S Lee, Suzie S Weng and Sarah Ivory, “Changing how we measure success in resettlement,” Forced Migration Review, Vol. 50 (September 2015): 58-60.; Meryn McLaren, “‘Out of the Huts Emerged a Settled People’: Community-Building in West German Refugee Camps,” German History, Vol. 28, No. 1 (March, 2010): 21-43.; Cathrine Thorleifsson, “Coping Strategies Among Self-settled Syrians in Lebanon,” Forced Migration Review, Vol. 47 (Sept. 2014): 23. 13 See following chapters for more on ERP (European Recovery Plan/Marshall Plan) funds and expellee settlement schemes.   10  between small-scale craft industries and German ideals of work, creative expression and entrepreneurship. These ideals took on a much more powerful meaning in the postwar period, as policy makers faced the difficult task of overcoming Germany’s past of large-scale war industries and bio-chemical mass extermination. By placing emphasis on future exports and faith in Germany’s craftspeople to perpetuate principles of peaceful production through handcraft and a strong work ethic, policy makers worked to revive Germany's reputation as a workshop for quality goods. By steering Germany’s reputation away from war industries, Germans and Americans alike stood to gain, rebuilding their economy and lessening their reliance on aid, while fostering a strong future trade partnership. This dissertation follows the social lives of expellee handcraft objects, approaching them not solely as “things” to be studied on their own,14 but as objects that took on shifting meanings over time as they were produced, exchanged, exhibited and consumed. As Arjun Appadurai argues it is the “things-in-motion that illuminate their human and social context,” and as such it benefits the historian to look beyond the things themselves.15 In tracing the life of craft objects, one opens a window into the relationships between makers, those who market their wares and those who consume them. Moreover, the objects reflect back on the values and cultural underpinnings of the people who come into contact with them. As Daniel Miller suggests, “in material culture we are concerned at least as much with how things make people as the other way 14 For more on “thingness” see Leora Auslander, et. al., “Conversation: Historians and the Study of Material Culture,” American Historical Review Vol. 114, No. 5 (Dec. 2009): 1355-1404. These works discuss the possibility of things having their own agency. Though an interesting line of inquiry, this dissertation focuses on the agency of the makers, buyers and sellers of things to reveal the power at play in the relationships between object and maker, maker and maker, object and seller, object and buyer. 15 Arjun Appadurai, Social Lives of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 5; Karen Harvey, ed., History and Material Culture: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources (New York: Routledge, 2009).   11  around.”16 As expellee-made goods began to fill the shelves of American department stores, the quality and innovation found in the objects bestowed a new reputation on the expellees. They were no longer viewed as part of a crisis or “refugee problem” but as contributors to a rebranded Germany. Contemporary studies of German material culture have focused primarily on the years of mass consumption (1950s-1960s), on comparisons between East (GDR) and West (FRG) and on the rise of Ostalgie products after unification in 1990.17 Postwar expellee craft objects rarely appear in studies of German material culture, even though they represent a moment of innovation, when violin makers started producing electric guitars and glass blowers mingled glass beads with plastic. Even more interesting is the way in which expellee craft objects were constantly evolving and yet marketed and sold as traditional and domestic markers of stability.18 The production and consumption of craft objects could in many cases act as tangible links to prewar lives, as reminders of one’s home, workshop or trade partnerships. Judy Attfield studies the way consumers appropriate products to hold onto meanings that they wish to salvage.19 And Miller’s 16 Daniel Miller, Stuff (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), 42. “Already we are withdrawing from a comfortable idea that we start with people who make things which represent them or others.” 17 Ostalgie refers to the post-unification nostalgia for all products associated with the former Ost (East) German Democratic Republic. Important work on German material culture and consumption after the 1950s includes: Eli Rubin, Synthetic Socialism: Plastics & Dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Paul Betts, “The Twilight of the Idols: East German Memory and Material Culture, “ Journal of Modern History Vol. 72, No. 3. (Sep. 2000): 731-765; David Crew, Consuming Germany in the Cold War (New York: Oxford, 2003); Axel Schildt and Detlef Siegfried, eds., Between Marx and Coca-Cola: Youth Cultures in Changing European Societies, 1960-1980 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006); Judd Stitziel, Fashioning Socialism: Clothing, Politics, and Consumer Culture in East Germany (New York: Berg, 2005). 18 Christian Hoyer, Framus-Built in the Heart of Bavaria: die Geschichte eines deutschen Musikinstrumentenherstellers 1946-1977 (Markneukirchen: Framus, 2007). In the final chapter of this dissertation we see the ways in which Schönbach violin makers transitioned to making guitars and yet kept design elements such as the neck scroll and f-holes in the body of their guitars. They innovated while making direct reference to their past. They deliberately held onto reminders of their past, in their company branding and their workshops. 19 Judy Attfield, Bringing Modernity Home: Writings on Popular Design and Material Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007).   12  work on material culture was the first to break ground on the concept of people using the material world to construct their identities. He was careful to emphasize that neither the object nor the identity were fixed. Each defines the other, becoming something different over time.20 Though the concept of constant flux is a widely accepted theory, marketing schemes used the feeling of fixity that the objects and their makers could convey to sell more products.21 The objects seemed to promise “the same experience of wholeness which their materiality embodies.”22 When searching to come to terms with one’s place in a postwar or post-traumatic context, objects can often become something used to fix identity or to strive for something greater in one’s future. Expellees may have in fact battled their past traumas in the workshop, in the continuous sanding of wood, shaping of blown glass, rather than in verbal or textual declarations that would have found their way into state or corporate archives. The workshops and the objects themselves may be the best or only archive of that process. As historians we cannot read grief or guilt or resentment into the object. But we can read the hours of labour, the conditions under which craftspeople laboured, the act of carrying tools during their expulsion, and the care with which they displayed their finished wares at trade fairs.23 Material objects are crafted from raw materials, shaped and re-shaped, manipulated and imbued with meaning. They are produced by one or many sets of hands, placed on display and sold. These qualities make craft objects excellent sources, and also metaphors, for the study of 20 Miller, Stuff, 1987. 21 Gosewijn Van Beek as quoted in Veenis Milena. “Consumption in East Germany: The Seduction and Betrayal of Things,” Journal of Material Culture Vol. 4, No. 1. (March, 1999): 103. 22 Milena, “Consumption in East Germany,”104. 23 Oswald Wondrak and Rudolph Lang, Kaufbeuren, 25 Jahre Neugablonz (Kaufbeuren Vereinigte Kunstanst. 1971). See later chapters for more on trade fair visual display and a discussion of the tools expellees brought with them to begin their new life.   13  human malleability and human manipulation of historical circumstances. As Giorgio Riello in his study of material culture advises: Historians tend to present history as a well-woven tablecloth, covering all corners. Objects show how history is instead a rather loosely woven net that sometimes retains—but often is unable to ‘catch’—concepts, people, events and explanations. Material artifacts with their multifarious meanings, their innate opaqueness and their difficult heuristic nature remind us that history is always producing but has still a great deal more to do before covering all the corners of human experience.24 While objects often raise more questions for historians than they answer, they do offer portals into discussions and histories not previously imagined. In the present study, objects reveal a divide between two regional communities and exposed sparks of innovation and nostalgia perhaps otherwise overlooked. They uncovered a process by which expellees and local Germans alike imagined themselves, their pasts and their futures. Craft objects told the story of cultures in crisis, of expellees on the brink of losing their heritage and a local German population at the end of a dark Nazi tunnel. Objects in many instances became a source of light for the nation to grasp onto. Postwar objects were not inherently political, but came to carry new, shifting meanings over time. Indeed, objects and their makers were bestowed with connotations of a brighter, lighter pre-war past and an enticing, prosperous future. They made the “un-saleable”25 German identity saleable once again. This dissertation explores the ways in which many postwar Germans reached for material objects to calm the waves of postwar upheaval, posing questions about the role that material culture plays in identity construction. The influx of expellees and other displaced persons only worked to magnify fears of cultural erosion, as local receiving communities began to grasp 24 Giorgio Riello in Harvey, History and Material Culture, 43. 25 Nico Stehr, Moral Markets: How Knowledge and Affluence Change Consumers and Products (Paradigm Publishers: Boulder, 2008), 32.   14  tighter to their long-held “traditions.”26 Germans and expellees alike demonstrated a tendency to retreat into their respective pre-war modes of life, finding comfort in their homes and few possessions. On the other hand, displacement and resettlement brought new work methods and innovations to the fore which had the potential to unsettle the status quo. Paul Betts argues that design became “a vital means of domestic recovery, cultural reform, and even moral regeneration,” as Germans looked to everyday objects for “redemption” or Wiedergutmachung (to make good again).27 The objects produced in Germany in the 1920s and the early 1950s became representative of very different political systems and cultural ethos. Betts describes how household designs used in the pre-Nazi and Nazi era later became signs of a de-Nazified, peaceful domesticity.28 Expellee objects were swept up in this signification, alongside those of their native German neighbours, both in time carrying the “Made in Germany” label. Sam Binkley finds similar trends in his work on kitsch, desired for its “embeddedness in routines, its faithfulness to conventions, and its rootedness in the modest cadence of daily life.”29 Like individual identity, interpretations of objects are in constant flux, and there is no better case for demonstrating this phenomenon than expellee craft objects produced and sold worldwide in the postwar period. Their wares were at first a source of fear for local Germans, then part of a larger German national rebranding on display at trade fairs.30 Finally, in the later 1950s expellee craft objects became lucrative export goods sold under a newly refurbished “Made in Germany” brand. The 26 The relationship between local Germans and expellees plays out most directly in the conflicted relationship between Schönbach and Mittenwald’s respective communities of violin makers in the chapters that follow. 27 Paul Betts, The Authority of Everyday Objects: A Cultural History of West German Industrial Design (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004), 2. 28 Ibid. 29 Sam Binkley, “Kitsch as a Repetitive System: A Problem for the Theory of Taste Hierarchy,” Journal of Material Culture Vol. 5, No. 2. (July, 2000): 131-152. 30 The dissertation follows this path from the conflicts between locals and newcomers to the display of their goods at German and American-sponsored trade fairs and eventually to the global export program.   15  expellee craft story presents an opportunity to explore what objects meant to their makers and their consumers, whether that be survival, legacy or comfort in times of scarcity. Though craft objects had the ability to soothe and reassure, they were also the site of innovation and change. The struggle to reconcile the past with the future created rifts between local German producers who held tight to comfort and expellees who strove to innovate their methods in an effort to take advantage of modern trends. Kathy Pence interprets the 1950s as a time when material objects became symbols linking private households to the larger West German community. These symbols, she argues, became the foundation for a modernity based on consumption for the sake of familial and national well being.31 While local German and expellee producers quarreled over achieving the proper balance between traditionalism and modernism, consumers were demanding both. Elizabeth Outka’s work on consumption in Britain brings the interrelationship between tradition and innovation into sharp focus, arguing that the early twentieth century saw rapid changes in production and consumption that caused consumers to reach out for something “real or authentic.” In fact, she argues that consumers often wanted to have the best of both worlds at the same time. Many shoppers wanted to have all of the comforts and conveniences that innovative new products had to offer without losing the aesthetics or functionality of the past. And while many consumers decried the loss of “authentic” handcrafted goods, many understood that mass production made cheaper models of these goods attainable, affordable and in that way “real” for every consumer.32 Possessing an object that was mass produced, yet innovative and akin to the “original” was pleasing enough to the average consumer. As Outka relays, soon early 31 Kathy Pence, “Commentary: Modernity Begins at Home” (unpublished manuscript, given at the German Studies Annual Conference, San Diego, 2002): 1. 32 Elizabeth Outka, Consuming Traditions: Modernity, Modernism and the Commodified Authentic (Oxford University Press, 2009), 3-5.   16  twentieth century retailers and marketers caught on to this desire to possess the best of both worlds, and began crafting a “commodified authentic” environment for consumers which could satisfy “modern imperatives and nostalgic longing.”33 These “nostalgic environments” whether in the department stores or at trade fairs, Outka argues, provided “a critical way to negotiate the difficult transition into modernity.”34 Like Outka’s post World War I British case study consumers, postwar West Germans faced the challenge of rebranding national identity within a vastly altered consumer landscape. They faced this challenge by reaching out to innovative new products that could make their lives easier, while still holding onto visions of Heimat, handcraft and “authentic” quality, thus bridging the temporal gap between pre and post war societies. German consumers and producers incorporated idyllic visions of the past into an increasingly mass-produced version of familiar and new objects, an act of consumerism that was unthreatening. The expellee firms featured throughout this dissertation were some of the most innovative in their approach, adopting new techniques and inventing new products as the market demanded. They simply redefined the parameters of meaning around material objects through marketing and rebranding, holding onto specific features and designs from the past that would signify continuity, while constantly churning out innovative new products. While being modern might seem to denote being on a linear path to social and economic progress, Jan L. Logemann argues that historians must complicate that notion as there were ever growing, multiple ideas about what it meant to be modern. After all, Germans were still 33 Ibid., 7. 34 Ibid., 6.   17  emphasizing Qualitätsarbeit (quality work) in the 1950s in response to American-style mass production and yet consuming American products as rapidly as they became available.35 Outka argues that these paradoxes and contradictions are what make modernity and modernism so difficult for theorists to define. For to be modern is not necessarily to climb a ladder ever upwards while shedding the skins of the past along the way. Rather, as Outka argues, to be modern can encompass both the desire for a simplified, pure, commercial-free past and the desire for a new future that is original and not directly derivative of that past.36 To be modern can mean discarding what was outmoded in the past, keeping what is viewed as “pure” or “authentic” and avoiding or denying the “dirty, industrial” aspects of mass production in the present.37 Expellee workshops were exemplars of this hybridization, taking the best aspects of their past designs and implanting them into mass-producing workshops that still maintained a sense of the small village and family life, a sense of a cooperative of workers rather than a robotic, polluting factory. The work environment and the brand that went with it were both marketed, in this way, as modern. The instrument makers of Schönbach were no longer tethered to violin making, but began producing electric guitars. And the glass blowers of Gablonz adopted new colour dying techniques and plastics. But neither group shed their past. Both groups, in fact employed their past to market their goods as objects with a link to a storied past of handcraft tradition and cooperatives based in Heimats with their own distinct craft cultures.38 35 Jan L. Logemann, Trams or Tailfins? Public and Private Prosperity in Postwar West Germany and the United States (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013), 96. For amore in depth discussion of Americanization and American cultural influence see page 32. 36 Outka, Consuming Tradition, 13. 37 Ibid., 19. 38 Helga Lees, “The Fractured Lives of German Bohemian children, born 1933-40 in the area known as Sudetenland: A Memory Study, Gablonz-Neugablonz.” PhD diss. Reading University: Institute of Education, 2015; Günter Dullat, Der Musikinstrumentenbau und die Musikfachschule in Graslitz von den Anfängen bis 1945; Hoyer, Framus.   18  There was a great deal of power in the entrepreneurial ideal of small enterprise. In this dissertation I argue that small, family-run firms or Mittelstand companies provided a perfect image balm to the wrongs committed by heavy industry during the war. In Jonathan Wiesen’s research, heavy industrialists soon adopted the language of small industry and entrepreneurialism to rebuild their reputations after the war. As both he and Patrick Joyce explain, mythical pasts were often created as a means to support present political ends.39 For postwar Germans it was not just about distancing themselves from the dirty, polluting image of industry but from its association with weapons production. As the meanings of work shifted, cultural representations of the ideal worker and the ideal business owner soon followed. Within that context, the expellee emerged as an exemplar of work ethic and tenacity, an image that would be required to rebrand the German nation. Though Germans “hold no monopoly” on hard work, they upheld the ideal of Arbeitsfreude (joy in work) as a sign of their superiority and the superiority of their products. This ideal was also easily co-opted during the war as a sign of superiority over forced labourers and "others."40 According to Joy Campbell, to find joy in work, is to see work as “its own best reward…alone capable of giving meaning to human existence.”41 In this thesis, I argue that the centrality of artisanal work in German identity prior to the war made it an ideal touchstone for reconstructing Germanness after the war, despite the role it may have played during the war. 39 Patrick Joyce, ed., The Historical Meanings of Work (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 40 Alf Luedtke demonstrates how pride in "German work" was used to promoted National Socialism and demean foreign forced labourers. Alf Luedtke, "People Working: Everyday Life and German Fascism," History Workshop Journal, No. 50 (Autumn 2000): 75-92. 41 Joan Campbell, Joy in Work, German Work: The National Debate, 1800-1945 (Princeton, N.J., 1989), 8. “In its most extreme Puritan version, Protestantism produced an ethic of work characterized by asceticism and the notion of vocation (in German, Beruf), an ethic that could easily reconcile itself with, if it did not give rise to, capitalism.”   19  Moreover, the expellees’ position as forced migrant craftspeople gave them the impetus to adapt and innovate. Michael Herzfeld presents an etymology of the English word craft, describing artisans as “crafty” in their ability to resist authority through ingenuity, indirection and guile. He argues that in this way the artisans' “collective reputation is a victim of their own necessary ingenuity.”42 Taking cues from Herzfeld’s work on artisans, I draw comparisons to forced migrants, who often participate in this same “necessary ingenuity,” surviving in new societies solely on their ability to navigate and often resist the boundaries and authority of public, political and social systems. In doing so, their collective reputation often suffers. For this reason, expellee craftspeople provide an ideal case study as they acted from this marginalized place. Expellees were both newcomers and craftspeople, and as such were circumstantially defined and categorized. They required ingenuity to survive and succeed in an often inhospitable environment, in an ever industrializing world. In a postwar atmosphere of scarcity, the process of necessary ingenuity was magnified, making this particular group of forced migrant craftspeople rich for inquiry. My aim here is to take Herzfeld’s argument and broaden its reach to forced migration scholarship, to draw parallels between artisans and forced migrants by studying a community that carried both identifications. Ultimately the study demonstrates the agency of the expellee craft community through numerous acts of ingenuity, enacted throughout the process of their resettlement. Forced migration scholars have worked to dispel the myth of the refugee as helpless victim.43 While media and humanitarian organizations rely on this imagery for aid, historians have a role to play in complicating forced migration stories, providing evidence of migrant 42 Michael Herzfeld, The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 1. 43 Liisa H. Malkki, “Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and Dehistoricization,” Cultural Anthropology Vol. 11, No.3. (Aug., 1996): 277-404; Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, The Making of a Refugee: Children Adopting Refugee Identity in Cyprus (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2002).   20  agency and ingenuity.44 A focus on expellee resilience and creativity provides a key to understanding identity reconstruction, a process most forced migrants face. Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees argues that with each new location or situation forced migrants encounter, the self is challenged, renegotiated and made receptive to new opportunities.45 In treating forced migrants as resilient, I demonstrate their potential in their host society’s economy. And while self-sufficiency is equated with resettlement success or integration, forced migrants themselves have in some cases linked economic self-sufficiency with their ability to give back to their community and retain their cultural practices.46 These “benchmarks of success” as Justin S Lee, et al. describe them, can benefit host societies. If host governments so choose, they can capitalize on the drive and dedication among resettled migrants to give back to their communities.47 Through my study of postwar expellees, I am able to demonstrate forced migrant agency as well as the benefits that West Germany society gained from expellee resettlement. As Sudeten expellees re-established their craft firms, the communities surrounding their settlements benefited from job creation, new schools and vocational training.48 Meryn McLaren’s work on West German refugee camps notes the merits of enclave settlements, isolated “pockets” or “micro-communities” of refugees. She finds that while many thought enclave settlements would be “potentially damaging” to society immediately after the war, their 44 Malkki, “Speechless Emissaries,” 378. Refugees stop being specific persons and become pure victims in general: universal man, universal woman, universal child, and, taken together, universal family. This dehistoricizing universalism creates a context in which it is difficult for people in the refugee category to be approached as historical actors rather than simply as mute victims. It can strip from them the authority to give credible narrative evidence or testimony about their own condition in politically and institutionally consequential forums.” 45 Daniel Coleman et al., Countering Displacements: The Creativity and Resilience of Indigenous and Refugee-ed Peoples (Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 2012). 46 Nahlah Ayed, “Welcome to Germany? Country at odds over refugee influx.” CBC News, www.cbc.ca [Published online and accessed Nov. 2, 2015]. 47 Lee, et. al., “Changing how we Measure Success in Resettlement,” 58. 48 McLaren, “Out of the Huts,” 22. See chapter 5 for a discussion of education.   21  existence “deprovincialized” rural villages, bringing greater prosperity.49 This process did challenge local mores and in some cases caused conflict between locals and expellees. However, it did not lead to the societal degradation, radicalism or violence that the German and occupation governments feared in 1945-46, when they enacted policies to disperse and de-politicize50 expellee community members. Rather, enclave settlements helped the expellees cope with their new predicament.51 In what follows it will become clear that the expellees’ entrepreneurial drive and desire to be among their former neighbours and co-workers far outweighed other considerations and comforts. In a few cases the expellees took the initiative to enclave themselves, skirting official policy, working against dispersal to relocate and reunite former community members. These initiatives soon contributed to a general West German recovery. The expellees’ sense of community only strengthened with their expulsion. And when they encountered locals who fiercely defended their territory against outside influence and competition, it only fuelled their desire to build enclave communities. Anthony Cohen’s theory of community provides one model for understanding this tendency to enclave. He finds that in both settled and uprooted communities, the importance of symbolic boundaries around one’s community increases as members are dispersed or geo-social boundaries are undermined or weakened. In addition, he finds that people emphasize their cultural distinctions more when encountering “others.”52 This dissertation tests Cohen’s theory by studying local German communities and their reactions to the arrival of millions of expellees. These reactions were further magnified by the fact that Germany’s geo-social certainty was already undermined and 49 Ibid. 50 OMGUS policy dictated that expellees were prohibited from forming political parties or political associations, in the early years of occupation. 51Cathrine Thorleifsson’s work on Syrian refugees acknowledges that many prefer living outside the camp system, where they have more freedom, and ‘opportunity to influence their situation.’ Cathrine Thorleifsson, “Coping Strategies.” 52 Anthony P. Cohen, The Symbolic Construction of Community (Ellis Horwood: Chichester. 1985).   22  weakened by war’s end. In the postwar period there was a great deal at stake in what it meant to be a member of either community (expellee or Einheimische- local German). Cohen asserts that in unsettled environments, people “resort increasingly to symbolic behaviour to reconstitute the boundary” between their community and others. Cohen’s theory holds that boundaries therefore exist in the mind, in the meanings people attach to them and in the ways they choose to symbolically express community identity.53 In this dissertation I argue that expellee craftspeople bound their communities by reflecting on shared expulsion experiences and by building enclaves such as Waldkraiburg, Bubenreuth and Neugablonz where they could freely express and uphold cultural symbols. In addition, in order to meet the demands of postwar life and global market demand, expellee communities relied on both a mobilization and a modification of “tradition.” The maintenance of one’s community was not only driven by market demands or competitive threats from other communities, upheavals or exclusions alone. Enclave settlement also served as a coping mechanism. Andreas Kossert’s work on Einheimische/expellee animosity and Rainer Schulze’s work on the psychological effects of the expulsion are invaluable, for they offer an alternate narrative to that of successful integration and prosperity.54 Schulze’s research found many expellees still coping with the loss of their homes and prewar identity, several decades later. And although most expellees had achieved economic success, he found that for many something was still missing, that new material possessions and homes had not replaced those that they had lost. Schulze writes that policy makers all too often assume that economic advancement will naturally lead to integration and wellbeing. He calls this “a fallacy borne out of 53 Ibid. 54 Kossert, Kalte Heimat; Schulze, “Growing Discontent."   23  a purely materialistic outlook on life.”55 Though new material objects may not have been able to replace those that were lost, they provided some balm to postwar upheaval and loss. I argue that the difference between lost objects and those that were newly crafted was measured by the meaning placed upon them. For the expellees, lost objects were perhaps magnified in memory for the very reason that they no longer existed in day to day life. As expellees created or possessed new objects, those objects may have seemed commonplace or mundane, as they were mass produced and experienced repeatedly in daily life. On the other hand, there may have been some excitement among expellees upon creating innovative new products. Both the memory of past objects and the creation of new originals were perhaps required in order to maintain an identity distinct from that of their new German neighbours and their American occupiers. If one was to retain a unique identity in a sea of mass produced goods, innovation as well as links to the past were valuable for marking that distinction. When expellee company Framus made their guitars in the 1950s, they used a distinct design that reminded consumers of the company’s past while providing an innovative new electric product.56 As Amy Bently argues, craft practices “help make people feel unique and in control of their circumstances.”57 In that sense perhaps the expellees who practiced craft had a psychological advantage over those expellees and other forced migrants who did not. 55 Rainer Schulze, “Struggle of Past and Present in Individual Identities: The Case of German Refugees and Expellees from the East,” In David Rock and Stefan Wolff, Coming Home to Germany? The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe in the Federal Republic since 1945 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2002), 50. 56 Hoyer, Framus, 65, 119. 57 Auslander, et. al., “Historians and Material Culture,” 1396-1398. Christopher Witmore argues that mass produced or new objects when collected, will also, over time, take on magnified meaning. Both Auslander and Witmore refer to the “aura” of the object, or the added meaning of the object given to it by its producer, consumer or collector. They refer to Walter Benjamin and his work Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction when explaining “aura” or added value of a handcrafted or long-collected antique object.   24   If scholars take the psychological and emotional burdens of forced migrants into account, as Schulze suggests, oral testimony becomes the archive and material things cannot stand alone but must be interpreted in relation to their human producers or consumers. It was not only the objects the expellee craftspeople produced that kept them tied to their past and to one another, but also their way of life as craftspeople and their cooperation in workshop settings as a community unit. Though this study does not endeavour to replicate Schulze’s methodological approach, it does benefit from his findings. Material culture, whether lost, retained, or reproduced meant something to the expellees beyond the act of possession and consumption. It served as a tangible link to their past and evidence of what they were capable of producing, if given a chance to rebuild their firms. It distinguished them from other forced migrants in postwar Germany and set them apart from their new German neighbours. The objects carried psychological and emotional weight, as symbols of individual expression and pride. The way in which the objects were used to conflate individual expellee identity with that of the nation when sold under the “Made in Germany” label, had the potential to gloss over the complexities of integration. In this way, the work of Schulze and Kossert inform this project, highlighting the need to question the successful integration narrative and tell a more complex story of individual expellee agency. Though their craft goods often carried the “Made in Germany” label, they also carried a company brand, and with that a Sudeten origin story. If expellees identified with any imagined regional entity, perhaps it would have been that of their former Heimat. The word Heimat often denotes home town or home region, but in many cases seems to stand in for nation or homeland.58 It was the first concept to undergo postwar revival as an idyllic nineteenth century 58 Applegate, A Nation of Provincials, x.   25  vision of community togetherness and belonging. Though co-opted as part of a Nazi campaign to promote German race, blood and soil, in the postwar period it was reborn as a symbol of an innocent German landscape, a home that beckoned in a dark world of devastating loss. Celia Applegate argues that Heimat was never a term that denoted real political situations, but rather a myth “about the possibility of a community in the face of fragmentation and alienation.”59 Alon Confino on the other hand emphasizes the political role that Heimat played as a symbol of “local roots and authentic German ways of life…[a]n antithesis to nationalism, Americanization and consumerism.”60 Heimat was a concept with roots in the pre-Nazi past and as such was a useful tool in building a bridge from the more distant past to the future. For the expellees it was a term used to refer to their lost homeland, often when lobbying for return.61 And Heimat went hand in hand with artisanal craft, as both were viewed as domestic, rural pillars of an earlier time. Though the expellee story largely disappeared from academic scholarship between the 1960s and 1980s, community togetherness and Heimat histories were kept alive in Landsmannschaft gatherings (regional expellee clubs)62 and the Heimat books of expellee settlements. These books told the stories of the expellees’ former homes and notable citizens 59 Ibid., 19. 60 Alon Confino, Germany as a Culture of Remembrance: Promises and Limits of Writing History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 64. 61 See also Süssner, “Yearning for Heimat.” Kati Tonkin “From ‘Sudetendeutsche’ to ‘Adlergebirgler’: Gudrun Pausewang’s Rosinkawiese Trilogy,” in Rock and Wolff, Coming Home to Germany, 203. “From the beginning, the reunions had combined nostalgia with nationalistic fervour. They were social events which provided an opportunity to meet up with former neighbours and friends and to celebrate the cultural heritage of the various provinces through the wearing of Trachten (regional costumes), the singing of traditional songs, and taking part in traditional dances and eating the culinary specialties of the region. But from their inception, they had been dominated by the political rhetoric of the Sudeten leaders, who maintained that meetings were demonstrations of the desire of all Sudeten Germans to return to their Heimat. As the expellees successfully integrated into West German society, the political backdrop to the occasions lost importance for the majority of those attending, and socio-cultural aspects assumed greater significance.” 62 Pertti Ahonen, After the Expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe 1945-1990 (Oxford University Press, 2003), 29-34. In 1950, Sudeten expellees founded the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft (Sudeten-German homeland society) with branches representing pre-expulsion villages. The organization came to represent both the political agency of expellees, and the continuation of a self-identification separate from the German national construct; Schulze, “The Struggle of Past and Present in Individual Identities.”   26  while festivals upheld cultural practices such as costume, dance and music. In this way, the next generation learned the story of their parents and grandparents. Stefan Wolff argues that these selective versions of history based on memory often left out Sudeten history prior to the expulsion, namely wartime Nazi affiliation.63 Expellees and Einheimische alike employed Heimat as a symbol that had the power to gloss over unsettling memories, while romanticizing others. There is much debate regarding the extent to which Germans dealt with the legacy of Nazi crimes. Some historical interpretations of the period have argued that Germans failed to overcome their past in the postwar period,64 living in a state of denial after the war, even claiming innocence, ignorance or active resistance to Nazi policies.65 Recently historians have argued against the notion that Germans failed to deal with Nazi crimes, adding complexity and nuance to the narrative. Jeffrey Olick notes that there was no silence regarding Nazi crimes but rather an enormous discourse in the 1950s as neighbours informed on one another, individuals answered Fragebogen (official de-Nazification questionnaires) and communities created policies to deal with former Nazis and their crimes.66 Robert Moeller argues that Germans rejected the notion of “collective guilt” immediately after the war by emphasizing stories of German victimhood. Expellee experiences along with POWs, bomb evacuees and rape victims were implicated in this attempt to overshadow German crimes with stories of German suffering. 63Rock and Wolff, Coming Home to Germany, 9. 64 The term used in scholarly discourse is Vergangenheitsbewältigung (struggle to overcome the past) 65 See Michael L. Hughes, “‘Through No Fault of Our Own’: West Germans Remember Their War Losses” German History Vol. 18, No. 2. (2000): 193, 206; Bill Niven, ed. Germans as Victims: Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany (Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2006); Robert G. Moeller, War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 3-4. Mary Nolan, “Air Wars, Memory Wars,” Central European History Vol. 38, No. 1 (2005): 7-40. 66 Jeffrey K. Olick, In the House of the Hangman: The Agonies of German Defeat, 1943-1949 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 5-6; Moeller, War Stories, 16-22.   27  Moeller asserts that trauma is one of the most “powerful forces capable of shaping ‘communities of memory.’”67 Indeed, the expulsion experience had the potential to draw Sudeten Germans together in their new settlements and give those localized memory enclaves power. In keeping the collective memory of loss alive, not only did the expellees separate themselves from Nazi crimes but also put themselves in a position to benefit from government aid. As Moeller argues, “the victims of National Socialism remained ghosts lacking faces…or a powerful political presence…German victims, in contrast, lived, breathed, organized, demanded recognition, and delivered speeches from the floor of parliament.”68 While Moeller refers to regional organizations such as the Landsmannschaften, “each with its own press organ and institutional structure,” expellee craft cooperatives, large firms and associations also played a role.69 Because expellee craftspeople were valuable economically as well as politically, their influence was strongly felt in Bavaria, and their collective memory widely shared as their wares resumed their former prominence on the global marketplace. Expellees seemed acutely aware of the value that lay in their story. Schicksal or fate had befallen the expellees at war’s end and yet they did not conduct themselves as if they were at its mercy. Michael Hughes notes that when “they sought to claim victimhood, they spoke of accident and fate…Yet when they demanded a Lastenausgleich (equalization of burdens law), they acted as modern Europeans who value autonomy and self-reliance.”70 If anything the expellees were savvy, understanding the power inherent in a story of helpless victimhood as well 67 Moeller, War Stories, 3-6. 68 Ibid., 34. 69 Ibid., 35, 45. “[organizations] proliferated at a startlingly rapid rate, unifying in national coalitions and claiming between one and two million members by the early 1950s. Expellees even won recognition at the level of Adenauer’s cabinet in the form on a ministry assigned responsibility to look after their interests…lobbying directly with the government in Bonn to make sure their ‘right to a home’ (Recht auf Heimat) in eastern Europe remained on the Federal Republic’s foreign policy agenda.” 70 Hughes, “Through No Fault of Our Own,” 205.   28  as in demonstrations of self-reliance. In employing both sides of their story, they realized their needs would not go unnoticed or unmet. Though the expellees could be described as cunning for their ability to work the system, one might also interpret their agency as future-driven, an attempt to secure their lives and legacy. As Greg Dening theorizes, historical inquiry tends to focus on understanding how and why the past happened in a particular way in time and space. But in order to attempt to know how people actually experienced their lives the historian has to consider that “those actors in the past…like us, experience a present as if all the possibilities are still there.”71 One must consider that although the expellees were tied to visions of their past and even longing for return to their Heimat, they also devoted immense effort to their present and focused attention on their future. This focus on the future served many expellee entrepreneurs well, as time passed. Expellee achievements were notable, and yet for decades Germans failed to fully embrace the expellee story or culture as part of their own.72 The Two Plus Four Treaty agreement in September 1990 reunited the two Germanies, relinquished the occupying powers’ (United States, USSR, France and Britain) rights, and confirmed that the postwar border line between Poland and Germany would remain. There would be no reclamation of former German-inhabited lands. After this decision was made, it lowered the stakes on and opened the door to discourse on the expulsion. Without the divisive politics between East and West Germany on the table, Germans could engage more freely in discussions of the Holocaust and the expulsion, further complicating narratives that lay dormant or just under the surface for decades.73 The 1990s saw a general 71 Greg Dening, Performances (The Universtiy of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1996), x-xvi. 72 Rock and Wolff, Coming Home to Germany, 9. 73 Niven, Germans as Victims, 3-4.   29  resurgence of German victimhood histories, as postwar memory became an increasingly popular topic and scholars began to question the Allies’ role in the war’s end and its aftermath. Expellee research has received even greater attention in recent years with debates surrounding the construction of museums dedicated to the expulsion, the most controversial of which is the Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen, ZgV (Centre Against Expulsions) in Berlin.74 The question of representing expellee victimhood stirs up old wounds between the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany to this day. The issue of human rights abuses arose during the Czech Republic’s inclusion into the European Union. Though the expulsion has been gaining more attention recently, there are still many who see historical representations of postwar German victims as offensive to the Jewish, disabled, homosexual, Roma and Sinti victims of Nazi crimes. Bill Niven argues that the Centre Against Expulsions and its planned layout suggested that German victimhood was on par or has even overshadowed that of Jews. What the planned exhibit does, in his estimation, is rewrite the history of the Second World War without any contextualization. By placing the expulsion in line with the Holocaust, Niven warns, audiences of this history might forget that the expulsion was an act carried out in response or reaction to the brutal war crimes the Nazis had perpetrated on Poland and Czechoslovakia during the war. In this dissertation I tell the stories of individuals and groups who both instrumentalized their victimhood status for personal advancement and who downplayed it in order to emphasize their value as agents of prosperity in a new economy. 74 Stefan Troebst, "The Discourse on Forced Migration and European Culture of Remembrance," The Hungarian Historical Review, Vol. 1, No. 3/4 (2012): 397-414; Timothy Ryback, “Dateline Sudetenland: Hostages to History” Foreign Policy, No. 105 (Winter, 1996-1997): 162-178. Some examples include: “Center against Expulsions” (2000), “European Network Remembrance and Solidarity” (2004), “European Remembrance Centre of Vicitms of Forced Population Movements and Ethnic Cleansing” (2005), “Museum of the Second World War” In Gdansk, Poland. (2007). German federal Foundation “Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation” in Berlin (2008).   30  Sudeten expellees could at times be lumped into both “victim collectives” and “perpetrator collectives,” and as I demonstrate in this dissertation, many worked hard to rebrand themselves through craft and entrepreneurship after the war so as not to be painted as one or the other. Hitler’s aim in annexing the Sudetenland was to bring Sudetenlanders into the German fold and bolster his own preparations for war. While some Sudeten Germans became ardent Nazi supporters and soldiers in the Wehrmacht, many others simply went about their lives, living among Czech speakers in small rural communities. Multiple identities overlapped and remained in flux before and throughout the war, despite Nazi and Czech government attempts to define and categorize.75 The Czech-German case demonstrates a multiplicity within national identity that the historiographical giants of nationalism do not address. Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationlism, Partha Chatterjee’s The Nation and its Fragments, Eugen Weber’s Peasants into Frenchmen, all fail to provide a model for nationalism that fits the multiplicity of identities within spaces (borderlands), within nation-states, villages and even within each individual “card-carrying member.” Though we can point to borders, maps and censuses when defining the territory of the nation, in the end we find that the margins are perspectival and relative. As Rogers Brubaker asserts, we need to see ations as “perspectives on the world rather than things in the world.76 Throughout the twentieth century, Sudeten Germans have shifted their identification to meet the demands of the various nation-states under which they lived, in an effort to retain their way of life. At times, this approach revealed a perspective on the world in line with pan- 75 Tara Zahra, Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands 1900-1948 (Cornell University Press, 2008), 8. 76 Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 13-22.   31  Germanism and later collectively lumped in with Nazi war crimes, and at others a peaceful coexistence with German, Czech, and Jewish neighbours. What Pieter Judson, Tara Zahra, Jeremy King and others found was a trend of “national indifference” or apathy in the former Habsburg Monarchy.77 There were those individuals who were bilingual, who had intermarried and who had used one or the other identity to their advantage over the course of several decades. They purposefully existed in a liminal space in which their loyalties were only occasionally made legible through school enrollment or business transactions. This allowed for many local variations and loyalties to emerge and surpass national loyalties as political boundaries and constructed “language frontiers” ebbed and flowed.78 Kate Brown’s work on borderland regions is invaluable in that it reveals that populations were often “normalized” by projects of nationalization, that the nation often worked in a “colonial pattern” to “replace localized identities and cultural complexities.” However, she argues, local people also had power to resist normalization, a power that lay in their cultural practices.79 And in the end, borderland identities, no matter how multiple or how peaceful the co-existence, are often vulnerable to radical nation-states on either side of their borders. After the war, the Allies aided Czechoslovakia in normalizing their Sudeten borderlands through ethnic cleansing, as Brown puts it “exil[ing] difference to margins of social consciousness and public memory.”80 After the war, the Sudeten Germans sought to resist national normalization by retaining their way of life in West Germany. However, even in that context, occupation governments and the West German nation-state worked to normalize them under a successful 77 Tara Zahra, "Imagined Noncommunities: National Indifference as a Category of Analysis," Slavic Review Vol. 69, No. 1 (Spring, 2010): 93-119; Judson and Rozenblit, Constructing Nationalities. King describes a population that was “triadic”- Czech, German and Czech-German/or sometimes Habsburg-loyal. 78 Lees, “Fractured Lives”; Judson and Rozenblit, Constructing Nationalities. 79 Kate Brown, A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland (Harvard University Press, 2005), 4. 80 Ibid., 14.   32  integration narrative, a Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) narrative or a “Made in Germany” label.81 Historians must resist these normalizing simplifications; we need to tell the expellee story in a more complex way, to recover expellee agency and to understand the ways in which the expellees themselves negotiated a place for themselves within larger structures. In the postwar era, the performance of national identity changed considerably. It came to include consumption as a marker of national revival. This “Deutschmark nationalism”82 meant Germans could focus on future prosperity rather than past loss. Jonathan Wiesen, David Crew and Erica Carter have all theorized this shift, noting the ways in which “quality” German goods came to represent a source of national pride and vitality. Wiesen argues that the Economic Miracle was itself a consumer product, marketed and promoted through visual display.83 Germans were exposed to a brighter future in the shop window, then encouraged to buy into it not just for their own benefit but the greater good of the country. Erica Carter shows that women were model consumers of the new peaceful, domestic ideal. As German quality products re-emerged on store shelves, it was important to educate consumers as to “good taste” and “quality,” how to buy “Made in Germany” products and resist those coming from America.84 Expellee craft goods played perfectly into a system of domestically produced products for both domestic and export markets. In that sense, if women were model consumers, expellees were the 81 Ermath, America, 11. McLAren, “Out of the Huts,” 36; Daniel E. Rogers, Politics after Hitler: The Western Allies and the German Party System (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1995). P.J. Bouman et al., The Refugee Problem in Western Germany.Translated by H.A. Marx, L.L. M. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950). 82 Konrad H. Jarausch, After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945-1955. Trans. Brandon Hunziker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 83 S. Jonathan Wiesen, “Miracles for Sale: Consumer Displays and Advertising in Postwar West Germany.” In Crew, Consuming Germany in the Cold War, 2003; Mark Spicka, Selling the Economic Miracle: Economic Reconstruction and Politics in West Germany, 1949-1957 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007). 84 Erica Carter, How German Is She? Postwar West German Reconstruction and the Consuming Woman (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997). For more on the German-American cultural relationship see Mary Nolan, Visions of Modernity: American Business and the Modernization of Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).   33  model producer-entrepreneurs and the two could work in tandem to achieve an Economic Miracle for Germany. In competition with “Made in Germany” products were those arriving from the United States with military personnel and in C.A.R.E. packages.85 Though many Germans embraced these new products, there was also a historical resistance to American culture and goods,86 stemming not just from their postwar occupation, but from early twentieth-century debates about the cultural perils of Americanization. The relationship between America and Germany had long been ambivalent; curiosity and even admiration developed along with a competitive antagonism. In the 1920s, Germans looked with interest to the Fordist and Taylorist methods that drove stunning productivity gains in the United States. Though they adopted aspects of these methods they also maintained a distinctly German approach.87 Alan and Josephine Smart describe these German systems as a “progressive vertical disintegration of production with numerous producers…caught up in tightly knit network structures” living and working in close proximity.88 While expellee craft firms embraced efficient piecework systems wholeheartedly, many local German producers found innovative methods distasteful, a view that sparked conflict between the two groups. Though many craft firms did not adopt an assembly line system, they did at least see American efficiency as something to be admired. What Germans feared, however was that mass production and consumption would create a demand for uniformity that would dull creativity and German Kultur (culture, often denoting a superior, “civilized” culture). Mary 85 C.A.R.E. packages were sent over from the United States, filled with food, chocolate, etc. 86 Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through 20th-Century Europe (Harvard University Press, 2005), 229. 87 Volker R. Berghahn, “Fordism and West German Industrial Culture, 1945-1989,” In Frank Trommler and Elliott Shore, eds., The German-American Encounter: Conflict and Cooperation between Two Cultures 1800-2000 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001), 146-155. 88 Alan Smart and Josephine Smart, eds., Petty Capitalists and Globalization: Flexibility, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 8.   34  Nolan demonstrates that critiques of American versions of modernity were often “couched in terms of culture versus civilization, Gemeinschaft versus Gesellschaft, and also from a Europe-wide discourse on America’s mediocrity, superficiality, and inadequacy.”89 For this reason, Christopher Hendrik Müller argues that German anti-Americanism grew out of a general fear of modernization and globalization, not a fear of America’s political or cultural influence.90 It was perhaps not America’s brand of modernity, but the loss of a distinctly German brand of civilization that was at stake. But of course the German brand continued to shift regardless of anyone’s efforts to hold it in place. For Uta Poiger and Richard Pells, the very idea of a singular American or German way of life was absurd, for heterogeneity existed in both populations. In Poiger’s view there was no uniform, democratic American value system that could be transported wholesale from one population to the next in an imperialistic fashion. Also, there was no unified German reaction to American occupation and trade. Rather, each interaction between Germans and Americans was context-dependent.91 Pells calls the Americanization of Europe a “powerful and enduring myth, often cherished by the Europeans themselves.” In claiming all undesirable post-1945 developments as the after-effects of an American occupation, West Germans could deny their own imitations of American culture and their own role in mass production and consumption. Pells acknowledges that the biggest struggle that Americans and Europeans share is in learning how to live “in two different worlds—one global, the other local or regional—while reaping the 89 Nolan, Visions of Modernity, 112. 90 Christopher Hendrik Müller, West Germans Against the West: Anti-Americanism in Media and Public Opinion in the Federal Republic of Germany 1949-68 (London: Palgrave Macmillan. 2010), 5. 91 Uta G. Poiger, “Commentary: Beyond ‘Modernization’ and ‘Colonization’” Diplomatic History Vol. 23, No. 1 (1999): 46.   35  benefits of both.”92 As I argue in this dissertation, the expellees proved quite adept at this feat. They marketed their goods with an accompanying story of continuity from their Sudeten village to their postwar enclave, selling local culture on a global stage. Global trade networks often acted as positive sites of interaction between nations or at least between those who sold under national labels. Though some intellectuals feared the “soullessness” of a consumer-driven society, Germans found solace in greater leisure time and the enjoyment of it. 93 As Alexander Stephan finds, although this leisure time was not a product of Americanization, it definitely encouraged the purchase of American products such as radios, cigarettes and records.94 Rudy Koshar also lends a positive view of German-American relations to the discourse, arguing that they shared many similarities in habit, order and cleanliness, industriousness, and a respect for craft. Similar to Poiger and Pells, Koshar chooses to emphasize the heterogeneity of the two cultures and deems their relationship “intercultural” rather than international. Cultural influences were shared back and forth in such a complex way as to resemble a melting pot.95 As citizens from both nations increasingly embarked on exchange trips across the Atlantic in the 1950s, and as tourism revived, it became more difficult to splice out and nationalize the differences between cultural practices. Both nations, and all nations for that matter, remain in a constant state of rebranding. Studying the German-American interaction between 1945-1955 presents an opportunity to bear witness to one of the more prominent moments of flux, in all its complexity. 92 Richard Pells, Not Like Us: How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture Since World War II (New York: Basic Books, 1997), xvi. 93 Betts, The Authority of Everyday Objects, 132. 94 Alexander Stephan, Americanization and Anti-Americanism: The German Encounter with American Culture after 1945 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008). 95 Rudy Koshar, “Germany has been a Melting Pot’: American and German Intercultures, 1945-1955” In Trommler and Shore, German-American Encounter. For more on the exchange of ideas see Ermath, America.   36  In this dissertation I include the expellee craftspeople’s story in a larger discussion of German-American relations because they served as an example of the shared values of industriousness, entrepreneurship and innovation. In addition, through a study of the American contribution to expellee integration, I offer a more complex understanding of the postwar occupation years, policies and relationships between military personnel and civilians. Sudeten German expellees were particularly valuable to both the American occupiers and the German government, as skilled workers with the capacity to rebuild their communities and their global trade networks. In bringing together scholarship on German national identity, American-German relations, forced migration and craft I have created a synthesis that ultimately works to highlight the flexibility of all those categories. I argue that national identity shifted, was made, remade, marketed and sold. I argue that forced migrant identity shifted, from perpetrator to victim to agent of change, to exemplar of national success. An interrogation of these shifting identities and meanings has the ability to throw into question notions of certainty, fixity, tradition and the binaries of insider and outsider, perpetrator and victim, local and global. The study highlights the agency expellees exhibited throughout the process of their resettlement. Emphasizing expellee handcraft redresses the larger narratives of German collective guilt, of Americanization and the dismantling of heavy industry, to demonstrate the ways in which people adapted to war devastation and change, exhibiting great resilience. Despite finding themselves vulnerable to the policies of German and American governments, they managed to lobby the government for enclave settlements, to relocate and reunite with former coworkers and neighbours, and win back global buyers. They rebuilt much of their manufacturing reputation while maintaining distinct cultural practices and rebranding their own identity under a “Made in Germany” label. Each act of resilience was powerful, from carrying a   37  single hand tool in one’s 50kg allotment during the expulsion, to drilling through thick concrete bunkers to fashion a new workspace, to creating lavish trade show displays filled with innovative new products for global markets. What is also remarkable is that these forced migrants were given a chance to achieve something new, as governments made a conscious choice to nurture their talents and promote their value. Together expellees and government agencies were able to mobilize “tradition” in a way that projected economic success, social integration and political stability to the outside world, effectively working to rebrand Germany’s national identity. In order to tell the expellee story in the context of postwar Germany, I have relied on a variety of perspectives. After all, the atmosphere was one in which large masses of people were forcibly transferred through official channels and resettled in a foreign land by a foreign military government. That process was fraught with subjective interpretations of guilt and innocence, rights and responsibilities and territorial claims. Sudeten German expellees were susceptible to their own views of themselves, and the views of the outsiders who influenced their future on a daily basis through resettlement policy and local exclusion or inclusion, and aid. With this complexity in mind, I consulted German as well as English sources, American military as well as Bavarian and regional German archives, and the Collegium Carolinum library which houses documents on Czech-German relations. I visited former expellee villages in the Czech Republic, and resettlement enclaves in Germany, visiting museums and seeking to understand the development of these sites. I consulted government memoranda and correspondence between expellees and governments, as well as among expellee firms, and between firms and their consumers. I explored export catalogues and pamphlets advertising export shows, as well as company profiles and blueprints for developing new workshops. I consulted Heimatbücher that told the story of   38  individual enclaves and looked for traces of those stories in the contemporary town sites. Though I did view many craft objects from the 1950s in museum settings, I did not embark on a full analysis of the objects themselves, but was in fact more interested in the story being told through their display. I also consulted many visual representations of the objects, their manufacture and their marketing display. I read questionnaires and the loan applications that many craft firms filled out, detailing the business transactions of their companies and their plans for future development. Though the story of the Schönbach violin makers and their conflict with the Mittenwald makers provided ample source materials for a lengthy discussion and thus stood out as a topic ripe for exploration, I must acknowledge that there were many stories I necessarily left out of what follows in an effort to create a readable narrative. When studying expellee craft firms, I realized the possible breadth of the topic and was overwhelmed, as there are many avenues one could take in telling this history. Finally, I was impressed by the sheer number of firms that were able to rebuild in the postwar era and the wide array of source materials available to explore. I worked extensively with the U.S. Military Government’s Weekly Information Bulletin, a newsletter written by U.S. military personnel in occupation for U.S. military personnel on the ground in Germany. While it tells the expellee story from a very specific perspective, its reporting is aimed to sell the actions and policies of the occupation and thus spoke directly to questions of rebranding Germany. In addition, it provides an outsider’s view on the conflicts between expellees and local Germans and the difficulties of the integration process, as it was implemented on the ground. Though many expellees and their descendants are easy to locate in Bavaria today and are quite happy and willing to talk about the postwar experience, my conversations with them   39  merely colour my interpretations and are not footnoted in this dissertation, as I did not obtain ethics approval prior to embarking on this project. In the future, oral testimonies would have much to offer the discussion. Without oral testimony I am not able to include the emotional or psychological details of the expellee experience, beyond what can be found in company files, publications and interviews. German newspaper articles were also helpful, though it is important to remember when consulting them that the Military Government Information Bureau was in control of the German media outlets in the immediate postwar period and carefully vetted journalists.96 I found the letters and dialogue between government and occupation officials, expellees and local Germans most useful for my work as it told of the relationships, struggles and triumphs of the various groups as they negotiated their roles in a new West Germany. The chapters follow a loose chronology (1945-1955) that tells the story of expellee resettlement from their early history in the Sudetenland to their arrival in Germany in the 1940s, and eventual return to global export markets in the 1950s. The story details the process involved in selling the idea of “Made in Germany” quality, and German reconstruction along capitalist and democratic lines. Relationships between expellees, Einheimische, regional German governments and OMGUS personnel are explored throughout. These relationships are revealed to be contextual and subjective. Success was not achieved overnight, but was a negotiated process, in which the interactions between groups affected the brand’s narrative construction. The chapters discuss the different methods and representational motifs that emerged in the process of re-branding “Made in Germany” wares and their makers. Each chapter highlights another step in the process of expellee workshop reconstruction from production, to settlement, to exhibitions and marketing and finally, export sales. 96 Jarausch, After Hitler, 56-57.   40   Chapter one provides a detailed background of Czech-German relations prior to and leading up to the expulsion. It sets the historical stage for what follows in subsequent chapters, providing a sense of what the expellees had achieved in craft prior to the war, their role in the war and what they had lost immediately after the war. It discusses the expellees’ transfer and arrival in the American occupation zone in Germany and initial government policies towards them as a group. Building on the research of leading scholars in the field of Czech-German relations, the chapter interrogates notions of the expulsion as an “orderly and humane transfer” and demonstrates expellee agency throughout the process of their resettlement. In addition, the chapter provides background on the specific groups of expellee craftspeople featured in the study and contextualizes their experience amidst those of their fellow-expellees. Chapter two introduces the violin makers of Schönbach and the story of their resettlement. Because they encountered a very unwelcoming group of Einheimische violin makers upon their initial resettlement, their story provides a strong example that counteracts and complicates the “successful integration” narrative. Moreover, it reveals the initial difficulties that OMGUS and regional governments faced when implementing and carrying out resettlement policy. The chapter highlights each community’s take on “tradition” and follows the ways in which each sought to tell that story for their own ends. In turn, the chapter reveals the resilience and adaptability of craft and craftspeople. Chapter three follows the expellees as they developed their new settlements, using the communities of Neugablonz and Waldkraiburg as case studies. The process of building workshops and enclave communities with few resources proved the determination and initiative of individual expellees and the cohesiveness of their communities. In official correspondence and editorial publications, these acts came to be known as a Selbsthilfe (self-help) ethos in which   41  the expellees were said to have demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit and industriousness worthy of designating them exemplars of the postwar reconstruction project. American occupation and local German governments alike saw the economic potential in these expellee communities. Expellees were effectively put on display as exemplars. In order to market and export the handmade culture to American buyers, in the late 1940s OMGUS and German officials orchestrated buyer tours of expellee workshops. They sought to exploit their example to inspire American taxpayer and German civilian support for policies such as export-only production, the allocation of Marshall funds for raw materials for export firms and funds for the new-build construction of expellee-exclusive enclaves. For the expellees, exposure to an outside audience made their plight legible, their story more significant and their firms worth investing in. Chapter four continues the theme of display, arguing that the way in which expellee wares were exhibited demonstrated their significance for Germany’s reconstruction. As well it follows the expellees as they began to adapt to global market demand. The revival of export shows and trade fairs marked the point at which the power of the objects reflected back on the producers through firsthand consumer reactions and market demand. The chapter combines the previous chapters’ discussions regarding tradition and Selbshilfe, proving that both were effective marketing tools for selling expellee products. Ultimately, trade shows provided a forum in which expellee and German identity could be reconstructed, marketed and sold. Chapter five brings the story full circle, back to string instruments and the Schönbach community of expellees. Using the success story of violinmaker Fred Wilfer and his—by the 1970s—world famous guitar factory Framus International as case study, it charts the switch to electric instrument making and the 1950s modernization of craft industries. In addition, I use the chapter to explore gender in the workplace, and its association with modernized workshop   42  practices. Finally, I discuss the push to train a new generation of makers and the development of vocational schools in Bavaria. In conclusion I argue that in order to survive and thrive in the 1950s, local communities had to embrace global trends and innovations. In engaging with larger processes, expellee craftspeople helped build a bridge over the Nazi past and leave a legacy by which their own pre-war, craft-based past could be remembered. In the process of focusing on rebuilding their lives locally, expellee firms once again became players in the global marketplace for craft goods.   43  Chapter One Becoming Expellees: The Prewar Heimat and the Postwar Expulsion To identify as a German or Czech speaker living in Czechoslovakia in the twentieth century required a constant assessment of and adaptation to political upheaval. Sudeten German identity could be defined in relation to geography (the borderland regions of former Czechoslovakia), by language as a minority population in a predominantly Czech-speaking nation-state (after the country’s foundation in 1918), or by skill as an entrepreneurial class with links to global trade networks (in the case of the expellees featured here). One could emphasize or de-emphasize any one of these identifiers in order to fit in with their Czech neighbours or disassociate from them. There were many linguistic “amphibians” among both populations, namely individuals who could claim either identity, depending on which group held greatest economic or political power at the time. Though the “Sudetenland” term (or mapping) was merely a construct of the early twentieth century, it gave German-speakers a tangible designation that would drive a deeper wedge between Germans and Czechs in the years leading up to the Second World War. At this time Sudeten identity became increasingly linked to Heimat, to “tradition” and at its darkest hour, to pan-Germanism and Nazism. Though many German-speakers held diverse views and political affiliations and were even married to Czech-speakers or resisted Nazi affiliation, when it came time for the expulsion, all Germans were marked as enemies of the Czech nation.97 97 Chad Bryant, Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 4-6; Arnold Suppan, “Austrians, Czechs, and Sudeten Germans as a Community of Conflict in the Twentieth Century” (Minnesota: Center for Austrian Studies, 2003).   44  By 1945, many Czechs viewed their Sudeten German co-nationals as traitors, as Nazi collaborators or at the very least bystanders to Nazi crimes.98 Though for many the lines between good and evil seemed clearly drawn, recent scholarship has argued that the victim-perpetrator dichotomy was in actuality quite complex. In what Arnold Suppan deems a “community of conflict,” Czech and German, neither Czech or German speakers were to blame for a full-scale descent into violence. Rather, communities that once coexisted in relative peace found their issues with one another conflated when confronted with Czech nationalization in 1918, economic depression in the 1930s, the Munich Agreement, six years of Nazi oppression and Germany’s military defeat in 1945.99 During the occupation rumours circulated among Czechs that Heydrich and his henchmen planned to expel all Czechs from the Protectorate to the East, a fear that fuelled later Czech calls for German expulsions.100 Moreover, in 1940 after Czechoslovakia became a Nazi Protectorate, 1000 Reich Germans moved into Prague monthly to help manage and control industry, policing and the civil service. These Germans from outside further confused German identification, as Sudeten Germans often shared the resentment toward Reich Germans with their Czech neighbors.101 Though Czech-German history was not without conflict, the Second World War escalated animosities as outside forces (Reich Germans who administered the Nazi Protectorate, Allied governments and Edvard Beneš’s Czech government-in-exile) sought to control and manipulate the hearts and minds of Czech and German speaking neighbours for their own gain. While radicals supported expulsion plans as early as the 1939 annexation, the majority of Czechs were 98 Bryant, Prague, 220 “Hating the Germans became the only clear, unambiguous aspect of Czech national identity that survived the occupation. It was the last remnant of a world of nationality politics undone by Nazi repression, contradictions, and compromises.” 99 Suppan, “Austrians, Czechs, and Sudeten Germans,” 2, 8-15. 100 Bryant, Prague, 221. 101 Ibid., 75, 204.   45  not yet convinced. However, six years as a Nazi Protectorate was enough incentive for many. And for both Czechs and Germans the end of the war brought equal fears of Red Army occupation and violent retaliation at the hands of their neighbours. It was the uncertainty of what was to come that perhaps cut the deepest in 1945.102 The Sudeten Germans became victims of Czech retribution at war’s end, but were by no means helpless. Rather, many instrumentalized their victim status in order to appeal to the Allied governments in occupation for recognition, assistance and in some cases special treatment. Emphasizing their experiences as victims of wartime suffering boosted their power and gave expellees a narrative to counter that of German collective guilt.103 In this chapter I follow the Sudeten Germans’ path from co-existence with Czech neighbours, to war, occupation and their eventual status as enemy nationals in Czechoslovakia and expellees in West Germany. I discuss the history of Czech-German relations and the pivotal moments at which that relationship hardened with mistrust and violence. I use the chapter to explain the journey from expulsion to coordinated resettlement, building a foundation for later discussions of expellee agency. 1.1 Background In the mid-nineteenth century, all Czechs who wished to do business in the manufacturing sector or take on a profession or a bureaucratic government position required German, and as such more native Czech speakers were bilingual than German speakers. As J.W. Bruegel explains, Prague’s German-speakers felt attached to the monarch and to place. In the nineteenth century when nobility held a great deal of power, he asserts, Bohemians focused 102 Ibid., 102; 206. He found that “By summer 1940 members of the domestic resistance were united in calling for the complete expulsion of the Germans from any future Czechoslovakia.” And “Justifiably afraid, many Czechs, as well as Germans, simply wanted to avoid the uncompromising horizontal and vertical forces that invaded their daily lives.” 103 For more on victimhood and a complex discussion of collective guilt see Moeller, War Stories.   46  primarily on status and class divisions.104 Also at this time, German associations sprang up, promoting common bonds of language, education and recreational interests. It was as Gary Cohen explains, “a sense of community in the form of an organized collective life.”105 As Czech and Slovak-speakers began to demand better treatment, German groups mirrored their efforts, fuelling one another’s competitive drive to achieve political and economic advantage.106 By the beginning of the twentieth century, the lines between the two groups had blurred considerably as individuals often jumped back and forth from one loyalty to another to improve their family’s status. National loyalty was up for grabs, and nationalists used many tactics to win over indifferent populations. The early twentieth century could be described much like an election campaign in which both sides pay an inordinate amount of attention to undecided regions or pockets of voters. In Zahra’s research, lower class children who would have been overlooked suddenly became valuable in the battle for hearts and minds, as rural people were inundated with German Heimat education, physical education and “pedagogical uplift.”107 Czech tactics were slightly more direct, most famously exhibited when Czech nationalists in Prague’s municipal government replaced bilingual street signs.108 As tensions in the city grew, politicians in the borderlands often took note, though action was more subdued in those regions. From the 1880s on, animosities emerged over economic and social disparities between the two groups. Czech-speaking workers and craftspeople started to migrate, angling for jobs once monopolized by 104 J.W. Bruegel, “German Diplomacy and the Sudeten Question before 1938” Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jul., 1961): 323-331 . 105 Cohen, The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 42. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid. 108 Referring to the period of the 1880s. Later, in the 1890s when Count Kasimir Badeni was in office and conflict over the use of both Czech and German in official government correspondence arose in the Bohemian Diet, Czechs demanded all civil servants should learn Czech and many Bohemian Germans feared the loss of their jobs.   47  Germans in borderland regions. And as Cohen asserts, often the new tensions had little to do with real change and more to do with the rise in “nationalist politics itself.”109 In other words, political rhetoric was beginning to dictate identification and action. Leading up to and after 1918, Czech and German nationalists worked to normalize (or claim populations as members of legible national categorizations) pockets of bilingualism or national indifference and bring them into the fold, to bolster their respective causes. Areas in which one group predominated (such as the Sudeten borderlands) soon became pawns in a targeted campaign to vilify and then normalize their populations. This gave radical nationalists the impetus to emphasize and categorize frontiers or borderlands. Moreover, drawing lines of division inflamed animosities, which the nationalists hoped would lead to upheaval. When the dust settled, they hoped, one nation would stand atop the heap. The problem, as Zahra shows, was that the distinction between populations was not clear due to decades of bilingualism.110 It was not until systems of power and legislation forced Czechoslovakia’s population to claim one identity (after political shifts in 1918 and 1938), that the tangled web of bi- or tri-cultural identification was revealed. The collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918, and its fracture into new nation-states after the Paris Peace Conference, marked the birth of Czechoslovakia. On the other hand, it marked the end of an era for German-speakers throughout the former Empire. As the boundaries of the new nation-states of Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, were drawn, many population groups became minorities in the new states. In Czechoslovakia, German speakers 109 Cohen, The Politics of Ethnic Survival, 172. 110 Zahra, Kidnapped Souls, 6.   48  formed the largest minority group, with three million living in the new border regions or the newly named “Sudetenland.”111 On October 28, 1918, crowds gathered in Prague to celebrate the birth of Czechoslovakia. Thomas Masaryk, one of the fathers of Czech nationalism, gave his first speech to Parliament, calling German-speakers “colonists” and declaring that the new state would “determine the political status of our Germans.”112 Czechs now had impetus to settle in German majority areas, open Czech language schools and gain influence in industry.113 In this new atmosphere of economic unrest, Sudeten hearts and minds were vulnerable to pan-Germanism and Nazi expansionist aims. In attaching to a region and giving power to the Sudeten identity, German speakers sought to cultivate respect for their economic contributions, at a time when their political demands for equality were not being met.114 As the Depression worsened and unemployment rose in the 1930s, Sudeten German manufacturers could no longer rely on export sales to Germany to bring prosperity and grant them social status.115 When the Czech government began bringing Czechs in to work in the industrial borderland regions,116 Germans began to take note of Hitler’s employment policies and Germany’s economic recovery and found them more appealing.117 Without the economic upheaval of the Great Depression, the question remains as to whether or not German-speakers would have become susceptible to pan-Germanism to the extent that they had in 1938. 111 Bryant, Prague, 14-22; See also Cohen, The Politics of Ethnic Survival; Nancy Wingfield, Flag Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 233. 112 Lees, “Fractured Lives,” 59. 113 Bryant, Prague, 18. 114 Wingfield, Flag Wars, 233. 115 Bryant, Prague, 22. In the late 1930s, the Depression left over one million workers unemployed, the majority of whom were Sudeten Germans. 116 The Nostrification Law of December 1919 stipulated that Czechs should represent at least half of all ownership and management of firms operating in the country. 117 Bryant, Prague, 23.   49  Shifts also occurred in the interwar period regarding cultural practice and symbolism. While German speakers had built their identity around political power, wealth, industrial prowess and business acumen at the turn of the century, by the interwar period they were increasingly shifting their focus to Heimat. Much as in Hitler’s Germany a dichotomous identity arose in which German-speakers were achieving great things in modernized industry but were representing themselves as provincial Volk. German identity in the Sudetenland became synonymous with home, song, dance, costumes and handcrafts. As boundaries dissolved and the nation was redefined again and again, the certainty of one’s place in society was consistently undermined and German speakers sought a durable constant. They found it in the Heimat concept. Yet, as communities wrapped themselves up in the security of Heimat, they risked creating an ominous utopia, in which a mythical bond could be created between community members to the exclusion of all others. Therefore Heimat was at once comforting, life affirming and fundamentalist, denoting a purity or authenticity that excluded the “other.”118 In taking on the Heimat concept in the 1930s and 1940s, Sudeten Germans found their place amidst wartime upheaval while often “othering” their Jewish, Czech and even their new Reich German neighbours. Symbols of Volk and Heimat and other nationalist affiliations paved the way as Konrad Henlein transformed his party from the Sudetendeutsche Heimat-Front (SHF) to the Sudeten German Party (SdP) in 1935, winning two-thirds of the German vote in the Czech parliamentary election. His early policies called for cooperation and equality among Czech and German speakers, and claimed non-fascist leanings. However, his more radical supporters soon took the opportunity to browbeat other Germans into supporting the cause. This took the form of bullying, 118 David Morley and Kevin Robins, “No Place Like Heimat: Images of Home(land) in European Culture,” New Formations Vol. 12 (Winter 1990): 459.   50  vandalism and business boycotts,119 which gave the SdP a reputation akin to that of the National Socialists in Germany. As Nancy Wingfield argues, the rise of the SdP soon popularized the term “Sudeten” and gave people an overarching identity they could turn to. The party soon linked material symbols to national identity, encouraging Tracht (a specific style of clothing) and Strumpfe (men’s knee-high stockings).120 These tactics had the effect of making nationalism legible as people could no longer fly under the radar, shifting among multiple identities. By the time of the 1938 Munich Agreement, Konrad Henlein’s policies had become increasingly radical and in line with Hitler and his henchman, Karl Hermann Frank (a leader among Sudeten Nazi sympathizers). Just prior to the annexation, there was disagreement among Sudeten Germans between those who supported Henlein, and those who identified as Communists and anti-Fascists.121 In April of 1938, Henlein demanded political autonomy for the Sudeten Germans and openly aligned himself with Hitler.122 However, there were still many who felt greater loyalty to a Bohemian identity than a pan-Germanism, creating tension between so-called Protectorate Germans (Sudetenlanders) and Reich Germans (new arrivals).123 The famous video footage of Hitler’s motorcade parading through the streets of the Sudetenland to great fanfare have simplified a complex time. Of the million people who registered as members of Henlein’s SdP, only half opted to become members of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) after annexation. Moreover, the parades were only one short moment in what became a six year occupation, that resulted in the deportation and murder of the Sudetenland’s Jewish population as well as the loss of 160,000 young men who died serving in the Wehrmacht 119 Lees, “Fractured Lives,” 80. 120 Wingfield, Flag Wars, 233, 240. 121 Mark Cornwall, “Stirring Resistance from Moscow: The German Communists of Czechoslovakia and Wireless Propaganda in the Sudetenland, 1941-1945” German History 24, No. 2 (April, 2006): 224-232. 122 Bryant, Prague, 23-24. 123 Ibid., 30.   51  army. Though Sudeten Germans had made financial and political gains during the war, they also experienced the loss of many of their own family, friends and co-workers.124 For the Nazis, the Sudetenland was a means to an end, a pawn in a larger scheme. They commandeered Sudeten industries and labourers to meet their war aims, and restructured Sudeten community organizations.125 Some Sudetens saw this Gleichschaltung (alignment) of their community with Nazi institutions such as the SA (Sturmabteilung) and HJ (Hitler Jugend) as unsettling.126 The heady early days of annexation gave way to the realities of occupation, as some Sudetens began to suspect their role as mere labourers or foot soldiers in Hitler’s war. Things quickly worsened for Czech and Jewish citizens after Hitler’s occupation of the rest of the Bohemian lands in March 1939, and the creation of the “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” under a Czech puppet government. As with the Sudetenland, Hitler soon exploited the Protectorate for labour in his war machine. While Czechs who resisted Nazi occupation were sent to concentration camps or executed, those who worked in war industries (heavy industry, steel foundries, arms factories) received better treatment. When compared to Poland or the Baltic States, Czechs had a relatively sheltered wartime experience.127 The Jews of Czechoslovakia were the exception, as thousands were deported first to the transfer camp at Theresienstadt (Terezin), then further east to death and labour camps like Auschwitz.128 Mark Cornwall’s work on resistance and propaganda in Czechoslovakia shows how Czech Communist groups reached out to Sudeten Germans as the war neared its end, appealing 124 Bryant, Prague, 203-204. 125 Zahra, Kidnapped Souls, 206. 126 Lees, “Fractured Lives”; Zimmermann, Die Sudetendeutschen; Zahra, Kidnapped Souls; Cornwall, “Stirring Resistance.” 127 Bryant, Prague; Lees, “Fractured Lives.” 128 For more on events inside the Protectorate, see Benjamin Frommer, National Cleansing: Retribution against Nazi Collaborators in Postwar Czechoslovakia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Bryant, Prague. It is estimated that 75,000 Bohemian and Moravian Jews died in the Holocaust. Lees, "Fractured Lives,"; Douglas, Orderly and Humane; Hugh Agnew, The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (Hoover Institution Press, 2004).   52  to them to resist the Nazis and embrace anti-fascism. What he found, was that though there were some anti-fascists among them, most Sudeten Germans remained “fellow travelers” throughout the war, still pinning their hopes on a German victory until the end. Though privately some opposed Nazi rule, publicly, they went along with it. They were not convinced that an Allied victory and a return to Czech rule would serve them either. In fact, much of the later Czech propaganda suggested that the war’s end would bring suffering to the Sudeten Germans, and that anti-fascists would be spared retribution. In the end, while anti-fascists may have received preferential treatment they were still subject to expulsion.129 In this sense, Zahra argues that the biggest victors of all were the nationalists who wished to wipe out national indifference,130 to cleanse Czechoslovakia of its borderland-minority and their threat to legible control. Complexities only seemed to increase with time, as loyalties shifted and actual political intent was often difficult to discern. This was true of many wartime policies as well, as politicians worked behind the scenes on policies that citizens were not privy to. Most citizens during wartime were kept in the dark, receiving information through propaganda or limited radio broadcasts.131 Because of the Nazi Protectorate, Czech President Beneš spent the war in London exile, where he laid plans for the expulsion of the Sudeten German population, biding his time for five years before he could act on them.132 Though rumours ran rampant in the closing days of the war, neither Czechs nor Sudeten Germans could be quite sure of their fate. The Allied governments were the final link required to push these policies forward, agreeing to an official “humane and orderly” expulsion in 1945. The Potsdam Agreement demonstrated one early 129 Cornwall, “Stirring Resistance,” 232. 130 Zahra, Kidnapped Souls, 258. 131 Bryant, Prague, 208-219. 132 Ibid., 67. Beneš began considering the expulsion as early as the summer of 1940.   53  twentieth century view on population transfer as a necessary means to an end. If nation states were to be neatly contained, bounded entities, it followed that it would be easier if they were also homogeneous. The morality of these transfers was not clear cut for political leaders in the early twentieth century, having witnessed the Greco-Turkish transfers after World War I.133 What would be condemned today as ethnic cleansing or genocide, was at this time still a viable option for controlling minority “problems” within nation-state boundaries. When the time came to end the violence between Czechs and Germans in 1945, to make a choice for heterogeneous coexistence or homogeneous divisions, Allied leaders supported Beneš’s expulsion plans. In the 1990s, historians took notice of this tendency to mold one’s identity, as scholars across disciplines began to address the nation as construct and question the effect it had on individual identity.134 1.2 Expulsions The history of Woodrow Wilson and his push to make Czechoslovakia a new nation-state after the First World War is often recognized as a positive historical development. In Prague’s main train station, once named after Wilson, his words were inscribed on the wall, “the world must be made safe for democracy.”135 Unfortunately, mere decades later in 1945 at the Potsdam Conference, the same United States government, in alliance with Stalin’s Russia and Churchill’s Britain took it upon themselves to include mass expulsion on the list of actions that were required to make the world safe. They justified the expulsion as a means to an end, to stop ethnic conflicts taking place between Czechs and Germans during the “wild transfers” after the war and 133 Ibid., 97-98. Bryant cites the Lausanne Treaty in which Greek and Turkish populations were forcibly displaced as well as the Armenian genocide and ideas surrounding the transfer of Jewish and Palestinian populations, as examples of this phenomenon. 134 For more on this movement to rethink national identity construction see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London, New York: Verso, 1983). 135 Plaque located on the wall of the Main train station in Prague   54  create a system of “humane and orderly transfers” that would facilitate the removal of the German minority. The Allies sold the decision as a practical solution to a messy, long standing ethnic conflict, glossing over the complexities of identity and the detrimental effect the expulsion would have on the expellees and the Eastern European cultural landscape. Throughout the war the Sudetengau or annexed Sudetenland region was separated from the Czech Protectorate by a state border that was erected in March 1939. With this segregation in place, both sides relied on radio broadcasts and print to understand what was occurring on either side of the border, creating two communities highly susceptible to propaganda. Stories of the Red Army’s approach at war’s end, rumours of violence and rape, and stories of vengeful Czech threats reached Sudeten ears at the same time as tales of Hitler’s miracle super weapon, giving them reason to both hope and fear.136 While Sudeten Germans served in the Wehrmacht and learned of Nazi excesses firsthand, those at home claimed to have little knowledge of Czech suffering under the Protectorate.137 Sudetens did witness the effects of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 and their implementation in 1938, including Kristallnacht and mass deportations, however. After all, many Sudeten Germans were granted access to former Jewish homes and possessions.138 Whether or not the state border did in fact shield Sudetenlanders from knowledge of Nazi crimes against Czechs, it served as a convenient excuse for turning a blind eye, and rejecting notions of German collective guilt after the war. On the Czech side of the border, radio broadcasts promoted the notion of German collective guilt as the war neared its end. Messages calling for revenge against all Germans reached young Czech radicals and resistance groups. They found the official support they needed from Beneš who relayed messages from London in 1944 calling for a civilian revolt against 136 Frommer, National Cleansing;.Cornwall, “Stirring Resistance”; Lees, “Fractured Lives.” 137 Lees, “Fractured Lives,” 97, 107. 138 Bryant, Prague, 83-84.   55  German “Nazis” and a transfer of the entire German population. Some scholars argue that Beneš wanted Czechs to orchestrate and manage the transfer and retribution themselves in the early days after the war, to accomplish their cleansing aims before Allied occupiers had a chance to quell their efforts.139 Vigilante groups, police, and paramilitary took it upon themselves to arrest and jail, attack and execute German civilians or alleged Czech collaborators. Officially, the Beneš’ decrees once passed into law, sanctioned the confiscation of German property and retribution against any Czechs who defended Germans, collaborated or claimed German national affiliation in any way.140 There were no legal parameters to rein in vigilante groups and there was no justice for their crimes against German civilians. Violent, retributive acts were deemed retroactively legal and not prosecuted.141 The first wave of violent retribution was followed by three months of “wild transfers” in the spring and summer of 1945. As Eagle Glassheim notes, the term “transfer” suggested a link with the official phrase of “orderly and humane” transfers that followed after the Potsdam Conference in 1945. In grouping the two periods together, Glassheim suggests, historians have lent credence to the notion that the expulsions were justified. Though early scholarship acknowledged the “unpleasant” nature of the cleansing and subsequent creation of a homogeneous state, it seemed to suggest that the ends justified the means. Glassheim argues that a macro-political or Cold War focus leans too heavily on the culpability of leaders rather than ordinary Czechs who actually committed these violent acts. To the Allied leaders, Beneš sold a story of Czech hatred so visceral and violent that only a full scale transfer of German civilians 139 Ibid. 140 Benjamin Frommer, "Getting the Small Decree," in Judson and Rozenblit, Constructing Nationalities, 267-270. The small decree led to the investigation of 180,000 Czechs for “offenses against national honor.” Some Czechs had applied for German citizenship during Nazi occupation, and were rejected as unfit for Germanization by the Nazis. They were targeted in the small decree. 141 Norman Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth Century Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 118-121.   56  would ensure their safety.142 In addition Beneš used the example of the 1923 exchange of Greek and Turkish populations to persuade Allied leaders that transfer was the best option for sustained peace.143 The Western Allies were invested in putting an end to the retributive violence, and in stabilizing Eastern Europe in general. Once again, a macro, geo-political view dominated in which people became mere pieces in a larger nation-state puzzle. There was little attention paid to those Czechs or Germans who remained loyal to one another or who disagreed with the transfer, to the innocence of those not involved in Nazi crimes or violent retribution, or to the German Jews who had survived the war and were then expelled alongside their Christian neighbours. Though the arrival of American troops in the summer of 1945 in western Czechoslovakia restrained much of the violence, they allowed Czechs to help administer the transfers. Czech militia guards inspected each expellee’s bag before they boarded the trains and in the process confiscated valuable items, abusing their power up until the very moment of the expellees’ departure.144 The supposed “orderly and humane” transfer sanctioned at Potsdam was often anything but. In the end, between 19,000 and 30,000 Sudetens are said to have perished during both the “wild” and “orderly” transfers, many from massacres or disease in holding camps. The number is vague as many Sudeten Germans were unaccounted for after the war and the cause of their deaths remains unknown.145 142 Eagle Glassheim, “National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing: The Expulsion of the Czechoslovak Germans in 1945,” Central European History, Vol. 33. (2000): 10. 143 Naimark, Fires of Hatred, 108. 144 Glassheim, “National Mythologies.” 145 Frommer, National Cleansing; Lees, “Fractured Lives,” 129. The “Heimatortskartei” (HOK) in Regensburg, the official Caritas Church Family-Reunion Search Service has a card index of names and addresses of 225,133 Sudeten Germans whose fate has never been clarified   57  1.3 Case Study: Gablonz An alternate method for understanding the micro-level experiences of major shifts in Sudeten history, is to study individual communities. Helga Lees has achieved this in her work on Gablonz (Jablonec), supporting much of what the historiography of the past twenty years has claimed. In her dissertation, she reveals cooperation among Gablonz’ German and Czech-speakers and Jews, even after annexation in 1938. Similar patterns to that of the Gablonz story emerge when studying the brass instrument makers of Graslitz or the violin makers of Schönbach. These villages saw the slow development of craft industries beginning with their founders in the seventeenth century. They then experienced over 200 years of trade and skill development through their own technical schools and global export networks. By the turn of the twentieth century these craft companies employed almost half the population of their respective towns and boasted high sales figures due to booming luxury goods markets. Production was later slowed by the Great Depression and the onset of war.146 Gablonz rose to international acclaim in export markets for glass jewelry and fixtures, supporting 2,000 small glass firms. The town’s prosperity attracted Czechs looking for work in the industry and supported Jewish-run export firms with global trade contacts ranging from the United States to Africa. Because most of the Czech workers had moved to Gablonz prior to 1914, Lees argues, they were integrated into the community long before the Second World War. Those who feared Hitler’s annexation fled of their own accord, including Jews, anti-fascists, and recent Czech migrants to the borderlands. They did not flee out of fear of their German neighbours or under violence or threats, but out of fear of Nazi party ideology and what would follow annexation. Lees maintains that while Gablonz did experience what she calls “politically 146 Dullat, Der Musikinstrumentenbau, 9-20.   58  manipulated incidences of nationalist outbursts” in the early days of Czechoslovakia’s birth in 1918, a general “inter-ethnic cooperation and civic peace was clear to all.”147 She attributes this to the craft economy, an industry that relied on the cooperation of pieceworkers and that promised prosperity for all those who bought into the atmosphere of togetherness. The Great Depression of the 1930s ushered in a time of economic difficulty for export firms, affecting Gablonz’ prosperity. This in turn made German-speakers more susceptible to Nazi influence. Lees argues that their Nazi leanings were economically motivated, as many Gablonzers still acted sympathetically to their Jewish neighbours and spoke out against vandalism of the local synagogue. However, they did not and perhaps could not save the 75 Gablonz Jews who were deported to death camps in 1941.148 Those Jews who did survive by emigrating to America, did so through their contacts in the export network.149 Gablonz’ craft industry provided a safety net for the Jewish merchants, even in times of economic downturn. Once they had fled, however, they tended to avoid buying or selling Sudeten goods. This was a great blow to the industry, as many Gablonz firms closed after annexation, and received little help from the Nazis who wished to repurpose all industrial labour, materials, machines and space for the war effort.150 Like other towns in the Sudetenland and the Protectorate, Gablonz was to serve the Reich’s war efforts first and foremost. The German-speakers of Gablonz had not experienced hostility at the hands of their Czech neighbours during the war, and did not have access to the foreign broadcasts calling for their expulsion near war’s end. Rather, in Gablonz, violence came from outside the community, people whom Lees’ respondents described as “Russians and Czech gangs,” most likely the 147 Lees, “Fractured Lives,” 31. 148 Ibid., 149. Much of Gablonz’ Jewish population did flee to safety in America prior to the German troops’ arrival in 1938. 149 Agnew, The Czechs, 210-215. 150 Lees, “Fractured Lives,” 149-151.   59  Czechoslovak military. These so-called “wild expulsions” were far more pre-meditated than the term “wild” connotes. The Czech leaders had planned and motivated these violent gangs, even equipping them with the same steel-rod whips and truncheons” countrywide,151 endorsing their actions and giving them free rein to commit crimes without legal consequence. On June 15, 1945 the wild transfers descended on Gablonz, as gangs pulled 1000 people from their homes and “transferred” them to the Polish border where they were held without shelter for a week, then marched back to a camp near Gablonz.152 Though they had escaped much of the hostility of the war, they could not escape expulsion. Citizens of Gablonz were subject to the same policies as other towns and cities, including having to wear white armbands, obey curfews, and observe boycotts from schools, public transit and hospitals. Most Gablonz expellees were gathered in a holding camp at Reinowitz near their town, to await their trains. Many later recalled looking back at their town through the camp’s barbed wire.153 Some factory owners and entrepreneurs were forced to work as labourers in their own firms, under the watchful eye of new Czech administrators, in essence training Czechs to steal their livelihoods. Once the Czechs had logged sufficient time in the business, German entrepreneurs were expelled, following not long after the first wave of orderly transfers.154 Though their craft enterprises had not survived Nazi annexation, and their skilled status had only granted them temporary reprieve from the expulsions, their entrepreneurial experience and skill would soon become their greatest asset. 1.4 Early Arrival in Germany 151 Ibid. 152 Ibid. 153 Ibid. 154 Ibid.   60   In the early days of their arrival in Germany, expellees were shuffled from one reception camp to another, on and off trains, through medical exams and DDT delousing. At the height of the expulsion, 142,000 expellees arrived on 132 trains in the month of June, 1946 alone.155 In total some twelve million people were expelled under the Potsdam Agreement, with a disproportionate three million arriving in Bavaria. While the intent was to distribute the expellees evenly throughout the four occupation zones, in the end Bavaria was the most willing and able to accept the greatest numbers.156 Its proximity to Czechoslovakia made it convenient and its rural landscape meant that Bavaria had fared much better in the bombing raids than more populous centres. Also, in general the Americans were far more receptive to displaced persons than the other occupation zones, setting up an elaborate system of camps divided by nationality. In general, Washington paid a great deal of attention to the region, as Thomas A. Schwartz puts it, using it as a "laboratory of political experiments, a vindication of the American political eceonomy, and a 'border of freedom' defended by 300,000 American soldiers."157 For the first four years, the American occupiers prohibited the formation of a central German government,158 but did allow first municipal government and then a system of regional Land (county) governments. The Regierungsbezirk (disctict) were German sub-divisions set up to administer local regions within the Land governments. In addition, OMGUS chose German civilian directors to head up RGCOs (Regional Government Coordinating Offices) to report directly to General Clay on “controversial issues.”159 It was the task of these administrators to 155 McLaren, “Out of the Huts,” 25-26. 156 Chauncy Harris and Gabriele Wülker “The Refugee Problem of Germany,” Economic Geography Vol. 29, No. 1. (Jan., 1953): 16. 157 Thomas A. Schwartz, "'No Harder Enterprise': Politics and Policies in the German-American Relationship, 1945-1968." in Junker, The United States and Germany, 29. 158 Ibid. 159 Heinz Guradze, “The Länderrat: Landmark of German Reconstruction” The Western Political Quarterly Vol. 3, No. 2. (June 1950): 197; For details on the function of these bodies see:"Military Government Regulations: General Provisions," OMGUS Weekly Information Bulletin, No. 102, July 1947, 9: The executive   61  coordinate the reception and distribution of expellees, to allocate labour, monitor health and welfare and distribute material goods and relief packages alongside American non-profit agencies and German church charities.160 As ex-enemy nationals, expellees were excluded from UNRRA and IRO aid and were thus dependent on German hospitality. While OMGUS relied on the IRO and later UNRRA to help resettle and whenever possible repatriate non-German displaced persons, expellees were considered citizens of Germany. They were to be absorbed into German communities, given “full civil and political rights,” and freedom of movement between zones. When it came time to house the expellees, however, it was the Einheimische who were required to open their homes and communities. German officials in each municipality reported the amount of living space available to expellees according to the laws of each Land (Bavaria, Hesse, and Wuerttemberg-Baden). The reluctance of homeowners to divulge the truth combined with the shortage of personnel trained in collecting statistical data slowed the process. Elisabeth Pfeil, a sociologist doing field work in the 1940s, found that in combing through villages one could find space for several thousand. She found what she called a “double standard” in which those in power lived in spatial comfort while hundreds of expellees awaited housing nearby.161 Expellee camps were power is exercised under the direction of each minister-president chosen by the Landtag to which he is responsible, and his Cabinet. Supervision of the German administration is exercised through the Regional Offices of Military Government situated at the capitals of Bavaria, Wuerttemberg-Baden, Hesse, and Bremen. Except as otherwise provided in MG Regulation, the Director has full MG responsibility for command and administration including administration of MG personnel within the Land. The RGCO is authorized to communicate direct to the Deputy Military Governor. The RGCO maintains liaison between the Laenderrat and the functional divisions of OMGUS, and between the Laenderrat and Land OMG’s. 160 Guradze, “The Landerrat,” 206; Rebecca L. Boehling, A Question of Priorities: Democratic Reforms and Economic Recovery (New York: Berghahn Books, 1996), 41; "Occupational Activities," OMGUS WIB, No. 130, March 1948, 2. Other non-governmental organizations sprang up as well to act on behalf of the expellees. The Hilfstelle worked to keep expellee communities together, and to find housing and employment for expellees. See K.L. Gatz, East Prussian and Sudeten German Expellees in West Germany, 1945-1960: A Comparison of their Social and Cultural Integration (PhD diss., Indiana University, 1989). 161 Elisabeth Pfeil, “The Fluchtling: Shape of a New Era” as quoted in Kossert, Kalte Heimat, 44.   62  often makeshift barracks, bunkers, farm stables, lofts, or cellars.162 Because they were designated German citizens, they depended on the generosity of strangers in a time when scarcity was the norm. By the summer of 1946, in the height of expellee arrivals minister-presidents of each Land resorted to appointing committees to oversee the housing crisis at all governing levels. The Bürgermeister (Mayor) of each town was expected to assign accommodations for expellees when necessary.163 After one year, OMGUS drafted a law guaranteeing uniformity in the treatment of expellees: “special allowances may be made...to meet ‘other vital requirements’...That with regard to clothing, household utensils, and furnishings, the expellees shall be placed ‘on an equal status with that part of the indigenous population who receive preferential treatment.’”164 Although expellee resettlement was within the jurisdiction of local German governments, OMGUS felt the need to intervene at this point to ensure policies were carried out on the local level. American liaisons often carried out additional occupancy inspections when suspicious of German-collected data. These inspections revealed that some expellees were still living in refugee camps as late as 1956, despite available housing for thousands in neighbouring towns and villages.165 Refugee representatives were charged with the difficult task of procuring and distributing shelter, garden plots, and household wares, while sometimes facing anonymous death threats from obstinate Einheimische.166 Rainer Schulze explains that unlike local Germans, expellees had no possessions to barter on the black market, and thus could not procure their own 162 Lees, “Fractured Lives.” 57, 157. 163 "Refugees and Expellees," OMGUS WIB, No. 94, 26 May 1947, 3. 164 "Law for Expellees Drafted," OMGUS WIB, No. 81, February 1947, 20. 165 Kossert, Kalte Heimat, 55. 166 Ibid.; "Historical Report for Military Government for Land Bavaria," 1 April 1946- 30 April 1946, RG 260, NARA, Box 260, File 6.   63  housewares. Some of Lees’ respondents remember feeling ashamed and even inferior because they did not have the essentials to care for themselves and their families. And in some cases, the stresses of camp life led to alcoholism and depression.167 Local Germans offered little psychological solace to the expellees, often rejecting their presence rather than welcoming them into their social circles.168 Though local Germans failed to embrace expellees, research also shows that many Sudeten Germans rejected the melting-pot model of integration. K.L. Gatz found in his study of social and cultural integration that many expellees desired integration in terms of economic and social rights, but resisted assimilation in terms of cultural practices and heritage. He argues that what is most striking about the expellee community was its ability to achieve this aim, to build enclave settlements that contributed to the economic prosperity of West Germany, without fully assimilating into German communities.169 Through Landsmannschaften (regional community organizations), memories of the Bohemian Heimat were kept alive.170 I argue in chapter two that craft firms and cooperatives played a similar role, preserving practices and network connections among workers. Early on, Allied occupation governments upheld policies of redistribution that dispersed expellee communities, to safeguard against political unrest.171 It was difficult for expellees to reunite with former networks, a process that often required asking the government to authorize population exchanges between districts. Many families and co-workers were divided between the American and Soviet occupation zones, a situation that was remedied in time, by the expellees’ 167 Lees, “Fractured Lives,” 207. 168 Kossert, Kalte Heimat; Schulze, “Growing Discontent.” 169 Gatz, East Prussian and Sudeten German Expellees, 292-295. 170 Daniel Levy, “Integrating Ethnic Germans in West Germany: The Early Postwar Period,” In Rock and Wolff, Coming Home to Germany, 22. 171 Schulze, “Growing Discontent,” 2-3.   64  own initiatives to relocate and reunite. Lees argues that protective social networks offered the greatest social capital for expellees, minimizing physical and emotional damage during the resettlement process.172 And while enclave communities like Neugablonz and Waldkraiburg promised cultural survival, they were the exception to the rule. For those who remained detached from their former communities, the path to integration was considerably more difficult. Many educated and skilled expellees found themselves working as labourers in industrial or agricultural settings. Many more found themselves unemployed. After the war, rural areas were overpopulated with bomb evacuees from the cities as well as a disproportionate number of displaced persons. And even if the industrial areas in major cities had survived the bombings, there was little adjoining housing available for new arrivals. Regional Bavarian governments faced a choice between allowing skilled expellees to build their own industrial heartlands in rural areas, or build new housing complexes in urban industrial areas.173 Though both options required capital the government did not have, they soon realized that if given permission, the expellees would invest their own ingenuity, labour and any resources they could into building their own manufacturing firms, thus taking on most of the responsibility and risk. Investing in expellees by allowing them to develop enclave settlements complete with adjoining workshops, seemed like a safe bet for a government stretched beyond its limits. By April 1, 1951, expellees had already established 2391 small manufacturing firms or workshops in Bavaria.174 Once expellees proved that they would move forward with production regardless of government support, aid agencies responded. In fact, the Marshall Plan/Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) commission recommended 7.9 billion DM for expellee 172 Lees, “Fractured Lives,” 223-224. 173 Harris and Wülker, “The Refugee Problem,” 16-22. 174 Ibid., 16-22.   65  housing over six years.175 These funds would aid expellees in building homes near their new manufacturing sites, and allow them to establish fully functioning communities. The days of makeshift barracks had passed for those expellees “willing and able to contribute to the peaceful reconstruction of Germany.”176 German and occupation governments had made these skilled, entrepreneurial expellees a priority, over and above unskilled expellees or Polish and Ukrainian displaced persons, who in many cases faced forced repatriation. Even after they had developed new settlements, 94% of Lees’ respondents in Neugablonz still felt Bohemian. Only one of her respondents felt fully integrated in German society, after 70 years. And only two believed their lives would have been better had they stayed in Czechoslovakia. As she states, Heimat has no plural, you only have it once.177 Those who did return to the Heimat on trips later in life, proved the old adage “you can never go home again.” Although Czechs had moved in after the expulsion, they were unable to maintain or recreate the cultural vibrancy of Sudeten towns. The skill and experience required to run and repair machinery, the networks needed to sell export products and the methods of taking a pattern from start to finish were lost on those who had commandeered Sudeten workshops. Experience could not be quickly replicated. The “gold diggers” who arrived in the early days during and after the expulsion did not always recognize the value of what they were trashing, re-selling or stripping for parts. In addition, the post-war socialist government emphasized heavy industry at the expense of small craft industries, reducing complex machines back to metal and replacing complex networks of skilled labourers with unskilled labourers from central 175 Ibid., 24. 176 OMGUS WIB, No. 102, July 1947, 3. “US Policy in Germany: Movement of Persons,” OMGUS WIB, No. 102, July 1947, 3. "You will implement the decision taken 23 April 1947 by the Council of Foreign Ministers with regard to United Nations Displaced Persons and population transfers. You will hold the German authorities responsible for the care and disposition of nationals of former enemy countries...You will likewise permit the re-entry of German and former German nationals who desire to return permanently but in view of restricted facilities you will give priority to those who are willing and able to contribute to the peaceful reconstruction of Germany." 177 Lees, “Fractured Lives,” 219.   66  Czechoslovakia. Moreover, postwar coal mines reshaped the local landscape, effecting the health of nearby woodlands.178 The new Czech inhabitants were unable to sustain the former craft industries that the Sudeten Germans had built over generations. Cultural erasures occurred with ease, as buildings were demolished, German signs and town names vanished and any markers or monuments to the past were removed. The long-time resident Czechs who were left after the expulsion felt little connection with their new neighbours and looked down on them as undisciplined “gold diggers.”179 Many of these longer term residents understood the generations of work that had built these towns and some took great care to preserve their former neighbours’ possessions in safe keeping. These acts of kindness laid the foundations for reconciliation and even friendships between the past and present owners. While the older generation of Lees’ respondents described feeling great heart-ache upon seeing the neglect of their former Heimat, young expellee descendants were often curious about their family’s past and reached out to residents of their parents’ former towns to form lasting friendships.180 While the prosperity the expellees found in West Germany seemed to give the younger generation pride and confidence in their heritage, the older generation would never replace the pride they felt for their original Heimat and the prosperous, peaceful society they had built there. Family histories shared between generations and kept in town or company archives for decades told the expellees’ story. After Communism’s fall in 1989 and the Czech Republic’s bid to join the EU, public discourse turned to the expulsion, digging up evidence of human rights 178 Eagle Glassheim, “Ethnic Cleansing, Communism and Environmental Devastation in Czechoslovakia’s Borderlands, 1945-1989” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 78 (2006): 66, 112; See also Eagle Glassheim, “Most, The Town that Moved: Coal, Communists and the ‘Gypsy Question’ in Post-War Czechoslovakia” Environment and History 13 (2007); Lees, "Fractured Lives," 130-135. 179 Lees, “Fractured Lives,” 131. 180 Ibid., 154.   67  abuses against the Sudeten Germans. After discourse came political speeches and pressure to acknowledge the past and make amends for it. This came in the form of government funded museum projects and proposals for centres of remembrance, and in new dialogue between Czech, German, Hungarian and Polish politicians and historians on the issue. Politicians from the Czech Republic have been the least cooperative to date, possibly fearing the sensitivity of its citizens to any mention of their historic role in ethnic cleansing, and bowing out of proposed projects. Local Czech municipalities however, have taken it upon themselves to create museums that tell the expulsion story.181 It is important to do as Lees has done and as I will do here, to not just look at the events and policies that originated in Prague, Berlin or Munich. Rather, the goal is to tell local expellee stories in order to understand the complexities of Czech-German relations, and later American-German relations. For it is quite evident that one group was not solely to blame for the crimes of war, the expulsion or the difficulties of resettlement. There were no definitive victims or perpetrators, just individuals and communities surviving, coexisting, coming into and out of conflict and working to rebuild their lives. It is that active agency among individuals and communities in the face of war that drives my curiosity. In the next chapter I will dig deeper into the meanings assigned to expellee and German identity after the war, focusing specifically on the role of tradition and craft. With these signifiers in hand, expellees were able to exercise agency in their new settlement contexts and in turn contribute to a rebranded German identity. 181 Timothy Ryback, “Dateline Sudetenland: Hostages to History” Foreign Policy, No. 105 (Winter, 1996-1997): 163-165. Also see Stefan Troebst, “The Discourse on Forced Migration and European Culture of Remembrance,” Hungarian Historical Review, 2015. Some examples include: “Center against Expulsions” (2000), “European Network Remembrance and Solidarity” (2004), “European Remembrance Centre of Vicitms of Forced Population Movements and Ethnic Cleansing” (2005), “Museum of the Second World War” In Gdansk, Poland. (2007). German federal Foundation “Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation” in Berlin (2008).   68   Chapter Two Made in Germany: Defining Einheimische and Expellee Craft in Postwar Bavaria “craftspeople know, however, that their engagement with tradition is a double-edged sword. It exalts them, to be sure; but it also serves to marginalize them from some of the most desirable fruits of modernity”182 1. A Mittenwald Geigenbauer (violin maker) in his workshop183 182 Herzfeld, Body Impolitic, 5. 183 This photograph was published in the July 15, 1950 edition of the Kurzeitung, a newspaper serving Mittenwald and neighbouring towns. This particular photograph appeared in an article on the International Geigenaustellung (Violin Exhibition) taking place in the village in the summer of 1950. Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich, (MK) Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Unterricht, Kultus, Wissenschaft und Kunst, Box 63273, File 650.   69  The photograph above evokes a romantic tale, one of independent solitude, working with one’s hands, shaping earthly materials into an object that produces something both solid and ethereal: music.184 The craft survives through the inheritance of skill, of knowledge passed across geographical space and generational time, the very aspects that are said to transform a craft into a “tradition.” The history of the craft gives the handmade object its meaning, its place in time and space, and its cultural value. A journalist describes the work of an expellee violinmaker, and demonstrates how “tradition” becomes romanticized through discourse: The old violin maker [K. H.] is 84 years old. He still sits day after day in his workshop and makes violins. He is a master. Under his hands the profane wood is ennobled. His violins end up somewhere in the wide world under the hands of virtuosi who make people weep and laugh.185 The author of this passage subjectively ascribes delight and an “ennobling” effect to the work of the violinmaker. However, in stepping away from this narrative we can see the objective ways in which these subjective meanings make the object trade-worthy, sought after, monetarily valuable, and thereby crucial to the sustenance of the craftsperson, his family and their community. There is a way in which the romantic narrative constructs reality. In referring to hands that “ennoble” the wood underneath, the report gives the object and its maker power, adding cultural value to an otherwise technical practice. The practice then becomes dependent on the story created around it. As industrialization and modernization threatened to change the conditions for craft production in the early twentieth century, craftspeople learned to emphasize or instrumentalize their story in an attempt to prevent further loss of status and income or to recover from losses 184 In using the term “romantic” I aim not to refer to the Romantic period of literature and art, but to myths and constructions grounded in the ethereal rather than the real. Emotionally and spiritually-driven notions of music and handcraft in this case lend themselves to the propogation of myths and grant the object cultural value. 185 W. Hönekopp, Denkschrift zum Wiederaufbau der Schönbacher Musikinstrumentenindustrie: kurzgefaßter Überblick im Anhang (Erlangen, Februar 1949), 1.   70  previously endured. Therefore, craftspeople may or may not have bought into this narrative when reflecting on their own role in craft production, yet became quite adept at employing it to sell their wares. James Farr argues that Adam Smith, Karl Marx and others “naturalized” and “essentialized” manual labour by assuming that the act of making an object defined an artisan’s identity. Pushing the concept further, Farr argues, “social and self-definition were rooted in cultural experiences which included, but also transcended, production,” through what he calls “symbolic exchanges, where labor was a sign of social place as well as a means to survival.”186 Here Farr is making an argument for the artisan’s agency within larger political and economic structures, arguing that the artisan’s identity was a negotiated process that shifted over time. Histories of emerging nationalism and nation-states have highlighted this tendency to frame one’s identity for particular political and economic purposes.187 In what follows, it is evident that the Schönbach violinmaker identity in particular and the Sudeten-German identification in general shifted in and out of narratives of national defeat and victimhood, on the one hand, and individual and national triumph over adversity, on the other. Moreover, the expellees could adopt or reject these narratives to their advantage as they negotiated with German and American authorities for housing, loans and enclave resettlement projects. In contrast to the craftsman photographed in his workshop, the violinmaker featured in the editorial was an expellee from Schönbach awaiting the construction of a new settlement site for himself and his community: 186 James R. Farr, Artisans in Europe 1300-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 3-6. Artisans “were defined and defined themselves not primarily as producers, but rather as members of an etat, a rank or ‘degree,’ a Stand...Artisans did not make themselves in isolation, nor were they hapless victims simply molded by forces beyond their control. They were products of their own ceaseless struggle, not just to earn a living, but to maintain rank and a sense of social place.” 187 Anderson, Imagined Communities; Brown, Biography of No Place; Jeremy King, Budweisers into Czechs and Germans: A Local History of Bohemian Politics, 1848-1948 (Princeton University Press. 2002).   71  I visited him in his current adoptive country in Möhrendorf near Erlangen [a site of resettlement]…Like a big child he smiled to himself. The work for him was his work, but a delightful experience. He told me that he has 5 children, comes from Schönbach and waits now for his own small house. In it, he says, “my life will be fulfilled.”188 The stories of the two violinmakers diverge in a very specific way. Unlike the Schönbach maker from the passage, the man in the photograph had not been expelled from his home and had likely occupied the same workshop for decades. He was from Mittenwald, a small town nestled in the Bavarian Alps, virtually untouched by the war. In the 1940s, it was also a town that boasted a practice for making Kunstgeigen (art violins) wholly with hand tools from start to finish. The Mittenwald makers had rejected the industrialization of their workshops in the late nineteenth century and as such had over time become dependent on the story associated with their craft to sell their wares. Thus, they had little choice but to emphasize the “traditional” aspects of their production method in order to attract tourist buyers and compete in a global market place. For the expellee craftspeople of Schönbach on the other hand, the path from expulsion to the transit camps of Möhrendorf was long and difficult, despite the simple narrative presented in the editorial above. The experience of expulsion, as well as their nineteenth century decision to adopt piecework methods and industrial machines, set them apart from their Mittenwald counterparts. This, however, did not dissuade American Military (OMGUS) authorities from attempting to settle the expellee makers in Mittenwald initially. The Schönbach makers were temporarily settled among the violinmakers of Mittenwald and the scheme quickly proved unsatisfactory for both parties who ultimately failed to integrate. The failure of the Mittenwald-Schönbach violin maker resettlement as case study reveals the attempts made on the part of expellees, local Germans, and United States occupation 188 Hönekopp, Denkschrift zum Wiederaufbau, 1.   72  authorities to reconcile the narrative of craft “tradition” with the realities of forced migration and rapid modernization in the 1950s. Over time, the expellee narrative developed from one of victimhood to one of Selbsthilfe (self-help) and entrepreneurial success. In the process expellee craftspeople became integral and even prototypical agents in West Germany’s construction of its own postwar image, while the Mittenwalders continued to rely on tourism to drive trade. After 1945, the ideal of skilled handcraft as national “tradition” was upheld and maintained by the Handwerkskammer, a crafts corporation with mandatory membership that was responsible for training apprentices and protecting the rights associated with the Meister (master) title. Though a policy was in place to protect artisanal “traditions” from change, in the postwar context craft served a different master in West Germany, namely democracy, capitalism, and the reconstruction of Germany under U.S. occupation. The United States recognized the importance of craft to the German national identity and the role of its products in the global marketplace. In turn, they granted loans and aid to rebuild German industries in the 1950s.189 However, in order to sell German products for the reconstruction effort, the US importers and German exporters alike had to repurpose ideas like Volk “tradition,” Heimat, and Kultur for new ends.190 In a place like Mittenwald, bridging the Nazi past meant falling back on tried and true methods used before the war, namely marketing the Bavarian Heimat and the romantic ideal of 189 ECA programs and Marshall Aid funding, as well as Military Government’s transition away from the notoriously harsh Morgenthau Plan. See Junker, The United States and Germany, 255-370; Guradze, “The Landerrat,” 190. “The philosophy of the Morgenthau Plan, opposed by many—including the present American High Commissioner- was expressed in a directive of April 26, 1945, in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff instructed the military governor to ‘take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany or designed to maintain or strengthen the German economy.’ Although this particular passage was soon superseded by the Potsdam Agreement concluded August 2, 1945, its spirit permeated most of the personnel of the Office of Military Government for Germany (United States) who implemented military government policy during the early period of occupation.” 190Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (Cambridge University Press, 1984), 1-10; 25-31.   73  the handcraft workshop to tourists. Though the industry had been irrevocably altered by the war and OMGUS had set up refugee camps and a large military base nearby, the village relied on an image of continuity rather than change (made easier by the postcard-ready, “timeless” mountain landscape surrounding half-timber guest houses).191 As Joshua Hagen explains, the image of “small town life set in a landscape of natural beauty” was a dominant motif in 1950s West German travel. Tourists looked to places where they could “reconnect to German history and express pride in that history while providing some distance from the recent past.”192 Germans desired “safe” spaces in which they could openly enjoy their Germanness without the dark cloud of the Nazi years, spaces like the Heimat or the craft workshop. In this context, it was perhaps more important than ever for the Mittenwald violin makers to keep up appearances, to stick by “tradition” and their initial decision to craft each individual violin from start to finish, by hand. The case of the resettlement of Schönbach violinmakers’ explores the role of “tradition” in postwar economics, collective memory construction, individual and group identification. The word “tradition” itself was wielded like a tool in the power struggle between expellees and the Mittenwald Einheimische (local inhabitants). Moreover, re-constructed “traditions” became instrumental in combating collective guilt and rebuilding a palatable German identity. By emphasizing the practices and cultural motifs that both predated and endured Nazism, Germans and the U.S. occupation government worked to sweep the recent past under the rug of a postwar reconstruction discourse. From the American perspective, the “German tradition” of quality craft 191 Calvin Jones, “Past Idyll or Future Utopia: Heimat in German Lyric Poetry of the 1930s and 1940s” German Studies Review Vol. 8, No. 2 (May, 1985): 282-287; 292-294. He discusses Heimat as general concept and Heimat poetry in particular. He notes that nature was often thought of as continuous, immune to the dramatic changes wrought by time. In this case one might also argue that nature was viewed as adaptive as well as continuous. He also argues that Heimat literature in the postwar period demonstrated a hope for the future as well as a longing for the past. See also Adam Rosenbaum, Bavarian Tourism and the Modern World, 1800-1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 192 Joshua Hagen, Preservation, Tourism and Nationalism: The Jewel of the German Past (England: Ashgate Publishing, 2006), 250-257.   74  production became a bargaining chip, something with which to repay American taxpayers for aid, a selling point to convince those at home that their continued involvement in Germany was worthwhile. 2.1 The Instrument Makers of Schönbach In the journalist’s descriptive passage above there is little hint of the history that led to the 84-year-old's resettlement, namely his identity as a Sudeten German or the circumstances of his expulsion. In order to understand his and his community’s eventual arrival in Möhrendorf, one must go back to the first German colonization in the northwestern Bohemian lands. The Schönbach settlement in the Egerland region (present day Luby in north western Czech Republic), was facilitated by the founding of the Cistercian monastery Waldsassen in 1130.193 The monastery and its surrounding lands, which encompassed Schönbach and other villages, were eventually sold off in 1356 and became a fief, separate from the Egerland and part of the Kingdom of Bohemia. The first mention of Sconenbach was in a document from 1319 in which, at the request of King Ludwig IV of Bavaria, the abbot of the Monastery (Johanm III) granted the village rights and privileges as an official town.194 Schönbach thus entered a long period of relative stability that encouraged settlement and trade. It was within that context that the instrument makers developed their craft. Violin making in Schönbach was also precipitated by the rise and fall of the local mining industry. Already in the thirteenth century prospectors began to mine for copper, tin, lead, silver and mercury. However, from the beginning of the 17th century the ore industry rapidly declined, 193 "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHStA, Munich, MK, Box 63234, File 690-695. Book on the violin making industry in Bubenreuth. Through several donations made throughout the 1150s, the lands surrounding the monastery were gradually cleared, opening the region to further German settlement. On March 3, 1185 Pope Lucius III took possession of the monastery and due to the work of the “grey monks”, cultivation and settlement persisted well into the thirteenth century. 194 Ibid.   75  as the technology was no longer up to standard, and with the onset of the Counter-Reformation in the years 1624-27 many Lutheran miners emigrated, sealing the fate of the mining industry. Yet the landscape surrounding the town was heavily forested, encouraging those former miners who remained in Schönbach to take up woodworking in larger numbers and violin making in particular.195 There is no known record dating the first Schönbach violin, as early town archives were lost in 1739 when both the church and town hall were destroyed. However, as German records show, twelve makers fled Schönbach and Graslitz (a neighbouring settlement) during the Counter-Reformation and formed a guild just across the border in Saxon Markneukirchen in 1677. Together the villages of Schönbach and Graslitz on the Bohemian side, and Klingenthal and Markneukirchen on the Saxon side of the border formed the Musikwinkel (music corner). While Schönbach garnered an international reputation for plucked instruments, neighbouring Graslitz specialized in woodwinds and brass; Klingenthal and Markneukirchen in harmonicas and plucked instruments respectively.196 This concentration of musical instrument makers could be attributed to the wooded landscape of the region, to the sixteenth and seventeenth century rise of a European aristocratic class with a penchant for luxury hand-crafted goods, or the migration of skill knowledge from Italy.197 The formation of the guild in 1677 dates the violin making craft 195 Ibid. 196 William Sandys, History of the Violin (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2006), 245. “Francois Plack at Schoenback, in Bohemia, about 1738, made good violins.” Though a concentration of instrument-producing villages in the region drew the attention of international consumers, it also sparked competition between the villages. It was due to this competition in part, that craftsmen made the decision to develop local cooperatives. In 1904, local producers formed the Schönbach musical instrument maker’s Genossenschaft (cooperative), attaining independence from the Saxon industries and greater control over the purchase of raw materials, sales and pricing. Adolf Fuchs, Die Standortverlagerung der Sudetendeutschen Klein-Musikinstrumenten-Industrie von Graslitz und Schönbach (Marburg: N.G. Elwert Verlag: 1953). For more on the history of cooperatives in Central Europe see Torsten Lorenz, ed., Cooperatives in Ethnic Conflicts: Eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th Century (BWV- Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2006), 18. Although Lorenz argues that cooperatives were political and nationalist in nature, the Schönbach masters seemed to be more concerned with developing the local industry and staying competitive in a regional (Saxony and the north-western Sudetenland) market. 197 Farr, Artisans, 62-64.   76  contemporaneously with that of classical Italian makers Amati, Stradivarius and Guarnerius. However, the exact origin of the Schönbach craft is still inconclusive. It is possible that Italian migrants had come to the area in connection with Waldsassen monastery as early as the crusades or simply as miners.198 The ability to date the first Schönbach violin becomes relevant when speaking about the construction of tradition, more specifically national or regional claims to a distinct tradition. Violin making “traditions” were actually built on the intermingling of sedentary masters with transient merchants and travelling apprentices. Migration was crucial to the development of craft production and trade in Central European society. Unmarried journeymen were required by their guilds to spend two years (Wanderjahre) travelling after achieving apprenticeship status, and another two years before establishing themselves in one locale to become a master artisan. The majority of these migrants clustered around the Danube, periodically broadening their path to regions further afield and often reaching the Czech Lands. Masters of the craft viewed this obligatory nomadism as essential to maintaining the relevance of their craft, to staying abreast of changes and adaptations and to controlling the chain of supply and demand.199 Of course there were practices particular to each master’s workshop and locale, often dependent on the surrounding landscape. For example, the type of pine trees used in the process of violin making determined the final sound quality of the instrument, and the best trees were those that grew at high altitudes in a soil that allowed the tree to grow at a slower rate, resulting in denser wood. In fact, the best sound was garnered from a tree aged around 200 years. Thus 198 Dr. K. Mädler, Zur Geschichte der Schönbacher Geigenbaukunst; Egerer Zeitung, Jahrgang 4, Folge 7, S. 21 in BayHStA, Munich, MK, Box 63234, File 690 to 695. Fuchs, Die Standortverlagerung der Sudetendeutschen Klein-Musikinstrumenten-Industrie von Graslitz und Schönbach. Fuchs dates the origins of violin making in the region to prior to the 1580s. 199 Geoffrey Crossick, ed. The Artisan and the European Town, 1500-1900 (Leicester: Scolar Press, 1997), 173.   77  having used the same woodlands for generations, violin makers made an argument for local specificity though their techniques may have migrated from elsewhere.200 This argument was strengthened when considering the local plants used in the making of stains, a telltale mark of the violin maker and their locale.201 But one also had to consider the design of the instrument, the shape of the body and the f-holes, the curve of the neck and the finishing flourish carved into the scroll. The maker would first draw the design, then make a pattern and create a unique mold or form.202 The resulting features of the instrument may have been influenced by the local landscape or culture but more likely were influenced by skill knowledge within the craft itself, and ideas migrating among artisans throughout Europe at this time. Also, wood and stain could be traded, exported and imported, creating a network of makers in which the boundaries of one’s authenticity were blurred, as processes were shared. Craft practices were often more fluid and malleable than claims to local tradition suggest. Even though violin making as “tradition” can be traced back to Füssen, masters from Italy are far better known (Antonio Stradivari in particular). By the 17th century the main production centres were in Italy, perhaps the most famous being Cremona. Though Schönbach was later called the Bohemian Cremona, the Italian masters not their German counterparts were attributed with giving the violin its enduring form.203 What may have set the Sudeten makers apart from others was their process. Schönbach farmers and miners often engaged in piecework during the winter months to supplement their incomes, and delivered their finished work by hand cart to the masters in town every Saturday. This ended with a customary stopover at the local 200 Dominic Gill, ed. The Book of the Violin (Oxford: Phaidon, 1984), 25. Consult for more details on the violin making process. 201 Ibid. 202 Ibid., 26. 203 "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHStA, Munich, MK, Box 63234, File 690-695.   78  Gasthaus (pub).204 It was in these practices that a community identity was most likely forged among Schönbach violin makers. In this context, meaning and a distinct identity grew not from the global status of the objects produced in the village so much as from local practice and process. Michael Sonenscher argues that the unique ritual practices surrounding each craft did not indicate the uniqueness of the finished product itself. Rather, the point “was to make it appear to be different.”205 The rites of passage for young apprentices and the air of mystery conferred on the craft process imbued the object and its maker with power over their competitors and neighbours. This power was easily translated into sales through marketing and the slow, steady development of an international reputation. Identity and “tradition” were thus both constantly invented and reinvented through labelling, exhibitions and trade.206 Artisans themselves were caught up in a cycle of dependency in which, as Herzfeld argues, “their bodies become the site of an extremely comprehensive commodification of stereotypical selves,” a cycle sustained by the small workshop system and projected onto the national “imagination.”207 The term “artisan” had become known in nineteenth century Europe to refer to masters who through apprenticeship had entered a restricted group of persons possessing a particular skill. They outwardly displayed their membership among masters or their “property of skill”208 (as coined by John Rule) by wearing distinct tool belts or aprons and 204 Ibid. 205 Michael Sonenscher, “Mythical Work: Workshop Production and the compagnonnages of eighteenth-century France,” in Joyce, Historic Meaning of Work, 32. 206 Eric Hobsbawm, "Inventing Traditions" in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 1-14. 207 Herzfeld, Body Impolitic, 27-28. 208 John Rule, “The Property of Skill in the Period of Manufacture,” In Joyce, Historic Meaning of Work, 104. Property of skill: “A skilled man could often recognize his own work and describe it still as ‘his’ work even when it had been alienated from him by sale…The sense of a property of skill was then deeply embedded in the culture and consciousness of the artisan, as was the assumption of the respect of others for it.”   79  carrying special tools.209 This was just one way artisans could embody the “tradition.” Other ways included the performance of rituals whether marking the statutes of the guild or simply the weekly meeting and display of masculinity at the pub. According to Rule, these performances practiced over time, gave the craft the “legitimation of ‘time immemorial.’”210 2.2 Made in Germany In Germany, expectations were often placed on artisans as representatives of community morality, returning to the idea of craft itself as a virtuous pursuit, pure of corruption and greed. Handwerk was the term used to refer to the small-scale industries or crafts, and Beruf referred to one’s occupation. However, both terms signify something more. To have a Beruf in Handwerk was to have an occupation requiring not only manual skills but moral character and an ethic of commitment to the larger society. It could even denote a level of Dienst (service) to the nation itself.211 Artisans were trapped in this expectation of morality. They needed that image to sell their product, and yet they were limited by the “traditional” strictures associated with the production of that craft and the “traditional” system set up by that community to maintain it, to survive change and upheaval. Herzfeld analyzes body language as evidence of this artisanal conundrum: Fine artisanship requires fine character; fine character inspires trust in the quality of the work...the truly adroit artisan must know how to be ostentatiously modest. Paradoxically, the limp slouch of the apprentice may thus be the harbinger of real competence, because it demonstrates an ability 209 Ibid., 104. “English skilled workers from the beginning of the eighteenth century...By others and by themselves they were commonly referred to as ‘artisans’. It is a label fraught with difficulty and ambiguity. In some usages it suggests independent master craftsmen trading in a product made up from materials which they themselves owned: perhaps being themselves the employers of one or two journeymen. In England especially, such independent masters were by the middle years of the eighteenth century a small part of those designated artisans. Skilled workers in general were so considered." 210 Ibid., 104. 211 Nolan, Visions of Modernity, 99-100.   80  to absorb information and then use it without appearing to make any effort at all.212 We need only refer back to the photograph above to understand the overall effect of the image of the artisan slumped diligently over their work. The “tradition” trap dictated that the artisan build their success through modesty.213 Over time, how craftspeople produced and marketed their wares came to define their place in the global context. As Crossick notes, by the late nineteenth century business skill often outweighed craft pride, making it an “embattled identity.”214 As neighbouring countries and workshops industrialized in the late nineteenth century, artisans faced the dilemma of whether to align with the forces of modernity or remain true to the slumped over modesty of the past. For the violin makers of Schönbach and Mittenwald the question of whether or not to modernize their process ultimately led the communities down two distinct paths in the twentieth century, which led to animosity and an integration failure. In what follows, the artisans of Schönbach and Mittenwald negotiated changes wrought by global industrialization in their respective local contexts. Neither group could be characterized as static or backwards, but rather dynamic in their approaches to the survival of their respective violin making industries. Both made adaptations in the face of industrialization that complicate the teleological view of modernization. They held to aspects of the past, while utilizing new methods of communication, export, and marketing, and in the case of Schönbach, new technologies. Schönbach and Mittenwald makers took very different paths, ultimately leading to the clash of their two distinct “traditions” and cultures after the 1945 expulsion. 212 Herzfeld, Body Impolitic, 124. 213 For further exploration of the gendered nature of these photographs and the image of male versus female artisans see chapter five. 214 Crossick, The Artisan, 11.   81  These “traditions” became rhetorical devices in a competition for global market share and survival. Eric Hobsbawm’s introduction to The Invention of Tradition entitled "Inventing Traditions," explores the ways societies have employed narrative to latch onto the past in times of change, or to promote that past as a means to political or economic ends. Herzfeld argues that the weakness of Hobsbawm’s theory is its privileging of elites, while its strength lies in his notion that tradition was a modernist invention and that people living in what we might deem pre-modern times, did not “announce that they were living traditional lives.”215 Rather historians run the risk of retroactively defining historical actors as “traditional” or “pre-modern” and viewing those who carry on these same norms of the past as “anti-modern.” But as Herzfeld reflects, in doing so are we not also stereotyping notions of modernity? The way in which the violin makers of both Schönbach and Mittenwald re-invented the “traditions” of their respective communities arose out of modern circumstance, out of a need wrought by modernization and therefore, they were decidedly modern. Moreover, as Outka would argue, marketers had been using tradition to sell “authenticity” since the turn of the twentieth century, commercializing the original, sought-after ideal to make it attainable for the masses.216 In order to survive, small craft firms in the 1950s were required to follow what their forbears had done fifty years earlier, using innovative methods to sell a comforting ideal. As the two violin making groups came into contact after the Second World War, the need to re-invent those “traditional” ideals was magnified once again by the urgency of market demand, and as they criticized one another’s 215 Herzfeld, Body Impolitic, 18- 20. See also Eric Hobsbawm, "Inventing Traditions" in Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, 1-14.; R.E. Sackett, “Antimodernism in the Popular Entertainment of Modern Munich: Attitude, Institution, Language,” New German Critique, No. 57, Autumn, 1992: 126. “The truth is that invented traditions are new traditions; they may refer back to, but never simply perpetuate, old ones. Antimodernism rests only in the assertion that the past should be upheld against the present, not in the preservation of ‘authentic’ premodern forms...And antimodernism always has this sense of falsehood about it, this concealment of its own modernity, this pretense concerning the relationship of new and old.” 216 Outka, Consuming Tradition, 4.   82  craft methods under the watchful eye of the ever-producing poster-child of modern methods, the United States. Tradition was not just an idea bandied about in national discourse, but something that governments attempted to pin down, own, stamp and verify through the “Made in Germany” label. As of August 23, 1887, all German-made products carried this stamp of recognition, a measure resulting from British protectionist legislation (the Merchandise Marks Act). At the time, Britain felt threatened by the newly industrialized and unified nation, and more specifically by German imitations of British trademarked consumer goods. Though the British aim was to label these “Made in Germany” products as cheap knock-offs, these goods were soon known and desired for their quality. This consumer coup d’etat is an enduring source of pride among German manufacturers and craft firms who continue to feature the phrase “Made in Germany” prominently in their advertisements.217 Harold James argues that the national culture soon came to revolve around these products and their production giving the label a “dual significance.”218 I argue that the label took on a third role after the war for Germany, as mark of resilience, symbol of a so-called “miraculous” economic recovery. The globally recognized label was perhaps the most efficient method of linking pre-war traditions with postwar reconstruction and delivering that message to the storefronts of former enemy nations. The global consumer was reminded of some of the more admirable qualities of German culture, the innocence of finely produced goods rather than large-scale war machinery. Especially innocent were goods crafted by hand in a more “wholesome” domestic fashion. 217 David Head, 'Made in Germany': The Corporate Identity of a Nation (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992); Harold James, A German Identity: 1770 to the Present Day (New Haven: Phoenix Press, 2000). One might also See “Made in the U.S. Military Zone” prior to the Federal Republic’s founding or “Made in West Germany” or “Made in Western Germany” after the split between East and West Germany. These labels mark specific times of transition which are also very interesting and worth exploring, but not central to the argument here as all immediate postwar labels worked to accomplish the same goal, a German national recovery. Even if the “Made in the U.S. Military Zone” worked to promote German goods under an Americanized label, the result was the same. 218 Harold James as quoted in Head, Made in Germany, 4.   83   In the early twentieth century, there was growing interest among German manufacturers in the technologies and methods used in the United States at the time. In many nations, artisans gradually became shopkeepers or wageworkers. Meanwhile in Germany many resisted the early shifts of industrialization in the late nineteenth century,219 fearing a loss of skill knowledge and status for individual artisans and for Germany on the global stage.220 Industrialization brought different methods of mass production and standardization, which “further fragmented artisanal knowledge and recast relations of authority.”221 And yet, there was little artisans could do to stem the tide, as access to raw materials and markets was increasingly modernized. As communication and transportation networks improved, industries were capable of specialization on an unprecedented level. In the face of this reality, the efficient and capital-driven, assembly- line methods of the United States became more attractive. When large-scale industries turned to the scientific management principles of “Taylorism” and “Fordism,” the small-scale artisan-run industries of Germany and Central Europe were forced to adapt.222 The Paris World Exhibition of 1900 marked the point at which German manufacturers recognized the industrial innovations of the United States as the wave of the future. The 219 Farr, Artsians, 276. 220 Nolan, Visions of Modernity, 74-75. 221 Farr, Artisans, 286-287. 222 Ibid., 295; Charles S. Maier, “Between Taylorism and Technocracy: European Ideologies and the Vision of Industrial Productivity in the 1920s” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1970), 32-55. Frederick W. Taylor’s method promoted workshop efficiency based on “scientific” studies of human labour. Each task was planned, timed and detailed on instruction cards handed down from upper management. On the one hand Taylor’s system was viewed as inhumane and on the other, as an escape from rigid class hierarchies as workers as well as factory managers and owners would share in the fruits of their labour. What was good for the factory was good for the people as a whole. As Maier argues: “It therefore implied a revolution in the nature of authority: the heralded utopian change from power over men to the administration of things.” One can assume that for hands-on, small-scale artisan industries, the “administration” of things as opposed to the “crafting” or “creation” of things was an unappealing proposition. By the late 1920s Henry Ford’s methods had overshadowed those of Taylor and came across as more benevolent, particularly his emphasis on producing goods cheaply so as to reduce costs for the average consumer (who was also the average factory worker). Less utopian and more practical in theory, this method gave the public reason to believe that a levelling of class hierarchy could actually work. This aim would be achieved through assembly line technology, standardization, and a burgeoning mass market created by raising wages and lowering prices on consumer goods.   84  American pavilion sparked German trips to tour steel factories in Pennsylvania and rationalized factories in Michigan. Yet while German companies like Robert Bosch began experimenting with the rationalized methods they encountered, others like Daimler-Benz resisted due to fears of “Americanization.”223 The very use of the term “Americanization” denotes the ways in which the adoption of these “scientific management principles” touched a cultural nerve in the 1920s. As Mary Nolan argues, German fascinations with America went beyond the factory reaching the home and public forums.224 As intellectuals such as Max Weber, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer continued to view rationalized modernity as repressive, many German entrepreneurs saw the shift as inevitable and adapted the model to their own liking. Their aim was to reap the benefits of higher productivity and the improved consumption that rationalization promised, without risking a complete American overhaul. As Nolan reflects, this balancing act between German austerity and American modernization ultimately failed as domestic markets in Germany did not provide high enough levels of consumption to sustain increased factory output. In short, German ideals of constraint rather than consumption won out in the 1920s, and the “Made in Germany” label retained much of its reputation for handcraft quality. However, these same questions arose again in the 1940s and 50s, as Germans faced American cultural influence and pressure to conform to globalization and mass consumption. The choice between traditional and modern methods of production, marketing and exchange came down to each individual craft firm and often involved an individualized mix of both. In a sense, America became the straw man in Germany’s struggle to come to terms with modernization and national self-definition after the war. Germans foregrounded aspects of American culture to which they were opposed in an attempt to set themselves apart, noting the 223 Berghahn in Trommler and Shore, German-American Encounter, 148. 224 Nolan, Visions of Modernity, 4-7.   85  mass uniformity of factory work and the cheap, temporary nature of mass consumer goods. Moreover, Einheimische used similar tactics when dealing with expellee newcomers, equating expellee pieceworkers to American assembly line workers, fuelling the failed integration of the two communities. “America, Americanism, and Fordism provided not only a model to emulate or modify, but a vivid, colourful, and controversial language in which to debate modernity,” according to Nolan.225 Because of their strength in small-scale craft industry, according to Mary Nolan, Germans invented “quality” as a national “tradition.”226 Much like their previous adaptation of the British “Made in Germany” label, claims to quality over and above other nations was both real and imagined. While America boasted a domestic market capable of sustaining Fordist methods of production and a vast supply of raw materials, Germany possessed an abundance of skilled workers. From a manufacturers’ point of view, Nolan argues these workers were to be trained to live for their work, to embrace their Beruf, to take pride in their chosen task and thus contribute to a more class-cooperative society and a strong nation.227 This was of course in direct antagonism to the American model of reducing class tensions by raising wages, promoting consumption and leisure time, i.e. working to live. Moreover economist Lujo Brentano viewed American workers as lacking a Berufsethos, or a sense of purpose or pride in their work; a sense of identity linked directly to their work.228 As Nolan argues, “quality work” gave the German 225 Ibid., 9. 226 Ibid., 86. "The criteria for quality were clear cut and widely shared. At the 1927 annual meeting of the RDI, devoted to the theme of ‘German quality work,’ the association’s business manager Ludwig Kastl defined quality work as ‘the production of a good or the performance of a service which satisfies the highest demands of consumers of all sorts and especially fulfills all requirements in regard to suitability, reliability, utility, and cost as well as taste and form.’ Far from disagreeing with this definition, the Gewerkschafts-Zeitung claimed that free trade union leader Theodor Leipart had originated it years before. ‘By quality work,’ Leipart wrote in a 1916 article, ‘should be understood good, respectable, functional work. The materials employed and the technical execution should be good as well as the form and color. The form must correspond to the purpose and materials.’” 227 Ibid., 90. 228 Lujo Brentano as cited in Nolan, Visions of Modernity, 101.   86  nation a slogan, a “modern language of rationalization with German accents,”229 In this context, craft workshops and communities became a jewel in the national crown, a phenomenon of which the violin making village of Mittenwald in Bavaria is but one example. Although the growing global influence of American-style industrialization took centre stage in the early twentieth century, its effect on the lives of Europeans can be better understood through a local lens. As Herzfeld notes, studying the local reveals that the “global always arrives with a local, as well as with a larger, history: someone has let it in through the back door of class or national solidarity, developed a profitable relationship with its bearers, or redesigned it for local consumption.”230 We turn now to the stories of the Schönbach and Mittenwald violin makers, two communities that let modernization in through the back door, one through tourism and the other through workshop rationalization in the late nineteenth century. These divergent paths to modernization were a necessary measure in the late 1940s, in essence allowing both communities to become global while sustaining the local. 2.3 Two Paths Diverge The town of Mittenwald sits in the southern Bavarian Alps, to this day seemingly sheltered from outside influence and the effects of time. However, due to its location along a main trade route between Augsburg and Venice, the village began attracting merchants and artisans as early as the fifteenth century.231 When Mathias Klotz, who trained as a violin master 229 Nolan, Visions of Modernity, 87. 230 Herzfeld, Body Impolitic, 210. "We should also assiduously beware of treating the local and the global as the only two levels of demonstrable relevance—a simplification that does great violence to the artisans’ experience and overlooks the deep historical sedimentation and metonymic ordering of social complexity in their lives. Understanding globalization means understanding its agents, some of whom are paradoxically engaged in what appear to be radically localizing activities, while others may pay court to more regional concerns of various kinds.” 231 History of Mittenwald Violin Making http://www.matthias-klotz.de/siteseng/2-0/2-0geigenbaueng.html [accessed November 29, 2007]. According to this source, merchants were required by law to stop in Mittenwald, where the Bozener Markt was also held. Under these positive circumstances, by the end of the 17th century new   87  in Füssen, returned to Mittenwald around 1685, married and set up shop, the industry flourished. Taking advantage of the village’s proximity to forests of maple and spruce, its location on a major trade route and a lack of competition, Mathias Klotz and later his three sons Georg, Sebastian and Johann Carol, established a world-renowned center for violins in Mittenwald.232 A period of prosperity followed as the workshops experienced continued growth well into the nineteenth century. However, much like other artisanal communities, Mittenwald was not immune to the late nineteenth century drive for mass production. With rising demand from American and domestic markets, the retail companies of Baader and Neuner & Hornsteiner were established in the village in 1850, existing until the crisis of the First World War. Under total control of the two retailers, Mittenwalders resorted to piecework in which every step of the process was specialized to the point where very few apprentices were able to craft a violin from start to finish.233 The Mittenwald masters increasingly viewed this shift to mass production as a threat to the craft and to the culture of the village, however. Recognizing the decline in numbers of apprentices educated in the traditional art, King Maximilian II of Bavaria set in motion the establishment of the Staatliche Berufsfach und Fachschule für Geigenbau und Zupfinstrumentenmacher (State School for Violin Making and Plucked Instruments) in 1858. The school counteracted the process of over-specialization and mass production and soon earned an international reputation trades were established in Mittenwald, such as Bortenwirkerei (the weaving of decorative ribbons and borders), Filetseidenstickerei (fancy silk embroidery) and violin making. 232School for Violin and Plucked Instrument Making. http :// www. itcwebdesigns. com/tour_germany / violin1.htm. Also see History of Mittenwald Violin Making http://www.matthias-klotz.de/siteseng/2-0/2-0geigenbaueng.html) [accessed November 29, 2007]; Sandys, History of the Violin, 245. For more on Klotz family and Mittenwald origins. 233 History of Mittenwald Violin Making http://www.matthias-klotz.de/siteseng/2-0/2-0geigenbaueng.html. The retail companies had control, in this period, over pricing and methods of production. They also owned the mills and thus supplied raw materials directly to the home workshops where piece work was carried out.   88  for producing Kunstgeigenbau, violins that were considered high quality works of art.234 This shift in focus toward a more traditional craft culture complemented and contributed to a rise in tourism to the region. The tourism industry was largely facilitated by the expansion of the railroad network, which reached Mittenwald in 1912, sparking travel and communication between urban and rural areas.235 For villagers in Alpine Bavaria, there was little need to transition to industrial agriculture or factory development, as small-scale farming operations were supplemented with craft production. Communities were able to advertise a more “traditional” lifestyle to a now larger extra-regional market. Rural Bavarian communities with their naturally rugged landscape could easily latch onto the late nineteenth/early twentieth century trend of rural retreat, fulfilling modern “romantic needs created by the industrial and urban revolutions.”236 Thus although Mittenwald masters managed to preserve a pre-industrial method of production, it was the development of modern communication technologies and transportation networks such as the railroad that allowed them to do so. Visitors to the area were (and continue to be) motivated by nostalgia for “authentic” representations of Germany, a merging of landscape and German Volk culture that the Mittenwald violin makers capitalized on.237 234 Ibid., Also see State School for Violin and Plucked Instrument Making. http: //www .itcwebdesigns.com / tour_germany / violin1.htm. 235 Hagen, Preservation, Tourism, and Nationalism, 58. Also, State School for Violin and Plucked Instrument Making. http: // www . itcwebdesigns.com/tour_germany/violin1.htm: See also Rosenbaum, Bavarian Tourism. 236 Helena Waddy Lepovitz, “Gateway to the Mountains: Tourism and Positive Deindustrialization in the Bavarian Alps,” German History, Vol. 7, No. 3, (July, 1989): 3-15. 237 Caitlin Murdock, “Constructing a Modern German Landscape: Tourism, Nature, and Industry in Saxony,” in Blackbourn and Retallack, Localism, Landscape and the Ambiguities of Place: German-Speaking Central Europe, 1860-1930 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 197. “Thus, Saxon tourism promoters demonstrate that localism was neither a pre-modern survival nor a conservative reaction against the sweeping changes that faced European industrial societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but rather a central and self-conscious element of modernity.” “‘Tourism is not just an aggregate of mere commercial activities,’ as MacCannell specifically argued, ‘it is also an ideological framing of history, nature and tradition; a framing that has the power to reshape the culture and nature to its own needs.’ MacCannell specifically theorized tourism as a search for authenticity within increasingly segmented and impersonal societies.” Hagen, Preservation, Tourism, and   89  The Schönbach industry took a different path from that of Mittenwald, foreshadowing the rift that would develop between the two communities of violin makers after the war. The extra-regional market had grown steadily since the sixteenth century, as social status became indelibly linked to consumption, and fashion-conscious elites began demanding luxury items such as decorated furniture, glassware, glazed ceramics, musical instruments, and silks. This period saw the beginnings of craft networks, specialization of skill and standardization of production methods.238 Later, in the late nineteenth century in the Bohemian borderlands as well as in Germany, household industries grew in number to such an extent that clusters of workshops saturated local markets and were driven to increasing specialization. With specialization, the goods improved, but producers also became more dependent on one another.239 Villages like Schönbach came to specialize in violin making, with workshops branching out into bow and string production. By the later decades of the nineteenth century, it was clear that many of the finished violins and component parts exported from Markneukirchen in Germany were in fact originating in neighbouring Schönbach. With that realization, the Habsburg government invested in the village of Schönbach as a new export hub. With this government support, by 1900 it had become a successful exporter of musical instruments in its own right.240 Thus when the Schönbach violinmakers resorted to piecework production in the late nineteenth century to meet market Nationalism, 12, 21 “As Mosse added: ‘The small towns, the villages, the peasant and burgher inhabitants, symbolized the connection between the history of the Volk and its fusion with the landscape.’ The ideas of the sublime and picturesque became integral to this new appreciation of nature, landscape, and nation as travelers went in search of such scenes.” 238 Farr, Artisans, 91. 239 Hal, Hansen, “Rethinking the Role of Artisans in Modern German Development” Central European History Vol. 42, No. 1. (2009): 43. 240 Karl Höfner-Schönbach bei Eger-Sudetenland- Josef Höfner, Möhrendorf, bei Erlangen Bayern. Möhrendorf, 22. Mai 1948. [translation] RG 260, NARA, Box 75, File 3.   90  demand, one could argue that they were simply taking the next logical step in a history of standardization predating the era of industrialization. Schönbach violinmakers used an assembly-line style system in which each apprentice was responsible for crafting one component of the violin following a precise pre-made pattern. In addition to this system of piecework, the violinmakers began incorporating machines into their workshops.241 Schönbach masters facilitated this shift through the apprentices enrolled in their own music school. Established in 1873, like the violin making school in Mittenwald, it was originally focused on teaching the traditional techniques of handcrafting each violin from start to finish. But in the early twentieth century masters adapted the curriculum to incorporate standardized piecework and the use of machines. In 1908, a new trade school, the Staatsfachschule für Musikinstrumenten-Herstellung, was built using government funds, to further satisfy growing export market demand. By the first decade of the twentieth century, the violinmakers had established an international market for their product, boasting exports to North and South America, Russia and all over the European continent.242 The efficiency of their production methods allowed the Schönbach makers to lower their prices and cater to wholesale markets such as schools and orchestras, thus broadening their reach. Although the production of musical instruments ceased during the First World War, in the years following its end, production resumed and flourished in Schönbach. The number of family-run, home-based workshops diminished, replaced by corporations of violinmakers. The violin industry in the village could be described in the 1920s as a mix of workshops, small 241 Fuchs, Die Standortverlagerung der Sudetendeutschen Klein-Musikinstrumenten-Industrie, 15. 242 “Erwiderung zur Denkschrift der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Mittenwalder Geigenbauer in Mittenwald,” Produktivgenossenschaft der ehemaligen Schönbacher Musikinstrumentenerzeuger Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 28.10.1948, Landesflüchtlingsverwaltung 1660. Strunal: Czech Musical instruments http://strunal.cz/new/index.php?cat=history&id=4. See also "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHStA, Munich, MK, Box 63234, File 690-695.   91  factories employing around 40 workers and manufacturing firms.243 In total, the industry employed approximately 4,000 makers of violins, violin-cellos, contrabasses, guitars, mandolins, banjos, ukuleles, bows, cases, and all parts and accessories, exporting 95% of its output. The United States was Schönbach’s largest customer, a trade relationship only briefly interrupted by the Great Depression (1932-33).244 One way in which the Schönbach makers adapted to modernization and the changing global market was through the formation of a cooperative. Acting as an organizational framework for managing an increasing array of specialist pieceworkers and a growing trade network, the cooperative also gave the makers a way to lay claim to a distinct craft identity, to label theirs a distinct “tradition.” Formed in 1904 at the suggestion of the Schönbach trade association, the cooperative worked to obtain raw materials, and to expand export networks.245 It gave the small-scale instrument maker the means to modernize and transition into the new world of mass production, shielding them from competition. Indeed, like the “Made in Germany” label, cooperatives founded with the intent of carving out an economic niche on the global stage often had to construct a concurrent local or national identity. By the 1920s, Schönbach’s reputation as global stringed instrument exporter was clearly defined and yet its identity was still embattled. The lines bounding the product’s label were often 243 Strunal: Czech Musical instruments http://strunal.cz/new/index.php?cat=history&id=4; Fuchs, Die Standortverlagerung der Sudetendeutschen Klein-Musikinstrumenten-Industrie. “Bei alten und neuen Meistern in Mittenwald: Die SZ besucht das 'Klingende Dorf' Tönendes Gebälk aus der Münchner Frauenkirche,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 24.12.1948, Landesflüchtlingsverwaltung 1660. 244 Josef Höfner report on the history of the Schönbach instrument making industry and its current state, 22 May 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 75, File 3. 245 "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHStA, MK, Box 63234, File 690-695. Cooperatives were flexible, either taking on an associational role like the first cooperative Assoziationen founded in Germany, or as an institution similar to guilds represented by the term Genossenschaft, a name and model later adopted by the Assoziationen. Lorenz, Cooperatives in Ethnic Conlficts, 11. “The German liberal Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, one of the founders of the German cooperative movement, called his first cooperatives ‘associations’ (Assoziationen), thus emphasizing that they were part of the associational movement that emerged in Europe and North America in the last decades of the eighteenth century. The term ‘Genossenschaft,’ later chosen by Schulze-Delitzsch, referred to older cooperative institutions in towns and villages like the guilds or the village commune.”   92  blurred, as confusion over whether objects were decidedly Bohemian, German, Czech or Sudeten remained. Often Sudeten makers resorted to using the “Made in Germany” label in order to sell their products globally, even though they were made in Czechoslovakia. Competition had existed between Schönbach and Markneukirchen (across the German border in Saxony) since the foundation of the violin industry in the region. However, with the outbreak of the First World War, Schönbach depended on Markneukirchen to export its instruments under the “Made in Germany” label. At the time, the same goods labelled “Böhmische Ware” (Bohemian goods) were less popular.246 When the First World War ended and Czechoslovakia became a nation-state, production and export in Schönbach rebounded, as makers developed their own export industry on par with that of Markneukirchen due to the combination of cooperatives, the growth of the music trade school and new rationalized production methods.247 While the Schönbach cooperatives worked to develop a local industry rivalling that of their German neighbours, they also at times depended on their identity as a German minority in a Czech nation, receiving funds from the German government and labelling their products “Made in Germany.” Though their local identity was strongly defined and competitive, within the national context craftspeople shifted their identity toward or away from Germany as the market dictated. Much like the craft “tradition” itself, the identity of Sudetenland craftspeople was malleable. At times, Sudetenlanders were linked to their new Czech state and at others, to the idea of a “Greater Germany.” They could rely on the syncretic aspects of their culture to separate themselves from their German neighbours and 246 "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHStA, MK, Box 63234, File 690-695. 70% of violins produced in Schönbach at this time were exported through Markneukirchen, 20% were exported from Schönbach directly, and 10% sold domestically. 247 Ibid. By 1937, of the 116,000 violins produced in Schönbach, 40,000 were exported to the USA, approximately 23,000 directly from the village and about 15-18,000 via Markneukirchen. Besides Markneukirchen, Schoenbachs competitors were France and Japan, but France’s exports amounted only to 6% and Japan’s to about 5% of the Schoenbach production.” Josef Höfner report, 22 May 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 75, File 3.   93  alternately embrace their common heritage at moments of political expediency. Perhaps the easiest way to negotiate the national push-pull was to focus on the local, to make Schönbacher or “violin maker” the centre of one’s identity. For the Schönbach makers in particular the arrival of war on their doorstep meant an abrupt hiatus on export sales and thus the gradual decline of the industry. In 1937, approximately 10 million Czech crowns worth of musical instruments were exported from the village. During the war the larger manufacturing firms were forced to convert to war production and by 1945 the musical instrument industry was at a standstill.248 While some artisans were resilient, many could not reconcile their trade with the force of the Great Depression. It wreaked havoc on European and global markets as American demand for luxury items fell dramatically, bringing an end to many of the advances artisans had gained through increased production, marketing and commercialism.249 Confronted with economic hardship, few village masters were able to continue working in the violin industry and many resorted to agricultural work. Even the village of Mittenwald, a jewel in the preservation of German Volk “traditions,” could not sustain its craft industry during the war, despite Nazi efforts to the contrary. Wholesale distributors Neuner & Hornsteiner and Baader closed shop in 1930 and 1934 respectively, adding to an already dire situation for violinmakers.250 A report addressed to the Garmisch-Partenkirchen administrative district on November 23, 1933 declared the violin industry of Mittenwald “completely expired.”251 Those who did continue to make violins did so 248 Notice for Dr. Ziegler, report on the Schönbach violin makers in Erlangen, BayHStA, LaFLue (Landesflüchtlingsverwaltung), Box 1676, File 544; Stats from year 1937: 115693 stringed instruments 89227 plucked instruments, 990 strings, 900 strings and other parts. See also "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHStA, MK, Box 63234, File 690-695. 249 Shulamit Volkov, The Rise of Popular Antimodernism in Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 23-30; 146. 250 History of Mittenwald Violin Making http://www.matthias-klotz.de/siteseng/2-0/2-0geigenbaueng.html 251 State School for Violin and Plucked Instrument Making. http:// www. itcwebdesigns.com /tour_germany/ violin1.htm   94  as a part-time venture supplementary to agricultural work. Understanding that the loss of the Mittenwald industry was a loss for German culture, the National Socialist Reichsmusikkammer (national department of music) responded by forming communal working groups to continue crafting violins. The effort was in vain, however, as the onset of the Second World War derailed all hopes of maintaining a viable violin industry.252 In Schönbach, the war’s end and subsequent expulsion was especially abrupt, as the Musikwinkel (music corner) had remained relatively sheltered from the war until the Americans arrived in May 1945. At this time, Schönbach sat just 11.5 km west of the “line of contact” between American and Soviet occupied territory. It was apparent that for the second time in six years, life was about to change drastically for the Sudetens. This was made evident by the presence of newly freed slave labourers and prisoners crossing back through Czechoslovakia on their way home from Germany. Within mere months of the war’s end, Sudetens went from allies of the German occupation to outlaws in their own Heimat. The violinmakers of Schönbach lost the right to their property in many cases after the nationalization law of October 24, 1945, as Czech government-appointed managers moved in to appropriate businesses, farms and workshops. Many Germans continued to work under these Czech managers as common labourers in their own businesses until the deportation of all Schönbachers in January 1946. Notified of their imminent expulsion by a poster and usually given mere hours to prepare, villagers arrived at transit camps with their restricted (50kg) luggage, and were searched.253 All belongings not fitting the 50kg bag restrictions remained behind and were promptly appropriated by Czechs.254 The Schönbach violinmakers left their 252 History of Mittenwald Violin Making http://www.matthias-klotz.de/siteseng/2-0/2-0geigenbaueng.html 253 "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHStA, MK, Box 63234, File 696-699. This is taken from a history of the Schönbach violin makers, compiled after their resettlement in Bubenreuth. 254 For more on what became of Schönbach and other communities after the war, see following chapters.   95  Heimat in ten “shipments” bound for Germany. It was the beginning of the reconstruction of their identity in a new context and the beginning of their contribution to the new West German identity. Fortunately, the experience of such an abrupt expulsion gave the expellees a crash course in adaptation and flexibility, schooling them in the art of surviving the shifting tides of circumstance. The first obstacle that challenged the expellees’ adaptability was the scattering of their communities across the four zones of occupation, which prevented them from migrating between zones once they had arrived in Germany. A directive was issued from the headquarters of USFET (U.S. Forces, European Theater) to the Western District office of OMGUS, Bavaria on October 18, 1945 titled: “Interzonal Exchange of German Refugees and German ‘Expellees.’” It was agreed that those wishing to migrate to another zone (usually in search of labour or reunion with family members), would be exchanged on a “head-for-head” basis with “like categories” from that zone.255 Here the importance of the nominal roll collected during the expulsion came into play, as it designated expellees by name, age, sex, nationality, place of residence and occupation. These categorizations would ensure that “like” expellees were exchanged, resulting in an even distribution of unskilled or unemployed dependents. Upon “receipt” of the expellees in Bavaria, the U.S. Military Government—in cooperation with German representatives—set to work documenting, transferring and housing each “shipment.” From OMGUS’ perspective, the task of resettlement was essential to the larger goal of building a peaceful democracy in Germany. Part of that task was the transformation of dissatisfied and possibly hostile expellees into law-abiding, economically productive citizens. To facilitate this, expellees were to receive public assistance equal to the standards enjoyed by 255 Correspondence between OMGUS directors. Subject: Interzonal Exchange of German Refugees and German "Expellees," 18 October 1945, RG 260, NARA, Box 50, File 1.   96  Einheimische, including welfare, job placement, and institutional care if necessary. Walter J. Muller, Brigadier General, U.S. Director added in his directive to personnel: “You will make certain that no discrimination as to the extent of assistance is practiced, and that no person belonging to [ex-enemy national] groups is excluded from obtaining help for that reason alone. It will be your responsibility to insure that the contents of this directive are distributed to the agencies affected at every administrative level of Bavaria.”256 The above directives were issued ahead of the arrival of major transports of Sudeten Germans (beginning January 1946) and thus reveal something of OMGUS’ forethought. It was clear that though certain aspects of resettlement could be anticipated and safeguarded through policy, in the end the enactment of these policies was dependent on both Einheimische-American and Einheimische-expellee cooperation. Cooperation could not be fostered through government policies intent on equality alone, as tensions often had deeper roots. Employment was the arena that perhaps caused the greatest tension between groups in postwar West Germany. Survival was linked to one’s ability to work—denoted in the paperwork accompanying each expellee—with preferential treatment given to the most skilled. For OMGUS, difficulties arose when matching available work to the appropriate labour force, taking into account the larger issue of a lack of infrastructure (bombed out factories and factories that had been converted for munitions production). Much of the work available at the time was farm labour or as replacements for forced labourers in larger manufacturing industries. The initial image of the expellee upon their arrival in 1945 was one of employment misfits, either sickly dependents and/or a highly skilled workforce that refused to accept work beneath their status.257 The Einheimische expected to simply exchange expellees and refugees for the departing forced 256 Ibid. 257 OMGUS "Historical Report," April 1946, RG 260, NARA, Box 260, File 6.   97  labourers.258 In the end, the expellees proved to be the solution to West Germany’s economic woes, rather than the problem (as the Einheimische and the international community had predicted). As Kossert argues, the economic miracle was facilitated by an expellee willingness to move out of the victimhood role and adapt their work to the situation at hand.259 While the Bavarian authorities appreciated the influx of labourers, they quickly realized the added potential of artisan expellees and worked to settle them in regions where they could act as catalysts for renewal and growth.260 Early on, the U.S. War Department produced a Basic Handbook for Military Government of Germany, which stipulated the priorities of the occupation forces, including the conversion of industrial plants from military to consumer production and the resurrection of foreign trade. In order to offset the food shortages of the initial postwar period, it was imperative to produce consumer exports.261 The authorities recognized the Schönbach violinmakers as a distinct community that could fill an economic niche. However, the problem of settling them as a cohesive community proved more difficult than expected. After the expulsion, many of the Sudeten craftspeople were able to maintain a sense of community and identity through their craft, yet this strong occupational identification made their assimilation into the social fabric of their new Heimat more difficult. In an editorial written for the U.S. Military Weekly Information Bulletin entitled, “Saga of an Expellee,” the author discussed a trend in which many craftspeople refused to take unskilled work, noting: “a shoemaker from Freudenthal, had the foresight to bring a considerable quantity of leather in his baggage, and was already hard at work at his old trade.” Others he reported, “had refused—at 258 Kossert, Kalte Heimat, 79. 259Ibid., 14. The story handed down is that of the Einheimische who, inundated by the flood of refugees, supposedly singlehandedly achieved the integration of the homeless. 260 Moeller, War Stories, 48; Bouman et. al., Refugee Problem, 27-29; Michael Balfour, Germany: The Tides of Power (New York: Routledge, 1992), 110-111. 261 Olick, In the House of the Hangman, 73. See also Harris and Wülker, “The Refugee Problem,” and Bouman et. al., Refugee Problem.   98  least, two of them had refused—other work and we heard that they were endeavouring to arrange to move to where some expellees were employed in a glass factory, working with tools that they had brought from the homelands.”262 Published in May 1947, the editorial is evidence of the slow and often haphazard development of postwar craft in general and the importance of community networks and tools, in particular. Expellees would often hold out for an opportunity to settle among former co-workers and neighbours, using what tools and makeshift materials were available to them to survive until that time came. The notification of expulsion issued to the Sudetens in 1945 permitted each family to take 50kg of luggage, enough allowance for “all his personal belongings and necessities of life, including the tools necessary for his trade or profession.”263 Those who had access to their own materials and tools and happened to include them in the ration were better equipped to cope with the limitations of employment under OMGUS. If one should refuse to abide by the limitations and the employment opportunities available, their next recourse was “endeavouring to arrange to move,” language that suggests that the process was ongoing and perhaps difficult to navigate. The “Saga” also prompts new questions about the relationship between material culture and forced migration. In this case the object was a tool, an item with purpose and utility. In many ways the tools of one’s trade may have served as a reminder of what was lost in the expulsion, signifiers of the expellee’s own utility and worth, and perhaps a necessary balm against the helplessness of living under U.S. occupation and Einheimische scrutiny. While local producers had better access to workshops full of tools, expellee producers were forced to relinquish most of the material culture that would signify “workshop” and “home.” In that sense, the objects of an 262 "Refugees and Expellees," OMGUS WIB, No. 94, May 1947, 4-6. I will follow up with the glass workers and discuss the development of expellee exclusive communities in the following chapter, detailing how and why they reunited with their previous craft network. 263 "Sudetens to be Equipped before being Expelled," OMGUS WIB, No. 50, July 1946, 23.   99  expellee’s material culture (finished violins, patterns, raw materials) were absent, and yet the past and the future of those objects remained very real in the expellee’s imagination. In refusing to take on “other work” the expellee in the “Saga” demonstrated that he was still emotionally and psychologically tied to both the “homeland” of his past and the promise of a future in which the tools in his 50kg baggage would become useful again.264 In this case, the tool in one’s baggage could act as a signifier for home, personal creative expression, and future aspirations for oneself and one’s family. The glassmaker in the “Saga” may have packed a blowpipe (though perhaps too large), a wooden block or jack (bladed tool) for shaping, a pair of tweezers for manipulating the hot glass, or a pontil (metal rod to hold one end of the object while the maker shapes the other end). The violinmakers may have brought their chisels, a gouge (a curved chisel used to carve the violin, especially the scroll), files and plane irons. However, the ability to bring one’s tools was likely of little consolation, considering all of the objects that had been left behind in homes and workshops (including finished or semi-finished violins). Left behind, these objects played a similar role to those that came along, though symbolic rather than material. Historian of material culture Leora Auslander has found that “absent, stolen things became a means for reimagining a place in the future.” 265 It seems that absent objects may be of particular significance in the case of forced migrants, not only because many possessions are left behind or lost, but because their thoughts (creative and otherwise) may be primarily driven by a sense of striving to return home or to regain something of the life that was lost.266 So I argue that while the tools in their 50kg pack would tangibly aid in the expellees’ future prosperity, the ambition to keep moving forward 264 "Zwei Siedlungshäuser in Wald-Kraiburg Wergeben" (newspaper article), 28 November 1949, BayStA LaFlue, Box 1454, File 586. See also Lindner, Waldkraiburg. 265 Auslander, et. al., “Historians and Material Culture,” 1372. 266 Brenda Melendy, “Expellees on Strike: Competing Victimization Discourses and the Dachau Refugee Camp Protest Movement, 1948-1949,” German Studies Review, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Feb. 2005), 108-116.   100  may have been fueled by thoughts of the objects they had involuntarily left behind. There was likely a strong drive to replace the finished and semi-finished objects they had lost to the new occupants of their former workshops. In effect, the expellees still had the “tools” they needed to overcome the painful losses of the recent past in the form of their drive, skill, knowledge and creative imaginations. In 1946, the village of Mittenwald was experiencing a glut of both DPs (Displaced Persons) and OMGUS personnel, filling all available accommodation and virtually choking the once vibrant tourism industry.267 From the perspective of the Mittenwalders, the arrival of the expellees was an unfair additional burden. Mayor of Garmisch-Partenkirchen (centre of the Landkreis which also included Oberammergau and Mittenwald), Georg Schütte along with the hotel and small business owners were in favour of setting aside rooms for tourists at the expense of the expellees. Though he had many local supporters, an opposing group led by Landrat Dr. Kessler, believed that the refugee population was there to stay and argued that the only solution was to encourage shornsteinlose (chimneyless) handcraft industries. The premise was that these industries (glove making, leather working and woodworking) would not interrupt the picturesque landscape or the recreational activities that had made the area famous. Dr. Kessler initially saw the settlement of expellee violinmakers as fitting nicely with his rejuvenation plan, fostering additional resentment among local business owners and dependents of the tourism trade.268 On November 18, 1946 the Public Safety Officer inspected random houses in the communities of Linderhof, Oberammergau, Unterammergau, Mittenwald and Erün to determine 267 “Military Government Annual Report- Manpower and Housing," 30 June 1946, RG 260, NARA, Box 373, File 5. “Most hotels and many houses are occupied by Garmisch Recreation Center and other American units of Allied organizations. The former inhabitants of these requisitioned houses together with refugees and evacuees are crowding every available room of this Landkreis. Thus, the most important sources of income for this Landkreis has stopped.” 268 Ibid. The district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen is known for skiing, hiking and other outdoor activities and played host to the 1936 Winter Olympics.   101  the number and quality of rooms occupied. The findings revealed that refugees were living in unsatisfactory conditions without sufficient heat or cooking facilities, while homeowners enjoyed plenty of space and furnishings. The Landrat and Refugee Commissioners brought the officer’s findings to a meeting of all Bürgermeisters and housing officials on November 27th, 1946, at which a plan was set in motion to organize a general plan for the permanent housing of refugees including stove construction for cooking to “do away with continuous clashes in kitchens between Bavarians and refugees. It would make the refugee family independent and more content.”269 In neighbouring Oberammergau the town council went so far as to ask OMGUS to reduce the number of houses and hotels that could be requisitioned by Army personnel, to cut off the flow of displaced persons and to consider removing surplus population to another community.270 While local governments clearly attempted to fulfill the promise of equal rights for both locals and newcomers, many residents felt that they had already sacrificed the character and demography of their towns. In March 1946, UNRRA adopted the refugee camp at Mittenwald and by June of that same year the permanent population had reached 2500 (along with 3500 transient residents), representing 43 nationalities.271 Moreover, as refugees and evacuees were repatriated, other groups looking for work with the U.S. Military began to replace them.272 The town of Garmisch was becoming a full-blown ex-pat community, complete with entertainment, shops, restaurants and recreational facilities. This trend affected housing in Mittenwald and other communities neighbouring Garmisch. When the nearly 5000 expellees who had settled in the Garmisch- 269 Ibid., File 11. 270 Ibid., File 7. 271 Ibid., File 11. 272 Ibid.,"Most of these newcomers found this a good place to settle and expect to stay on in this Landkries indefinitely...With the arrival of the US forces, all of the hotels of the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen were taken over by the troops as well as many of the hotels at other locations in this Landkreis...a Military Community is being established at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, requiring the further requisitioning of housing space."   102  Partenkirchen county from December 1945 to June 1946, were later joined by separated family members and others looking for work, the district had no choice but to post strict orders that all migration into the county was “prohibited and that illegal billeting would be punished by heavy fines.”273 Though one could argue that the practical realities in many ways justified local resentments, with the proposed plan to settle expellee violinmakers in Mittenwald, a more complex power struggle arose. The plan upset the Mittenwalders’ very tightly held notion of “tradition” and the role of the artisan in the local and national community. In the early years of the resettlement in 1946 and 1947, the Regierungskommissare (government commissioners) and the Flüchtlingskommissare (refugee commissioners) of each county began coordinating a plan of action for the resettlement of the Schönbach violinmakers. It was becoming clear to OMGUS and German civil authorities alike that the problem of expellee employment would only be solved with the development of industrial facilities and workshops similar to those they had left behind in the Sudetenland.274 This dovetailed with the plans of central authorities in Munich who circulated a report to all government commissioners on November 13, 1946 announcing that in an agreement between the Bavarian State Ministry of Economy and the Land Use Planning Authority, they had reached a plan to develop the Sudeten-German export industry in Bavaria by settling these skilled workers in “particular districts.” The agreement included a tentative plan to settle the Schönbacher violinmakers in the administrative district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, “to strengthen the 100-year-old production of violins in Mittenwald.” Moreover, they planned to carry out an exchange of skilled workers with other 273 Ibid. “A large number of additional expellees arrived in this Landkreis in search of work and was employed to some extent by Garmisch Recreational Center on the various construction and repair jobs, as also in domestic positions.” 274 Ibid.   103  districts, stipulating that, “the installation of such professional forces has to occur not all at once, but intermittently, in groups of 20 to 30 persons, to avoid buildups.”275 Mittenwald seemed a clear choice for resettlement, with its “100-year-old production of violins.” Both the Bavarian State Ministry of the Economy and the Land Use Planning Authority approached the resettlement task with their own initiatives in mind, to regenerate export industries by matching skilled workers to available settlement locales. In their estimation it was plausible that because some infrastructure and market demand already existed in Mittenwald the influx of more violin producers would only serve to “strengthen” the industry. From an administrative perspective (that of both OMGUS and the Bavarian Land government), it would have been more cost-effective to develop a pre-existing industry.276 Moreover, by “exchanging” those skilled in the violin trade for un-skilled (or otherwise skilled) labourers flooding into the Garmisch district (where Mittenwald resides) with another district, they could free up housing space and foster a more efficient local economy. However, by the fall of 1948 a heated debate had emerged between the local violinmakers and the Schönbach makers newly settled in Mittenwald. By then, local Germans and government officials alike had come to label the Schönbach violin as a cheap export product of lower quality than that produced by the Mittenwald masters. The Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Munich issued a report on January 19, 1947 arguing that the decision to settle in Mittenwald was reasonable due to the village’s longstanding tradition in the industry. However, it also expressed concerns that the influx of cheap Sudeten-German violins could lower prices 275 BayHStA LaFlue 1657, 13 November 1946. “Entwurf für ein Rundschreiben an die Herren Regierungskommissare: Aufbau der sudetendeutschen Exportindustrie.” 276 Harris and Wülker, “The Refugee Problem,” 20-21. "Employment opportunities can be developed more rapidly by the expansion of present industrial centers than by the creation of new industrial points.”   104  and threaten the future sale of high-quality Mittenwald violins.277 Fears of economic crisis were predicated on the experiences of the depression era market crash in which local masters were forced to take on agricultural work to supplement their incomes. In fact, because the American market for high quality, more expensive instruments had yet to rebound in the postwar era, Mittenwald masters continued to work in agriculture and accept modest repair work.278 There was no way to gauge when or if the demand for their product would re-emerge. In the end, the best that government officials could hope to achieve with the Mittenwald resettlement plan was an industry divided, with each community working independently and retaining their respective methods, cooperating only in matters of supply and marketing.279 Resentments grew and by October 1, 1949 a note was issued by the Landratsamt (District office) in Garmisch Partenkirchen to the seat of government in Munich: “It has been requested that the border crossing points and the Czech offices in Prague and offices located in the British Zone not bring any families of the Schönbach violinmakers into the Garmisch Partenkirchen district.”280 The doors to a mutually beneficial resettlement in Mittenwald were effectively closed. The identity of both Mittenwald and Schönbach violinmakers was built upon the craft of violin making as a culture of practice. The finished product was also itself a symbol. Because violins from each community were distinguishable to their makers and to the global network of violin dealers and musicians they held a great deal of meaning.281 In the case of the 277 Industrie und Handelskammer, 29 January 1947, BayHStA LaFlue 1660. “Ansiedlung von südetendeutschen Geigenmachern in Mittenwald.” 278 “Bei alten und neuen Meistern in Mittenwald: Die SZ besucht das 'Klingende Dorf' Tönendes Gebälk aus der Münchner Frauenkirche,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 24 December, 1948, BayHStA LaFLue 1660. 279 “Military Government Annual Report- Manpower and Housing," 30 June 1946, RG 260, NARA, Box 373, File 11. 280 Correspondence from the country office of Garmisch-Partenkirchen to the Bavarian government, Subject: Settlement of Schönbach violin makers, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 484-485. 281 Gill, The Book of the Violin, 25-26. To the discerning eye of the violin maker or to those involved in global violin culture, violins produced in different communities can be distinguished by the woods used, the shape of the body, the tonal quality or the hue of the varnish. From such characteristics one can trace the tradition in which   105  Schönbachers and Mittenwalders, the meanings diverged, as the very practices and symbols that distinguished the two cultures continued to set the two communities at odds. There were multiple fears associated with the settlement, including local sustainability. Because the Schönbach masters employed a method that included large batches and the use of machines, they required a greater source of raw materials. In an article titled “The Old and New Masters in Mittenwald,” published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on December 24, 1948, the author reports that local masters complained bitterly of the Schönbach masters’ exploitation of the local supply of timber, a resource which the Mittenwalders had taken great care to manage.282 The village woodlands were vital not only as an economic resource in the violin trade and a feature of the local landscape marketed to tourists but also as a defining characteristic of the cultural landscape of the Mittenwald Heimat. In a March 1949 issue, the Military Bulletin reported that Mittenwalders “feel that the newcomers are poaching on preserves that have been exclusively theirs for centuries.”283 The author’s use of the language of sustainability and resource management, i.e. “poaching” and “preserves,” gestures at the larger, long-term consequences of resettlement and the postwar occupation. Since 1947, OMGUS had been fielding complaints and protests from West Germans regarding the military's use of forests for construction projects. American occupation authorities justified the use of forests by citing plans to balance it out with the export market in handcrafted wooden goods.284 Moreover, the author’s choice of such a the violin was crafted (the Cremona, Italy tradition made famous by Stradivarius is just one), its geographic origin, and its value. 282 Gill, The Book of the Violin, 25-26; Helena Waddy Lepovitz, “The Industrialization of Popular Art in Bavaria,” Past & Present, No. 99. (May, 1983): 89-90. 283 "Conservation in German Forests," OMGUS WIB, No. 103, July 1947, 4. 284 Ibid. “The forests of Germany, greatly loved by the German people, recently have become the subject of an emotionally-confused protective campaign…It is to the interest of Military Government that the German forests be managed in an efficient, non-destructive manner. Forest products must continue to support the military occupation and at the same time contribute the maximum to the German economy...While the present cutting program dips into the reserves of old timber, it does not endanger the forests. While a large part of the lumber released to the German economy is needed for reconstruction purposes, a considerable amount goes into the   106  fraught and often illicit word as “poaching” reflects the severity of the postwar situation through the local eye and the vulnerability of not only local resources but the “traditions” of that particular Heimat. Both local and expellee groups spoke with pride, each believing that their cultures were under threat and voicing their concerns to the media and the government. By referring to the Schönbach violins as inferior instruments, the Mittenwald masters insulted the very symbol at the heart of the Schönbach culture. On December 28, 1948, just four days after the Süddeutsche Zeitung published a scathing article, the recently formed Cooperative of Schönbach violinmakers of Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Produktivgenossenschaft der ehemaligen Schönbacher Musikinstrumentenerzeuger Garmisch-Partenkirchen) issued an official response. The cooperative addressed two points: the notion that Schönbach violins were inferior to those of the Mittenwald masters, and the fear that the inclusion of Schönbach masters in the village of Mittenwald would be detrimental and potentially lethal to the traditional industry of the village.285 The Schönbach cooperative argued that the Mittenwalders’ concerns demonstrated weakness and insecurity in the face of competition and that their claim to superiority rested merely on the fact that they spent 200 hours as opposed to the Schönbacher’s 120 hours on each violin. In response, the cooperative challenged the Mittenwalders to compare two violins both woodworking industry...Items such as furniture, manufactured, joinery, domestic wooden articles, mouldings, picture frames, bobbins, barrels, musical instruments, coffins, pre-fabricated houses, and all kinds of technical articles made of wood, are planned for manufacture with a total production value of more than RM 700 million. It is expected to make available approximately 12 percent of this total production for export.” Local Germans used the forest sustainability issue to protest Military Government. In this passage we see OMGUS defending itself by touting their promotion of German handcraft. 285 “Bei alten und neuen Meistern in Mittenwald: Die SZ besucht das 'Klingende Dorf' Tönendes Gebälk aus der Münchner Frauenkirche,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 24 December.1948, BayHStA LaFlue 1660. The cooperative was made up of 75 craftsmen from Schönbach who reunited after the expulsion. “Erwiderung zur Denkschrift der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Mittenwalder Geigenbauer in Mittenwald.” Produktivgenossenschaft der ehemaligen Schönbacher Musikinstrumentenerzeuger, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 28 December 1948, BayHStA LaFLue 1660.   107  made within 120-150 working hours and then allow “the real expert to deliver his fair judgment about which instrument is inferior or high-class.”286 The Schönbach cooperative confidently argued that their ability to produce a high quality violin while utilizing a more efficient method was a credit to their skill.287 The choices that each community had made in the era of modernization, for the respective betterment of their craft, were now becoming a point of contention. While the Mittenwald masters had benefited from tourism, Schönbachers had used the abundance of raw materials and new technologies available to them to create a burgeoning export industry.288 Because the Mittenwald masters decided to uphold what they deemed the more “traditional” method of crafting violins—for both economic and cultural reasons—it did not by extension mean that their product was superior to that of the Schönbach masters. The Mittenwalders were moralizing the issue in order to achieve market advantages. As Herzfeld notes, it is “meaningless...to separate the aesthetic or the technical from the moral: all are fused in a claim to value pure and simple.”289 The craft had remained central to the culture of both communities for centuries, regardless of divergent production methods. To value one method over another, therefore, seemed ludicrous to the Schönbach makers. The cooperative argued that the world’s perception of Mittenwald as the “traditional centre of violin making” should be dispelled, for the craft had similar origins in Schönbach, which proved that “one cannot use the word Tradition to create a special position for oneself.”290 286 “Erwiderung zur Denkschrift der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Mittenwalder Geigenbauer in Mittenwald.” Produktivgenossenschaft der ehemaligen Schönbacher Musikinstrumentenerzeuger, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 28 December 1948, BayHStA LaFlue 1660. 287 Ibid. 288 Fuchs, Die Standortverlagerung der sudetendeutschen Kleinmusikinstrumenten-Industrie, 45. 289 Herzfeld, Body Impolitic, 123-124. Moreover, “pride in technical reliability is indistinguishable from what we might regard as the separate issue of the aesthetic qualities of the objects produced.” 290 Schönbach violin makers' response to Mittenwald makers, BayHStA LaFlue Box 1676, File 448-454. “Erwiderung zur Denkschrift der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Mittenwalder Geigenbauer in Mittenwald.”   108  In a letter of response to the Mittenwald memorandum, addressed to the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, members of the Schönbach Cooperative argued that their workshops were older and that their brand had occupied a “special position in the stringed instrument industry.” Yet they were also careful to acknowledge the complex lineage of the craft admitting that, “no one in particular created the Tradition.”291 The letter addressed the issue of process as well, noting that, “just because the manufacturing has become more reliant on piece work does not mean that the violins themselves are of a lesser quality. Because most of the early violinmakers did their work one piece at a time anyway.”292 Here they defended their nineteenth century decision to modernize their industry, arguing that very little of the original quality and, by extension, original cultural significance of the craft was lost in the process. The Schönbachers used the letter to antagonize the Mittenwalders, referring to their arguments as “frivolous” and accusing the Mittenwalders of diminishing their competitors’ craft on the basis of “weakness and fear.” Moreover, the Schönbachers questioned the Mittenwalder’s position in the violin making industry, arguing that while they claim, “that violin making and tourism are their most important sources of income...then why today is violin making only a pastime in Mittenwald?” The letter then reiterated Schönbach claims to a longer tradition stating that in contrast to the Mittenwald pastime production, violin making boasted a 300-year history as Schönbach’s “main source of income,” and that all other work carried out in the village was directly supplementary to and supportive of the violin industry.293 In other words, that violin making was synonymous with the Schönbach community itself, thereby elevating the meaning of Produktivgenossenschaft der ehemaligen Schönbacher Musikinstrumentenerzeuger, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 28 December 1948, BayHStA LaFlue 1660. “[my translation] cooperative of the Schonbacher musical instrument producers, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 28. December 1948. 291 Ibid. 292 Ibid. 293 Ibid.   109  their craft beyond “pastime” and into the realm of “tradition.” The competition over “tradition” was made explicit in official statements and letters to government authorities, not just bandied about within each community circle but openly shared in public forums, proving the seriousness of the issue despite the often petty language of the dispute. Only with the integration of the two industries, the Schönbachers argued, could violin making become “the main source of income again” in Mittenwald. They concluded by reassuring all parties concerned with the resettlement, “we did not come as a grave digger of Mittenwald violin making, but as a guardian and promoter of violin making and thus instrument making as a whole.”294 On the surface the letter can be read as a plea for integration and cooperation, as proof of the Schönbacher’s willingness to cooperate with resettlement authorities and innocently defend their industry against unjustified attacks. However, the goading language of the Schönbachers seems deliberately antagonistic, and quite ineffective in terms of promoting peace between neighbours. Rather, by referring to Mittenwald craft as a pastime, by employing words like “weakness,” “fear,” “frivolous,” and by later asking “Do the Mittenwalders have an unhealthy fear of competition?”, the letter only served to heighten tensions.295 While the Schönbachers’ somewhat emotional response may seem like a natural consequence of the Mittenwalders’ exclusionary rhetoric, perhaps there was more to it. By referring to their “fear of competition” as “unhealthy” they were revealing the detrimental consequences that Mittenwald’s continued exclusions would have for the violin industry and the overall economy. Indeed, it seems that the Schönbachers’ language was intended not only to provoke their competitors but to arouse the sympathy of resettlement authorities. The Schönbach violin makers' cooperative was sending a message, namely, “We are 294 Ibid. 295 Ibid.   110  here and we are here to stay and we are going to continue making violins.”296 In effect they were signaling to the Bavarian and occupation governments that the problem was not going away and that, should the authorities side with the Schönbachers and aid them in their cause, the economy and the reconstruction project as a whole would benefit. The very phrase “no one in particular created the Tradition” illustrates my larger argument, in that not only are traditions invented but they cannot be traced back to any one point of origin in particular. Though there are inventors and birthplaces of invention, the path from an initial idea to a “tradition” is one shared and shaped by many over time. In the end what is deemed “traditional” in any given society is the direct result of power shifts. In the case of the Schönbachers and Mittenwalders the manipulation of “tradition” for economic, social and perhaps even political gain is quite evident. Both communities stood to gain from U.S. patronage in the form of consumption and aid. Often, as Herzfeld reminds us, power comes attached to a moral in which “traditions” are upheld as touchstones. For the Schönbachers, “tradition” was a touchstone to their past and was very valuable as such in that their claims to a 300-year-old “tradition” could be easily parlayed into tangible resettlement benefits in the form of housing and loans. While both communities placed importance on maintaining their culture and sense of identity from within, they were also concerned with how they were perceived by those outside the community. The letter implores its government audience for support in this image-making endeavour: “[W]e ask the public to not give credence to an opinion that would be fundamentally wrong. Also, to understand that the quality of the Schönbach instruments would in no way degrade the Mittenwald Association.”297 For centuries, both communities built international 296 Ibid. 297 Ibid.   111  reputations among a network of instrument makers, musicians and instrument dealers. A violin purchased in Mittenwald carried a meaning distinct from that of Schönbach, harkening back to their respective centuries-old family “tradition.”298 Knowing the weight that the community name carried, Mittenwalders were concerned that, once settled, the “lesser-quality” violins of the Schönbachers would be sold under the same name as their own, tarnishing their international reputation. To pre-emptively squash the fears of the Mittenwald masters, the Schönbach cooperative stated explicitly in their letter that they had no intention of benefiting financially from the Mittenwald name and that members of the cooperative would continue to use their own company names when selling their violins.299 Thus while the issues of maintaining forest management and the tourism industry were very real concerns for the Mittenwalders, the issue of cultural sustainability undergirded and complicated these concerns. If the Schönbach violinmakers moved in, what would Mittenwald stand for culturally, and in the eyes of international tourists and export buyers? Mittenwalders were not willing to wait for the answer. At the heart of the Mittenwald resettlement case was fear on both sides of the loss of Heimat. While the Schönbach makers longed for a return to their Bohemian Heimat, the Mittenwalders also held onto their “traditions” against perceived newcomer “poaching.” The Heimat represented a safe haven, a place to return to in turbulent times and regain a sense of what was lost.300 As well, Heimat was a place to build out from, a locale that represented the identity of a family, a craft business, and a nation to the outside world. The stakes were high for the Mittenwalders, who felt the need to uphold “tradition” as a shield against the feared loss of 298 Sandys, History of the Violin, 218, 245. 299 “Erwiderung zur Denkschrift der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Mittenwalder Geigenbauer in Mittenwald.” Produktivgenossenschaft der ehemaligen Schönbacher Musikinstrumentenerzeuger, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 28 December 1948, BayHStA LaFlue 1660. Usually companies used the master’s surname. 300 Hagen, Preservation, Tourism, and Nationalism, 11 who quotes Hermann Glaser: “If there is a German soul, then it nests in the small town, or even better: it returns with its longings and hopes, disappointments and frustrations again and again back to the nest.”   112  their own way of life. They resisted the adaptability they saw in the expellees, whose very arrival threw their “traditional” craft methods and their postcard-perfect Heimat into question.301 Though in 1947 it was still not clear where the Schönbach makers would settle, it was evident to government officials that it needed to be a place with some semblance of their former Heimat, a place to begin again. Landrat Hönekopp in particular stressed that if the violinmakers stayed in the Werdenfelser Land (Mittenwald area), “perhaps they could live in their present mode, but this is not essential and our aim must be to help the people further their industry again to make it the way it once was.”302 They would not have the capacity to develop their industry to their liking, under Mittenwald’s restrictive “chimneyless” policies, and ongoing municipal control. 2.4 Resettlement Solution With the very first arrivals of expellee violinmakers in 1945, the State Secretariat envisioned and began planning a special resettlement scheme. President of the Bavarian Senate, Dr. Josef Singer wrote that “[a]lready at that time however, it was recognized that a closed settlement was highly valuable, as piece work and specialty manufacturing is required in order to export. Thus arose the question of whether the concentration was advantageous in Werdenfelser or in the environment of Erlangen.” He believed that the craft was a better fit for Erlangen, as a balance to the existing electric, textile, and glove making industries, whereas in Mittenwald the makers would simply compete for housing while surviving through supplementary work in 301 Rainer Schulze argues that the expellees “corrupted” an isolated world, importing a different way of life, one that local Germans viewed as a “material and philosophical” threat to their own existence. Schulze, “Growing Discontent,” 345; Levy in Rock and Wolff, Coming Home to Germany, 26. 302 Meeting of the Schoenbacher Geigenbauer in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 10 January 1949, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 411-419.   113  tourism, agriculture and forestry.303 With these benefits in mind, the Bavarian State Ministry of Economy on October 31, 1945, commissioned Fred Wilfer, a renowned Schönbach violin maker, to establish, in consultation with the district of Erlangen (Dr. Hahn), the conditions for the central settlement of the industry in Erlangen. And on November 19, a meeting was held in the Gasthaus “Goldener Helm” in Erlangen between Hahn, a city representative, and the Handwerks and Handelskammer representatives in which a resolution was reached to block all non-Schönbach expellee transports to Erlangen, effectively reserving a space for the violin making community.304 Meanwhile in Mittenwald, residents were lobbying against the plan to settle violinmakers in their district. And yet, despite this information, the State Secretary for Refugees Mr. Müller was still convinced of the Mittenwald plan’s viability. By 1947 the government came under increasing pressure to resettle those still living in camps, adding to the urgency of resettlement decisions. Mr. Müller held a series of meetings in February and March, 1947 to address the issue. He met with Dr. Fernegg from the economics ministry and with Schönbach violinmakers living in transit camps in Erlangen. Thereafter he recommended the Mittenwald resettlement scheme, believing the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen could receive up to 2000 people.305 Even though a meeting was held on May 17, 1947 at which officials “expressed clearly that the local places of the Werdenfelser Land [Mittenwald] only reluctantly awaited an admission of the Schönbach experts and also rejected the allocation of land strictly for settlement purposes,” the initiative to appoint Mittenwald the 303 President Bavarian Senate, Herrn Josef Singer. Munich, 11 March 1949, Subject: Entry of the Association of the Mittenwald Geigenbauer, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 427-429. 304 "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHStA, MK, Box 63234, File 696-699. 305 Hönekopp, Denkshrift zum Wiederaufbau der Schönbacher Musikinstrumentenindustrie, 9. Meeting in Neustadt a.d. Aisch, Februrary 1947. Also stated in an act note dated February 3, 1947.   114  central point of resettlement moved forward.306 The Bavarian state government had made up their minds and wasted little time weighing their options. A mere ten days after the May 17th meeting, the head of the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen wrote a letter to the State Secretariat in Munich, arguing that unless a solution was found for the as of yet unemployed bombing campaign evacuees and other refugees already occupying the district, the violinmakers would not be accommodated. Recognizing that the plan was ill conceived they advised: “The violinmakers need workrooms and accommodation which would permit the conditions necessary for trade. To guarantee such accommodation, space must be created with foresight and in a well-planned manner.”307 In the end, the other government officials presiding over expellee resettlement blamed Dr. Fernegg and Mr. Müller for their “rash decision” in selecting Mittenwald as the central point for settlement.308 On June 13, 1947, Dr. Bukert suggested that the group already in Garmisch-Partenkirchen should remain while the larger group should be settled in the district of Erlangen. Mr. Müller of course, disagreed: “Whoever does not want to settle in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, should settle somewhere else, but not in Erlangen.”309 As the infighting continued, the problems in Mittenwald increased. Mr. Müller’s promise of adequate living space and industrial development had not come to fruition310 and eventually the government deemed the Mittenwald resettlement plan a failure.311 It was then that the space held-in-waiting for expellees in the Erlangen district was revisited in earnest. 306 Ibid., 10. The meeting was held in the District Office of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. 307 “Ansiedlung der sudetendeutschen Musikinstrumenten-Industrie (Schönbacher Geigenbauer) im Landkreis Garmisch-Partenkirchen.” Der Landrat des Kreises Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 27 May.1947, BayHStA LaFlue 1660. 308 Hönekopp, Denkshrift zum Wiederaufbau der Schönbacher Musikinstrumentenindustrie, 10. 309 Ibid., 11. 310 Ibid., 11. 311 “Bei alten und neuen Meistern in Mittenwald: Die SZ besucht das 'Klingende Dorf' Tönendes Gebälk aus der Münchner Frauenkirche,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 24 December 1948, BayHStA LaFlue 1660.   115  On January 10, 1949 a very large and official contingent including the Minister Director (Dr. Adam), the representative of the State Ministry for Refugees (Dr. Gawlik), Erlangen town planner and architect (Schmidt), State Ministers of the Economy (Dr. Ziegler, Herr Schiereich), Landrat Dr. Kessler and Landrat Hönekopp of Erlangen, hand craft Chamber president (Schmidt) and representatives of the violinmakers of Mittenwald and Erlangen, including Fred Wilfer (representing the expellee makers), met to discuss a permanent resolution. The very occurrence of the meeting demonstrates the vital role that expellee industries were thought to play in the larger reconstruction project. The minutes opened as follows: “[T]he theme of today’s meeting is the great question of conscience, whether the violinmakers can be settled and made to feel at home.”312 While the larger focus was on economic recovery and encouraging productivity through assimilation, this statement speaks to the fact that all in attendance also recognized the socio-cultural and psychological components of a successful resettlement. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the meeting was the attention paid to the needs of the expellee violinmakers themselves, denoting their potential value to the local economy. Dr. Adam carved out a space for the expellee voice early on asking, “1. How do the violin makers themselves view their resettlement,” following with, “2. Is the district of Erlangen ready to receive them and what conditions does it offer 3.What does the departure of violinmakers from Garmisch to Erlangen mean?” He praised the government for releasing former artillery barracks for the violinmakers yet acknowledged their continued plight.313 He was diplomatic in his approach to the meeting, sensitive to all sides and to the effect this second (or possibly third) migration would have on the migrants, and their towns of former and future reception. Finally, 312 Meeting of the Schoenbacher Geigenbauer in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 10 January 1949, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 411-419. 313 Ibid.   116  he questioned whether the violinmakers needed a central settlement or whether it was possible to build strong industries in both districts, effectively splitting the expellees into two groups. The expellee representative, violinmaker Fred Wilfer, had applied to the government for a central violin making settlement in Erlangen as early as 1945. At the meeting he continued this push for the central integration of the industry: The industry is like a train, where the gears must work in cooperation with one another...The specialists are sitting in different places, making it necessary to send individual components back and forth...Moderately pure fabrication is only exportable as a group if everyone works together...Fragmentation has an adverse effect. In a crisis, the violin makers in Erlangen would be much better off, because the precision engineering and optics industries (Siemens & Goschen) provide the region’s daily bread.314 Speaking as if for the future of all expellee violin makers in West Germany, Wilfer endorsed the idea of a closed settlement in which makers could work in close cooperation with one another, promoting and exporting a product that would live up to the Schönbach standard and international reputation. Exporter and violinmaker Josef Höfner agreed with Wilfer during the meeting, believing it absolutely necessary to centralize the industry.315 Those in attendance representing the Garmisch district and Mittenwald reassured officials that they had the best interests of the industry at heart. Speaking diplomatically, the Director of the Mittenwald Geigenbauschule (violin making school), reminded the attendees of the differences in method between the two industries and defended Mittenwald makers, stating: “The einheimischen Geigenbauer were not against the Schönbachers, but they would have to value Schönbach products as Mittenwald products to export them out of the country.”316 In other words, expellee makers would have to give up their labels (brand names), forfeiting the very 314 Ibid. “Die Industrie ist wie ein Räderwerk, wo Zahn um Zahn ineinander laufen muss.” 315 Josef Höfner, was one of the sons of Karl Höfner who founded his musical instrument making company in 1887 in Schönbach. 316 Meeting of the Schoenbacher Geigenbauer in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 10 January 1949, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 411-419.   117  mark of their “tradition” as they saw it. As we learned earlier, neither group of makers was willing to stake their reputation on the products of another community, each believing the other’s to be of lesser quality or lesser distinction. Bürgermeister (Mayor) of Mittenwald, Ferkl was also diplomatic but more gracious, speaking out against another forced migration, arguing that “the reunion of violin makers should be a voluntary action,” and that “although the dominant industry of Mittenwald is tourism, we have no right to push violin makers back and forth like merchandise.”317 Calling for the treatment of expellees as human beings he drew the focus away from policy and towards community “reunion.” His message was one of mutual benefit for both communities, as a voluntary reunion of expellees in Erlangen would free up space in Mittenwald for tourists. The reasoned responses of the Mittenwald supporters were likely due to the formal context in which they spoke, and the presence of the violin makers themselves. However, it is obvious that resentments still lingered in 1949. Moreover, those making speeches were likely aware of the rarity of having the full attention of government officials, especially officials who were anxious to reach a resolution that would benefit both parties. For this brief moment, the violinmakers were able to use the spotlight to lobby the government. They were no longer playing the victims or resorting to bickering over quality, but rather reminding authorities what the Bavarian economy as a whole stood to gain from building a new settlement in the Erlangen district. The government would, after all, be funding the project. The meeting ended with a flourish of announcements as Landrat of Erlangen, Hönekopp took centre stage. He first assured those in attendance that “by now we have realized that the violin makers are completely apolitical,” and as such there was no danger in settling the expellees as a group. Moreover, by settling them in Erlangen, the government could effectively 317 Ibid.   118  relieve Garmisch’s tourist industry from the pressure of housing and employing the expellees. Next, Hönekopp admitted that the settlement in Mittenwald was a mistake, expressing his “regrets that this decisive point was not reached earlier.” Finally, he called for government support in the form of housing and loans and the following was resolved unanimously: The District Erlangen is building a settlement for the purpose of the central settlement of the Schönbach violin makers and is willing to accept makers from other counties without requiring a relocation (head swap). Requirement for the additional intake of Schönbach musical instrument producers is the commitment of the State government to fund the settlement and is carried out with the assurance that the District of Erlangen will receive no refugees, other than the assigned violin makers.318 References to the apolitical nature of the decision and of the expellees themselves demonstrates just how far occupation and government policies had come since 1945, a time when expellee communities were deliberately dispersed so as to avoid political radicalism. Fears of political power in numbers had also contributed to Einheimische hostility towards expellees when they first arrived. Perhaps another worthwhile vein of study would be the influence of OMGUS and government policy on the attitudes of the Einheimische in regards to newcomers. It seems that the postwar context obfuscated many solutions that seemed logical in hindsight. As Hönekopp lamented, he regretted that the “decisive point was not reached earlier.” Perhaps if it had been the expellees could have returned to private home and community life and industrial productivity much earlier, even though as Schütte noted after four years they “now have very nice barracks” to live in.319 In 1949 when the government presented the plan to move the group from Mittenwald to the area surrounding Erlangen, one violin maker noted that of the 126 members of the Schönbach 318 Ibid. The Hebel company had firmly pledged to provide materials and a building plan for about 300 apartments to house the violin makers. If the financial situation is clarified, more than 100 apartments could be built this year. Land is available to settle 2000 people decently. 319 Ibid.   119  cooperative of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 84 expressed their support for the new resolution in writing.320 For many, the opportunity to reunite with former neighbours and colleagues in a newly developed group settlement provided the incentive necessary to undergo yet another migration. Though some masters became independent, remaining in Mittenwald and working alongside local masters there, the majority waited patiently for their opportunity to leave the tense atmosphere in Mittenwald behind and unite as a community in one settlement. A site near Bubenreuth was chosen, in large part because of their far-sighted mayor, Hans Paul who found the available land. On October 5, 1949 they started construction using the new pre-fabrication method. The total cost was estimated at 370 000 DM, 200 000 DM of which was given in credit by the Bavarian government. The St. Joseph Stiftung of the Archdiose of Bamberg was commissioned as the developer, contributing 80 000 DM to the project. The ground breaking ceremony was held on October 20, 1949 for the first house and in 1950 the first violin makers moved into the first phase of 50 apartments. In ensuing phases another 334 homes were built so that by 1953 there were already 384 homes. By January 1959 there were 473 homes with 1638 residents.321 The most appealing solution to the problem of integration for the Schönbach violinmakers was a return to exclusivity, a move that would facilitate the renewal of their local, pre-expulsion culture. If they could not return to their Heimat in the Sudetenland, they would develop a place that resembled what they had in Schönbach as closely as possible, in many ways skirting total assimilation. This sense of exclusivity and ownership of the new settlement is obvious in the following photographs in which the land around the site appears vacant and open to interpretation. As well, 320 Ibid., 15. 321 "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHStA, MK, Box 63234, 696-699; Report on the new Schönbach settlement, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 496. Fuchs, Die Standortverlagerung der sudetendeutschen Kleinmusikinstrumenten-Industrie, 45, 77, 101.   120  the sign privileges the craft, displaying a large image of a violin and demarcating it as an expellee settlement with the Schönbach name placed above and more pronounced than that of “Bubenreuth”. Though the town of Bubenreuth had enjoyed a rich agricultural existence since around 1243, its nearby land was in a sense reclaimed in 1949 by this resettlement. Such an appropriation of land and a re-branding of the town itself would have been a grave affront to the residents of Mittenwald, and yet the residents of Bubenreuth did not seem to react negatively. The policy makers present at the January meeting emphasized the need for a new and vibrant industry in the area to kick-start the economy. During the transition period, homeowners in Erlangen received 100 DM per child less than 14 years old and 50 DM per adult in resettlement grants, sweetening the deal.322 Such incentives, while perhaps unrealistic in the sought-after and expensive Garmisch region, were more plausible in the context of Erlangen. Rather than a burden, the arrival of skilled expellees in Bubenreuth was treated as a cause for celebration. 322 Report on Schönbach violin makers, BayHSAt, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 487.   121   2.  Photographs of the Bubenreuth settlement site under construction (left) and the ground-breaking ceremony (right)  323   In honour of their new Heimat in Bubenreuth, the ground breaking ceremony included a speech on the “Wissenschaft und Praxis im Musikinstrumentenbau” (Science and Practice of musical instrument making), followed by a concert performed by Schönbach musicians on instruments they had crafted.324 Though the government reached a settlement resolution for the Schönbachers, the challenges of resettlement and integration were far from over. The demand for loans and funding and the nagging desire to regain pre-expulsion living standards remained. The artisans who wished to maintain independence and rebuild their former home-based industries faced an uphill battle. They had no capital to purchase land and supplies and faced competition from local 323 Photograph of ground breaking ceremony and town stie, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 494; 499. Present at the ground breaking ceremony were state secretary Fischer of the construction authority of Bavaria and representatives of various ministries, the government president of Mittelfranken, Dr. Hans Schreigle and the representatives of the churches appeared. State secretary Fischer delivered the greetings of Bavarian minister president Dr. Ehard, as the protectorate of the Schönbach Geigenbauer settlement. 324 Invitation to the ground breaking ceremony, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 490-492.   122  producers for loans.325 Recognizing the continuing struggle of the expellees after resettlement, the government enacted legislation to cement their reconstruction goals. Upon the establishment of the Federal Republic in September 1949, the government immediately set up a federal Ministry for Expellees to work in conjunction with local officials.326 This followed the passing of the Immediate Aid Law (Soforthilfegesetz, SHG) in August 1949, which set aside funds for expellee and refugee housing and business grants.327 In any case, with the resolution to “desegregate” the Schönbach community by reuniting its members in new settlements in the Erlangen district,328 the government had come a long way toward reaching its goal of reviving export industry-focused communities and facilitating West Germany’s economic recovery. The romantic myth of artisans which stood at the beginning of the chapter seems to tether them to the past, yet the opposite was true in that the very nature of their chosen profession freed them to navigate the present. Both the Schönbach and Mittenwald makers endured massive changes within their industry and their lives. In adaptation to unemployment crises, global market pressures, technological advancements and political upheavals, the violin makers demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt to change. Some carried their tools during their expulsion, many wrote letters imploring government authorities, and others like Wilfer advocated publicly on behalf of all expellees and all worked in cooperation to overcome postwar impediments. If there was a romantic aura surrounding the expellee artisans it rested on this admirable ability to adapt their “tradition” to shifting contexts, not in their effort to hold onto the past. This display of resilience in the face of change was indeed romantic, but also modern. It 325 Bouman, et. al., Refugee Problem, 27; Julius Isaac, “Problems of Cultural Assimilation Arising from Population Transfers in Western Germany,” Population Studies: A Journal of Demography, Vol. 3, No.1. (1950): 35. 326 Harris and Wülker, “The Refugee Problem,” 18-23. 327 Levy in Rock and Wolff, Coming Home to Germany, 25. 328 Ibid., 14-15, 26.   123  was also evidence that forced migrants’ experiences of loss often foster a strong entrepreneurial drive that comes from a place of necessity. As the expellees reworked and mobilized “tradition” for financial and social gain, they began to personify the Berufsethos.329 They embodied the “Made in Germany” reputation for quality work, and even though they were newcomers to the state, were easily marketed as a prototype of the newly reconstructed and more economically prosperous country. As the expellees of new settlements in Bubenreuth, Waldkraiburg and Neugablonz chipped away at dismal bunkers and performed their skills for passing buyer tours, their ability to market themselves, adapt and overcome was evident. Though these enclave settlements would not replace their original Heimat, the communities of makers would endure. In a sense craft practices acted as the stabilizing element after the war, standing in for Heimat during the process of resettlement. Once new enclave settlements had been established, memories and relationships made in the former Heimat could be recreated, shared or revived. The self-help initiative required to attain this level of stability is discussed in what follows. 329 Campbell, Joy in Work, 8-10; Nolan, “Air Wars, Memory Wars,” 101. A sense of purpose or pride in one’s work.   124   Chapter Three Selbsthilfe: New Expellee Settlements, Buyer Tours and the Exportation of an Ideal “[the Czechs] could take everything but not what our parents carried in their heads.”330 3.  A man digs through the rubble to salvage a machine.  331   In the photo above, a man digs through rubble to retrieve a factory machine. Though the exact location and origin of the photo are unknown, similar scenes of reclaimed industrial and craft tools and objects colour postwar accounts. The image denotes a simple act of reclamation and yet, as I will demonstrate in this chapter, the act of rebuilding workshops from scrap 330 Lees, “Fractured Lives,” 209. Quoting respondents in her oral history study. 331 Photograph, origin and location unknown, RG 260, NARA, Box 76, File 2.   125  materials and machines came to mean much more than that. It connoted self-sufficiency, even a renewed sense of personal, local and national identity. Images such as this played into a much larger official reconstruction narrative in which adversity could be conquered through Selbsthilfe (self-help) and harnessed to develop Bavaria into “Germany’s Workshop.” In the late 1940s and early 1950s “Selbsthilfe” became the watchword for Sudeten expellee resettlement in Bavaria. As expellee craftspeople worked to rebuild their industries in makeshift and dilapidated spaces, the American occuption government, the Bavarian government and foreign export buyers elevated these entrepreneurs, conferring a special status upon them as exemplars of the postwar age. In staying true to their craft and exhibiting an “entrepreneurial spirit” undaunted by the challenges of the German postwar economy, I argue that these expellees played a key role in the rebranding of Germany as prosperous and prepared for export. The narrative of Selbsthilfe was easy to construct as expellees set to work soon after their arrival in Bavaria, transforming bunkers into homes and makeshift workshops. Examples of expellee ingenuity and perseverance were tangible and concrete. As exemplars of the “entrepreneurial spirit,” expellees also bestowed the consumer export goods they produced with extra-material meaning. The American and German personnel in charge of exporting craft goods put the characteristics of hard work and individual initiative on full display when coordinating visiting buyer tours. To market goods made by hand and with sub-par machines, scarce raw materials and in undesirable living conditions was to market individual resilience, initiative, and a strong work ethic, all characteristics synonymous with American ideals of self-reliance and with the brand of capitalism-on-the-make in the American Zone of occupation. U.S. officials went to great lengths to disseminate the narrative of Selbsthilfe in order to market German goods. In telling the story this way, U.S. bureaucrats and the press were   126  effectively garnering support and justification for spending American taxpayer dollars, in the form of ERP funds, on expellee industries. Historians Rudy Koshar, Frank Trommler and Elliot Shore argue that certain values were held in equally high regard in America and Germany, notably “order and cleanliness, industriousness, and a respect for craft and tradition.”332 The task for exporters in Germany and importers in America in the postwar period was to refocus American public opinion from Nazi crimes to the redeeming qualities of Germany for the sake of economic cooperation, global trade and political re-education. Moreover, the American occupiers harboured an underlying fear of the potential radicalization of such a large, unstable refugee group. In supporting “industriousness,” the American occupiers were attempting to prevent political unrest, an integration effort that is now lauded as one of the miracles of Germany’s postwar recovery.333 This dissertation reveals the tropes used to bolster the notion of a miraculous integration, industriousness being just one example. German government officials were also keen to bolster the Selbsthilfe narrative. The Bavarian Minister of Labour noted: “The enterprising spirit among refugees deserves full acknowledgment.”334 Indeed, by 1952, Sudeten Germans had established 55,000 handcraft shops and 8,000 small to mid-sized industrial enterprises, boosting the West German economy as a whole, while effectively reshaping the sleepy agricultural and tourist-driven economy of Bavaria into “Germany’s Workshop.”335 McLaren adds that this reshaping worked as a “modernizing force,” “disturbing,” “challenging” and “deprovincializing” the rural villages of Bavaria.336 332 Trommler and Shore, German-American Encounter, 119; Koshar, "Germany has been a Melting Pot," in Trommler and Shore, German-American Encounter, 160-166. 333 McLAren, “Out of the Huts,” 36-37; See also Bouman et. al., Refugee Problem. 334 OMGUS Bavaria Weekling Intelligence Report, 31 December 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 284, File 6. 335 "Where Freedom Begins," by Jakob Kaiser (Federal Minister for All-German Affairs), OMGUS WIB, No. 208, November 1952, 8. “Bavaria managed to draw 25 percent of the West German industrial expansion to her territory which is due partly to a very constructive economic promotion through the Bavarian government, and partly to the large number of Sudeten German industries represented there.” 336McLAren, “Out of the Huts,” 22.   127  Moreover, refugee officials in Munich sought to develop a network of refugee towns so as to keep refugees out of the cities, which were over capacity and under reconstruction.337 Though expellee industries had a substantial impact on the German economy, that impact was particularly strong in rural settings where expellee enclave settlements later became export hubs. This flips the usual script of postwar West Germany, taking the focus away from the mass consumer “modernizing force” of Americanization and granting Sudeten expellees agency as a “deprovincializing” force. Though craft industries were marketed as “traditional” they actually had a modernizing effect on the German economy. Through economic initiatives the focus shifted from wartime antagonism to cooperation, directly linking German-resident expellee producers with American consumers. The story of the entrepreneurial expellee gave a moral and universally palatable message to the material goods that they produced. Moreover, it had the potential to reinforce and rebrand the “Made in Germany” label as emblematic of Germany’s position on the global stage. Much like national identity, expellee allegiance to the entrepreneur prototype label or ideal was perhaps simply a matter of expedience for many, a story told to sell their wares. This chapter explores the various ways in which governments, producers and exporters used the entrepreneurial ideal to sell a new image of Bavaria, of Germany and of expellee integration. Though historians tend to focus on the story of heavy industry,338 the role of small-scale, craft industries in the postwar economy is more pertinent for the reconstruction of the “Made in Germany” label. Ultimately government support for skilled craft firms produced an exportable, 337 Adam Seipp, “Refugee Town: Germans, Americans, and the Uprooted in Rural West Germany, 1945-52,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 44, No. 675. (2009): 15. 338 Volker Berghahn, The Americanisation of West German Industry 1945-1973 (New York: Berg, 1986); Jonathan Wiesen, West German Industry and the Challenge of the Nazi Past, 1945-1955 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Ray Stokes. Divide and Prosper: The Heirs of I.G. Farben Under Allied Authority 1945-1951 (Berkeley: Hexagon Press, 2009); Henry B. Wend. Recovery and Restoration: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Politics of Reconstruction of West Germany’s Shipbuilding Industry, 1945-1955 (Westport: Praeger, 2001).   128  marketable postwar German image. When Ludwig Erhard became the director of the bi-zonal economic council in January 1948, his free market advocacy and support for individual “drive and personal initiative”339 created a friendly environment in which craftspeople could flourish, despite the hardships endured leading up to 1948 and the hardships that would follow after the Currency Reform that same year. Recognizing the value of expellee craftspeople in the overall economic project of reconstruction, local and occupation officials authorized the construction of expellee-exclusive settlements. This chapter highlights the communities of Waldkraiburg and Neugablonz because of the disproportionately large influx of expellees to both areas. As well, both communities saw Sudeten expellee craftspeople reclaim and retool former factories, taking landmarks of war and turning them into symbols of peaceful production. These settlements developed as sites of Selbsthilfe, in which expellee ingenuity, resilience and value to the West Germany reconstruction project were on display in the 1950s. Stefan Gruener refers to these glass makers as catalysts in Bavaria's reconstruciton.340 These towns now proudly display expellee products on museum shelves, the legacy of their story encased behind glass. Though the expellees contributed wares to the export economy, their greatest contribution was what they represented for the reconstruction of German identity. Many expellee craftspeople demonstrated agency through self-help initiatives early on in their resettlement. In turn, German and American government officials used these acts to market “Made in Germany” products to American and other foreign buyers. Expellee enclaves soon contributed to a larger reconstruction project that saw agricultural Bavaria reborn as a craft 339 Jarausch, After Hitler, 83. 340 Stefan Grüner, Geplantes Wirtschaftswunder? Industrie-und Strukturpolitik in Bayern, 1945-1973 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2009), 108.   129  export manufacturing hub. This process, I argue, meant that entrepreneurial enclaves ultimately came to play the role of incubators for a new, internationally marketable German ideal. Before products could be exported under a German label, political steps had to be taken to ensure a smooth flow of goods. The creation of a Bizone Agreement between the British and Americans, the creation of JEIA (Joint Export-Import Agency), and finally Marshall Plan aid facilitated the exchange of German exports.341 As export products became the focus, craftspeople recognized the value of their work for the future of West Germany. As early as November 1945 the President of the Upper Franconia Chamber of Industry and Commerce wrote a letter to the Economic Ministry, expressing concerns about the fate of handcraft industries in the course of American occupation and making a case for their promotion. First he gave his predictions for the resurgence of consumer goods demand and the rise of craft industry over that of industrial mass production. Next, he referred to the “centuries-old tradition” of craft throughout southern Germany, especially in Bavaria. Finally, he argued that the occupation government should “not only look at the economic side of this problem, but also the cultural side,” identifying the high- 341 "General Economic Objectives," OMGUS WIB, No. 102, July 1947, 9. On July 20, 1946 the Military Governor of the US Zone proposed a joint economic administration with any or all other zones in a Control Council meeting and on May 29, 1947 they agreed to the establishment of a bizonal Economic Council. See also Guradze, “The Landerrat,” 206-207. “Five central agencies were established on a bizonal basis, with offices scattered all over the territory of the two zones.... This proposal was accepted by the Military Governor of the British Zone on 30 July 1946 and on 9 August 1946 the two Deputy Military Governors established the outlines of a bizonal economic administration. On 2 December 1946 the respective governments formally entered into the Agreement for Economic Fusion of the US and UK Zones of Germany (also known as the Byrnes-Beven Agreement). See also "Bizonal Organizations," OMGUS WIB, No. 85, March 1947, 5. RG 260, NARA, Box 285, File 13. After the formation of the bizone, and JEIA, an import advisory committee was established to supervise imports. Exporters or manufacturers of exports were then required to apply to an Aussenhandelsbank (foreign trade bank) for an import license for machinery, spare parts, or maintenance supplies, not exceeding $3,000. The German Foreign Trade Clearing Offices acting under the supervision of JEIA would pay German manufacturers in Reichsmarks for the full value of their export shipments. JEIA release. Dated 28 Feb 1949; “Joint Export-Import Agency Foreign Trade Division Bavaria Office Memo Slip-Mr. Lord, Assist. Land Director," 25 May 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 281, File 12. The manufacturers would receive a payment on par with what they would have received had they sold their wares domestically. Importers of raw materials would also pay the Clearing Offices in Reichsmarks as if they had come from German mines, farmers, etc. The Clearing Offices under JEIA acted as middle-man thereby circumnavigating the problem of currency, exchange rate and price disparities between Germany and its trade partners. "Germany Key to European Recovery," OMGUS WIB, No. 112, September 1947, 10. See Also Grüner, Geplantes Wirtschaftwaunder?   130  quality, culturally or technically valuable exports and setting them apart from mass produced kitsch, regardless of demand for cheaper wares. To do so: It is necessary that the problem receives a centralized treatment. We want to approach the reconstruction of our Bavarian economy without crippling resignation, even if the difficulties often seem insurmountable. I am aware that cottage industries and handcrafts can indeed constitute a focused Bavarian business, at the very least they are an extremely valuable component for the development of new exports, which deserves special attention and shaping.342 In 1945, craftspeople were already demonstrating what Erhard later referred to as “drive and personal initiative.” These claims to overcome “insurmountable” difficulties to sustain a “centuries-old tradition” of craft were made quite early in the game, before the bizone, Marshall Plan aid, or JEIA. Though the letter served as an early declaration of the Selbsthilfe principle, it also acknowledged the need for government assistance in the form of a specially appointed Commissioner and the desire for a centralized approach to economic recovery. As much as the German craftspeople knew what they had to offer in terms of technical skill and cultural value, they were not so naive as to think they would achieve a full recovery solely of their own volition. At war’s end, the economy became a pawn in larger Allied ploys to punish Germany, to conclude the narrative of good versus evil and to bar against future conflicts, beginning with the harsh policies of the Morgenthau Plan or JCS (U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff) 1067 in 1944-45. The Plan operated under the premise that peace would only come to Europe once Germany had been pacified. President Roosevelt’s administration feared a “permanently aggressive” Germany, and preferred to strengthen their alliance with the Soviets in 1945.343 The plan, though first proposed by Henry Morgenthau in 1944, was solidified at Potsdam on August 2, 1945. It called for wide- 342 Correspondence of Mr State Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ehrhard. Munich. Bayreuth, 17 November 1945, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich, (MWi) Staatsministerium für Wirtschaft und Verkehr, Box 26020, File 610-612. 343 Y. Hugh Jo, “At the Helm of the Creation: The World System and Post-World War II US Military Occupation in Germany and Korea,” (PhD diss., State University of New York at Albany, 2007), 173-174.   131  scale dismantling of war industries (especially the heavy industries of the Ruhr region), and reparations paid in machines, resources and cash. The policy, if carried to its conclusion would have reduced Germany to an agricultural backwater.344 Though war prevention was its primary concern, it secondarily acted as a trust-busting policy, designed to rid Germany of its firmly entrenched system of cartels and the power of Nazi era big business.345 By rendering these powerful leaders submissive, OMGUS could begin implementing an idealized American brand of capitalism based on democracy, rather than centralized power. The Allied personnel working in postwar Germany, however, quickly recognized and acknowledged the complexities of their task. In particular, General Lucius Clay’s visit to devastated locales and his encounters with those suffering prompted a change in Allied policy. While he had little sympathy for the wealthy industrialist and even less for the former Nazi collaborationist, he was known for his ability to set aside these feelings in order to address the practical realities on the ground, to attend to the German people as human beings. Moreover he realized the best route to morally chastising the Germans lay not in starvation through economic deprivation but rather through re-education in the mores of American democracy.346 Clay’s observations relayed into a series of policy changes designed to give OMGUS personnel the tools to react and adapt to fluid situations on the ground. Officially, the Allies replaced the JCS 1067 policy with the more flexible JCS 1779 in July, 1947. Though they still prohibited arms and some chemical production and continued to exact reparations, the focus shifted to peaceful production and a revival of industrial export. The 344 Ermath, America, 5-10. “Early American occupation policy, as set down in JCS 1067, stipulated harsh conduct toward the German people, including nonfraternization between Germans and Americans, and unswerving implementation of what came to be called the ‘four D’s: denazification, demilitarization, decartelization, and democratization (decentralization was sometimes added as a fifth)." 345Wiesen, West German Industry, 43-44. He also argues that this policy served a dual prupose in that it also served as a warning to American trusts like DuPont, General Electric and Standard Oil that if they create powerful monopolies they too could fuel the flames of political terror, and face similar consequences. 346Volker Berghahn, Americanization, 65-91.   132  standard of living had fallen rapidly by 1946, giving the Allies little impetus to continue exacting industrial reparations.347 The irrationality of the Morgenthau Plan behind them, OMGUS sought to move forward by fostering an economy built on German strengths, i.e. skill-based, small-scale, highly specialized industries capable of exporting large quantities of quality goods. When the Allies arrived, their first order of business was to structure their Military Government, the next was to survey and repurpose industrial plants to meet basic needs under the Army Procurement Program.348 In December 1945 OMGUS created the Economics Division, an agency responsible for working out a scheme for the allocation of raw materials, the distribution of finished goods, and intra-and interzonal trade.349 The gravest concern at this time was the prevention of the return of cartels and centralized power. Each company was required to answer a questionnaire (similar to the Fragebogen for the Denazification program) under oath. Only after the answers were cross-referenced with other evidence filed under the Decartelization Branch, was the firm granted participation in the Import-Export program.350 The Trade and Commerce Branch was charged with checking prospective export consignees against lists of non-acceptable foreign buyers, checking trade marks and trade names to ensure that no goods produced by restricted firms reached export markets.351 Import advances were granted to those firms who passed the test, and were willing to exchange their export goods for raw imports. In 347 Jarausch, After Hitler, 82 “As if the cleanup in the factories had not been hard enough, ‘the chief problems only emerged when actual production was restarted,’ because the delivery of raw materials slowed and energy supplies remained unreliable…Thus despite much hard work, by 1946 industrial production had only reached 50 to 55 percent of its prewar level.” 348 Bavarian government policy report, RG260, NARA, Box 285, File 13. In August 1945, the first Economics Minister was appointed, with special responsibilities for the fulfillment of the Army Procurement Program. He used as his working staff the Landeswirtschaftsamt, with its various Landestellen 349 Ibid. The Economics Division included sub-branches; the Industry Branch, Trade and Commerce Branch, Food and Agriculture Branch and the Restitution Branch. It was founded at the same time as the Länderrat and its offices were located in Stuttgart. 350 Correspondence to Hans Ehard (Bavarian Minister President), 22 September 1948. Subject: Movement of Commodities from the Bizonal Area into the Soviet Zone of Germany, RG260, NARA, Box 1413, File 2. 351 Memorandum to: Chief, Trade & Commerce Branch, Economics Division. Subject: Decartelization Aspects of Export-Import Program. OMGUS List of Undesirable Consignees, 11 February 1947, RG260 NARA, Box 70, File 2.   133  effect the policy kick-started the manufacturing capacity of medium-sized, small and independent producers.352 OMGUS’ aim was to create a system that was easy and quick to implement, though in the end it was also admittedly cumbersome and bureaucratic. The next step in the process involved licensing each firm based on the economic necessity or demand for the product, the availability of raw materials and finished products, and the “professional ability” of the makers or manufacturers.353 The reputation of one’s firm was based on skill level and the speed with which one could begin producing results, criteria which became deciding factors in obtaining official recognition and export status. By 1946, OMGUS felt confident in the effectiveness of their decartelization measures and granted German officials control over licensing, and the allocation of raw materials and finished goods.354 With these policies in place, there was a sense of hope for the future of German manufacturing. However, there were still many obstacles to overcome. In 1945 and 1946, OMGUS operated under a “disease and unrest” formula in which they agreed to import food to maintain minimum subsistence. Even with these imports however, the brutal winter of 1946 took its toll, as Bavarians went hungry and industry suffered. The black market flourished in these conditions, spiraling out of control until the average worker’s wage “would buy less than two packages of cigarettes a month, or a quarter of a pound of butter.”355 It 352 Memorandum from C.R. Coleman, RG260, NARA, Box 70, File 2. 353 OMGUS policy report, RG260, NARA, Box 285, FIle 13. Licensing of businesses was exercised by the Land Economies Ministry in compliance with Military Government Regulation 13-120 and 13-121 which prohibit discriminatory business practices in Germany and which specifically provide that governmental functions shall not be exercised by private bodies. 354 Ibid. 355 Ibid. See also "Occupation Activities Appraised, OMGUS WIB, March 1947, No. 102, 4. “The weather had practically paralyzed most industry in the Zone this winter so the party found conditions at their worst. All of Central Europe lay in the grip of the worst winter in 25 years. Germany’s principal waterways, including the Rhine, upon which much of the country depends for coal transport, were at low ebb, and frozen solid. To Germany’s economy this double checkmate meant practically no coal when it was most needed, no power from hydrogenation, and no production. Prevailing conditions did not augur well for the export program which had been announced only a few days before.”   134  was obvious by the early months of winter 1946 that OMGUS would have to implement new, more drastic policy measures to revive the economy. Sweeping change arrived with the creation of a Bizone Agreement between the British and Americans, the creation of JEIA or the Joint Export-Import Agency, and finally Marshall Plan aid. In order to boost export sales, OMGUS worked to dissolve barriers to inter-zonal and eventually international trade. On July 20, 1946 the Military Governor of the US Zone proposed a joint economic administration with any or all other zones in a Control Council meeting. This proposal was accepted by the Military Governor of the British Zone on July 30th, 1946 and on August 9th, 1946 the two Deputy Military Governors established the outlines of a bizonal economic administration. On December 2nd, 1946 the respective governments formally entered into the Agreement for Economic Fusion of the US and UK Zones of Germany (also known as the Byrnes-Beven Agreement). On May 29th, 1947 they agreed to the establishment of a bizonal Economic Council.356 Later the bizone council founded the JEIA (Joint Export-Import Agency) responsible for facilitating the exchange of German exports for various currencies and imports worldwide. The JEIA opened accounts in foreign banks to deal directly with the financial side of the exchange including billing and collection, they screened requests for imports and supervised trade relations with other countries. The objective of bizonal trade policies was the eventual creation of a self-sustaining German economy no longer dependent on foreign aid. 357 In the short term, German manufacturers would have to depend on foreign aid and Western European patronage in the form of the Marshall Plan. Fuelled by fears of Soviet domination and wanting to push strides made with the inter-zonal trade agreement one step further, the Americans developed a plan that would promote Europe-wide recovery through 356Military Government Regulations, OMGUS WIB, July 1947, No. 102, 9. 357 "Bizonal Organizations," OMGUS WIB, March 1947, No. 85, 5. See also OMGUS policy report, RG260, NARA, Box 285, FIle 13.   135  collective action while easing production bottlenecks and reducing trade barriers. The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program (ERP), would foster economic as well as ideological integration in Europe, healing the “narrow nationalism” of its past.358 Specifically, the Marshall Plan funneled $2.492 billion in aid into West Germany, 18% of the total $13.6 billion European Recovery Program.359 The Plan financed the importation of food, cotton, tobacco, and leather, and by March 1949 had imported a total of 200 million dollars into the Bizone economy.360 It supported small industry and promoted productivity. More importantly, however, it opened Germany up to the outside world again. The Plan made trade with Germany’s Western European neighbours plausible again, relinquishing the “dollar clause” which had made the purchase of German exports prohibitive in the immediate postwar years.361 With the plan in place, Military Government and the German state could set about marketing a new German ideal based on manufacturing skills of the pre-war past. In February, 1947 a group of American correspondents travelled to various export industry locales within the U.S. Zone to determine the extent to which Military Government’s one hundred-million-dollar export program could be implemented. In their report, the general 358 Michael J. Hogan, “American Marshall Planners and the Search for a European Neocapitalism,” American Historical Review, Vol. 90, No. 1. (Feb. 1985): 45-47. “Such an approach, it was assumed, could eliminate the territorial constraints, government restrictions, and bilateral trade and payments agreements that prevented the most efficient use of resources, hampered productivity, and slowed the pace of recovery in Europe. It could also fortify the Western democracies against communist attack...This was the thinking embodied in the public and private pronouncements of American policy makers on the eve of Secretary of State George C. Marshall’s celebrated commencement address at Harvard University on June 5, 1947...Thereafter, policy makers in the State Department and in the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), the American agency established to administer the European Recovery Program (ERP), employed a variety of strategies to integrate Europe and create the new era of ‘lasting peace and prosperity.’” See also Junker, The United States and Germany. 359 Hugh Jo, "At the Healm of Creation," 181. By mobilizing American political, economic assets, the United States sought to slash the tangled web of exchange controls, tariffs, quotas, import license, and discriminatory practices that stifled international commerce. Once these impediments were removed, trade and investment would flow to those sectors of the highest profitability in each nation. At the same time, the United States encouraged aid-recipient countries to specialize in certain industries for the world market. 360 Christoph Buchheim, “Marshall Plan and Currency Reform” in Jeffrey M. Diefendorf and Axel Frohn and Hermann-Josef Rupieper eds., American Policy and the Reconstruction of West Germany 1945-1955 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 361 Ibid.Buchheim, 78.   136  consensus was that all concerned sought to make the US Zone with its processing and finishing facilities, “the workshop of Germany.” The tagline, “We have the know-how. We have the manpower. We have the equipment. Give us the raw materials, particularly the coal and we can pay our own way.” In other words, “Give us the raw materials and we will pay for the food which you are importing to feed us.”362 The acquisition and allocation of raw materials were complex problems, however. Industries were prioritized based on their ability to produce, and were meant to receive shipments of coal matching their projected output. The administration of this process was susceptible to sidetracking and corruption. The bureaucratic channels governing the allocation of coal and other necessary means of production (steel, paper, lumber, semi-finished materials), included the staff of the Economic Ministries of the Land governments, the Export-Import Agency, and American Military personnel working on regional and local levels. It was the responsibility of the Economic Ministries in particular to sign off on acquisitions of raw materials. Though the American Military Government increasingly passed the torch on matters of export production after 1946, they were still heavily invested (both economically and ideologically) in creating a prosperous, capitalist, self-sustaining economy in Germany. After the formation of the bizone, and JEIA, an import advisory committee was established to supervise imports. Exporters or manufacturers of exports were then required to apply to an Aussenhandelsbank (foreign trade bank) for an import license for machinery, spare parts, or maintenance supplies, not exceeding $3,000.363 The German Foreign Trade Clearing Offices acting under the supervision of JEIA would pay German manufacturers in Reichsmarks for the full value of their export shipments. The manufacturers would receive a payment on par with what they would have received had they sold their wares domestically. Importers of raw 362 “Germany’s Workshop” by Arhtur Settel in the Military Bulletin, OMGUS WIB, March 1947, No. 83. 363 JEIA release, 28 Feb 1949, RG260, NARA, Box 281, File 12.   137  materials would also pay the Clearing Offices in Reichsmarks as if they had come from German mines, farmers, etc. The Clearing Offices under JEIA acted as middle-man thereby circumnavigating the problem of currency, exchange rate and price disparaties between Germany and its trade partners.364 In effect the U.S. Military Government and its JEIA was in control of the money exchanged on their version of a free market, as these funds never entered the banking system or German Land government coffers. Much like with raw material allocation, Military Government streamlined the mechanics of exchange to make it more efficient, but also to suit their overarching reconstruction agenda. OMGUS policies proved effective as West German exports rose from $10 million per month in 1947 to $100 million per month in 1949. Much of the increase consisted of manufactured goods, showing great improvement in small-scale industrial output. In order to achieve self-sufficiency, however, West Germany needed to reach exports of $200 to $250 million per month, still out of reach in 1949.365 It is clear that without American aid and policy initiatives, a successful export program may not have materialized in postwar Germany. Yet without a strong generational foundation of skilled craftsmanship, there would be nothing to export. OMGUS simply found a way to revive “Germany’s workshop” by setting up systems of reciprocal exchange with both their own country and surrounding Western European states. Those who produced export wares and those who wrote the policies to pave the way for their sale worked hand in hand, “shaping” the “Made in Germany” image. Ermarth suggests that the “driving ethos” of postwar West Germany was “hard work as world-view or Arbeitsexistentialismus.” In his interpretation a “steady focus on the proximate practical future to be earned by individual effort offered Germans much relief and some reprieve from past 364 "Bizonal Exports," OMGUS WIB, September 1947, No. 112. 365 J.F. Cahan, “The Recovery of German Exports,” International Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Apr., 1950): 3.   138  ideological phantasms of grand destiny and their postwar pariah status.”366 Though OMGUS and Erhard introduced and pursued free market policies, they merely set the stage for prosperity. The work ethic of skilled workers within Germany gave the US and German governing bodies the tools they needed to fulfill their reconstruction goals and to overcome “past ideological phantasms.”367 There were many groups in need of assistance and many channels through which to lobby for that assistance. In case after case the individuals and communities who worked with what they had regardless of what was on offer in the late 1940s received more media attention, land for resettlement and loans for their export industries courtesy of the ERP (European Recovery Program).368 By taking the initiative to rebuild early on, Sudeten expellee craftspeople secured their future settlement success. Proof of one’s self-starting initiative was necessary and yet it was not enough to simply resume production in former factories and bunkers, as the location of expellee camps and settlements in rural Bavaria made it difficult to access consumer markets and raw material supply routes. In addition, many expellee industries tended to produce what were considered “luxury” consumer goods in the context of the West German market demands of the time.369 Surviving the economic conditions of the immediate postwar decade required a great deal of staying power, and eventually Marshall Plan (ERP) funds. Herman Frankel, US Resident Officer of Aichach, Bavaria described a case in his district: 366 Ermarth, America, 14. 367 Ibid. 368 ERP was the formal name for Marshall Plan Aid funds that began in 1948 and lasted for four years, subsidizing German industries and tackling trade barriers, with the intent of boosting the German economy and stabilizing Europe as a whole. 369 OMGUS Weekly Intelligence Report, 11 March 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 284, File 6; "Germany's Population Problem," by Dr. Liselotte Goldbeck, OMGUS WIB, No. 208, November 1952, 8.   139  This is a story of perseverance. It describes the fortitude and the industriousness of a former Sudeten who refused to take “No” for an answer...Today, with the encouragement of ERP funds, a small household metalware firm is regaining economic stability—H. Zenker and Company...Aichach had little to offer this restless, energetic man in 1947 but, in spite of seemingly insurmountable difficulties and adverse business conditions, he set up shop in a small wooden shed. With no financial support, with only borrowed tools and by working day and night, he once more was able to produce marketable goods.370 From the expellee perspective, Selbsthilfe was enacted out of necessity. The perks of ERP funding followed individual initiative, and government officials naturally responded to the expellees’ efforts. And their efforts were genuine. In some instances, groups of expellees built new communities from the ground up, using local materials and labouring together regardless of gender or age. In Nuertingen, expellees who had been living in barracks dug gravel from a nearby river and using a concrete-making machine (a gift from Sweden) they formed the soil into blocks ready for new construction.371 On the outskirts of Darmstadt, the expellee community worked together to fell trees from the forest and haul them to a nearby site to construct a new settlement. On one of the new house walls, they posted a motto reading: “God does not leave a man who does not leave himself,” speaking to the often spiritual journey of resilience, of coming back as an individual from unspeakable loss.372 The motto also speaks to the larger process of resettlement in which government authorities often reached out to those expellees who first demonstrated they were capable of producing export goods, regardless of seemingly “insurmountable difficulties,” such as lack of basic shelter for work or living. As expellee enterprises and families expanded and their economic value was proven and applauded, corresponding government support emerged for permanent resettlement schemes that 370 “Refugee Enterprise: An Example of ECA Benefits,” by Herman Frankel, US Resident Officer, Aichach, Bavaria. OMGUS WIB, No. 198, December 1951, 16. 371 "Integration on Its Way," by Max Zackman (Deputy Chief, Displaced Populations Branch), OMGUS WIB, No. 188, February 1951, 6. 372 OMGUS WIB, No. 186, December 1950, 3.   140  prioritized expellee community cohesion. These schemes often took the form of new towns built on former airfields, military training sites, near campsites or in semi-industrial parks where munitions factories once produced for the war. As of November 1951 twenty new towns were under construction and were projected to house and employ a total of 100,000 people. The first of such expellee-exclusive towns was Traunreuth, Bavaria, built on the site of the former Siemens-Schuckert Works. The second was Wolfratshausen, built on an erstwhile munitions factory site. The largest settlements, however, were Waldkraiburg and Neugablonz, with projections for 20,000 and 10,000 future expellee residents, respectively.373 With these designated sites in place, expellee craftspeople then had the opportunity to reconnect with their former neighbours in new settlements, to re-immerse themselves in their industry and repair global trade networks. For many, it would be their final migration after five years of uncertainty and refugee camp life. 373 "Vertriebenen-Siedlungen in Bayern," Frankenpost 18 November 1950, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 572. When this newspaper article was written in November, 1951, there were already “70 plants employing around 850 people” in Traunreuth. The second expellee town grew out of the land used for a munitions factory near Wolfratshausen, where 65 people currently work, but in the future they are expecting 13000 to 15000 residents.” On the former airfield Obertraubling in the district of Regensburg another industrial settlement is emerging, with 1000 residents. Here 6000 to 10000 refugees should be able to settle in a new Heimat. Here 66 operations are already working with the capacity to employ 1200 people. On the land formerly “Muna” Schierling (Niederbayern), 22 operations are already settled. This settlement has the capacity to reach 3000 to 5000 residents.” In former “Muna” in the district of Neu-Ulm 430 operations are settled...and 17 new production facilities have been built on the airfield Memmingerberg by Memmingen.”   141   4. Waldkraiburg walking tour guidepost with photos of bunkers.374   3.1 Waldkraiburg The tale of expellee Selbsthilfe is frequently captured in Heimatbücher that tell the history of each newly constructed town. Interspersing contemporary photos, site maps and messages from the mayor with earlier historical counterparts, these books detail the general players, companies and timeline of the towns’ development. In Waldkraiburg, the town has devoted a modern museum to the story of the expellee entrepreneurs and has laid out a walking tour of the streets with signs and guideposts (pictured above). Personal and craft company histories relay the tale of early refugee arrival and the early years of resettlement. With hand tools expellees chipped away at concrete bunkers like that depicted in the photo above and 374 Photo taken by author in Waldkraiburg of one of their historic walking tour guideposts, 2009. It depicts bunkers used as living quarters.   142  remodeled army barracks and munitions factories to suit their needs as living quarters and workshops. Today, the Stadtmuseum Waldkraiburg sits in the small industrial sector of Waldkraiburg, and houses video testimonials of expellee expulsion, arrival, and their subsequent work and life. As well, visitors can tour “Bunker 29,” for a more “authentic experience.”375 Founded in 1991, after German reunification and the revival of German public discourse on expulsion history, the arc of the town’s official story is one of human resilience, work ethic and ultimately reward. Within that narrative expellee craftspeople act as agents of West German reconstruction, exemplars of Selbsthilfe and the pre-Nazi quality artisan “tradition.” Waldkraiburg stands out because it was the first new settlement to receive municipal status (1950);376 one of the largest expellee-exclusive settlements in Bavaria with the most potential for growth, its economy was overwhelmingly craft based. While other settlements focused on one specific craft, Waldkraiburg attracted producers from a variety of trades, including textile, glass, musical instrument and toy making. This created the sense of a meeting ground for the expellee cause, a trend that continues today with expellee Landsmannschaft festivals and pilgrimages to the Waldkraiburg museum. During the war, Kraiburg was the site of various heavy industries, including a 500-acre, 350-bunker, smokeless powder factory built into the forest that operated between 1938 and 1944,377 the Kraiburg Werk chemical factory that operated between 1937 and 1941 and the Deutsche Spreng chemical factory.378 It was on or near these sites that expellees built their homes and workshops after the war. As was the case with all former war industries, the 375 Stadt Waldkraburg. www.waldkraiburg.de/de/stadtmuseum. [Accessed January 25, 2016]. 376 Lindner, Waldkraiburg. 377 Discussion on building a schoolhouse in Waldkraiburg, 20 Sept. 1949, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1454, File 581-584. 378 Lindner, Waldkraiburg; Correspondence between Kaufbeuren glass makers and Bavarian government, RG 260, NARA, Box 73, File 11.   143  American Military first occupied the sites around Waldkraiburg as part of demilitarization and dismantling. They soon decided to utilize these industrial sites with their many bunkers and outbuildings to house displaced persons. By 1947, the Bavarian State Ministry of Economy was advocating for an expellee-specific settlement. In April 1949, the U.S. Military Government officially turned the property over to the Bavarian state government.379 As federal assets these sites were susceptible to public policy and the winds of political change. Change came swiftly to the community with the arrival of expellees. In 1949 designer and administrator Landrat Dr. Kramer of the Kreis (district) council, had developed a model house of tamped mud worth 5000 DM and had convinced expellees from the area that due to its simple construction, it could be easily replicated, fitting with their Selbsthilfe ethic and a general lack of state funding and building materials.380 Kramer had developed a plan that played to the expellees’ strengths without overburdening the state. All relevant political authorities soon approved the proposed settlement plan, inspecting the model house and applauding the “strength and cleanliness of the walls, [and] the functional division and pleasing form of the house,” each one containing two kitchens, three living rooms, a storage room and a half basement in 84 sqm.381 While visiting the model home site in Waldkraiburg, Munich officials spoke with expellee settlers. These community-elected expellees expressed their determination to continue building tamped mud homes, as they had often worked with clay when building in their former hometowns. 379 Lindner, Waldkraiburg; Waldkraiburg schoolhouse, 20 Sept. 1949, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1454, File 585. 380 “Expellees Create Housing through Self-Help (Selbsthilfe)” (newspaper article), 3 November 1949, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1454, File 585. Kurier newspaper. ‘Attempt at settlement of Kraiburg near Gaimersheim. Expellees create housing in the way of self-help (der Selbsthilfe)’ 381 Ibid.   144   5. Expellee-built clay home in Waldkraiburg.382   In conclusion to these meetings, the Government of Upper Bavaria agreed to the settlement plan on the condition that it would proceed in stages, with loans granted ten houses at a time. The article concluded: “The expellees know that the government...and particularly Landrat Dr. Kramer are owed their gratitude for creating a new home (Heimat) for their children on their own separate piece of land.”383 The expellees depended on government approval and Kramer’s initial design, but would not have achieved approval had they not agreed to provide the labour. Their ambition and hard work no doubt inspired Kramer’s plan and convinced government officials of its merit. Over the subsequent years the resettled expellees gained power in numbers and legitimacy. By 1949, 830 people were living in the wooden barracks of the Pürten camp near Waldkraiburg and 890 were settled in the industrial area on the outskirts of the town of Auschau Kraiburg. Both the Pürten camp and the industrial site were incorporated into a larger 382 Photo taken directly from the newspaper article, 3 November 1949, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1454, File 585. “Attempt at settlement of Kraiburg near Gaimersheim. Expellees create housing in the way of self-help (der Selbsthilfe).” 383 Ibid. The district office (Landratsamt) will be responsible for the implementation of the settlement attempt.   145  municipality newly named “Waldkraiburg” in 1949. At this time, plans for economic growth and construction were already underway in the Land Settlement offices in Munich, awaiting only the final design plan for housing an estimated 12,000 residents. Funding for these new developments (an estimated 3,500 apartments) would come from ERP aid at a total cost of 41.5 million DM for seven years of construction.384 A newspaper article titled “Refugee Town Arises,” estimated in 1951 that Waldkraiburg would eventually reach a population of 20,000, composed primarily of glassmakers from Haida-Steinschönauer, Graslitzer brass musical instrument and toy makers.385 Having reached a total sales figure of 18 million DM in 1949, with the aid of 1.4 million DM in state loans, these industries proved their worth for the export program and the overall economy.386 However, from the expellees’ perspective the development of their new lives in Waldkraiburg was a process fraught with obstacles. Some of the glass workers in particular, having arrived later than other expellees in 1947, recalled the partially looted and blown up bunkers that greeted them. Though they were allowed to move into these buildings at the former Deutsche Spreng chemical factory, they relied on their own resources to initially develop the site. Costs were estimated at 850,000 DM (shared among 100 refugee firms). Because the raw materials and machines that were distributed from Munich were often inadequate to meet demand, the expellees resorted to self-made tools and black market raw materials. The goods they did manage to produce sold quickly, as orders continued to outweigh production in the early 384 Ibid. 385 "Vertriebenen-Siedlungen in Bayern," Frankenpost 18 November 1950, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 572. 386 Die Industrie-Siedlungen der Flüchtlinge in Bayern," Neue Zeitung, 4 January, 1951, BayHStA, MK, Box 63241, File 630. Waldkraiburg, has experienced a change in its almost purely agricultural structure. In this terrain, 120 companies have settled, 30 percent of which are still under construction. 47 industrial companies, 15 craft and 23 utility companies have been producing for some time. In 1949, these businesses reported employing 1326 workers, 500 of which were home workers.   146  years of resettlement.387 Demand for goods and ambition to meet it were high but issues of supply chain bottlenecks and a slow-moving bureaucracy persisted. Then came the Currency Reform of June 1948 which only exacerbated the problem, as many firms lost cash balances and were unable to hoard goods in their warehouses, suffering as the glassmakers put it, “disastrous setbacks.” Because the expellees, unlike their local German counterparts, had no assets or savings, they did not have reserves to fall back on to buy raw materials or make investments. This put many firms in jeopardy and saw the dissolution of many others.388 By the end of 1948, domestic orders had come to a standstill and firms could no longer obtain export licenses due to their shrinking capacity to produce, which made it difficult to obtain loans. Recognizing the plight of expellee firms and under political pressure to prevent further loss, representatives of the Ministry of Economy, the Bavarian State Bank, the Ministry of Finance, and the State Secretariat for Refugees met in the summer of 1948 to find a way to provide credit. After much negotation and resistance from local Bavarian crafstpeople who feared expellee favouritism, and the lifting of OMGUS restrictions on credit in the spring of 1949, the government opened the door to expellee loan applications.389 It was not until the latter half of 1949 that the glassmakers of Waldkraiburg were able to build and use their own glass huts after months of difficult negotiations with the state and having to provide their own raw glass.390 What is clear from this case is that expellee experiences varied, some finding it more difficult to obtain funding for their export firms than others. Because the glass workers arrived late to the Waldkraiburg resettlement party, they were less apt to reap the 387 Ibid. 388 Grüner, Geplantes Wirtschaftswunder?, 127-134 389 Ibid., 129. In 1949 the West German government passed the Soforthilfegesetz (Immediate Aid Law) to provide loans to expellees, specifically. See Chapter Five for more on the consequences of the Currency Reform for expellee firms. 390 Correspondence between Kaufbeuren glass makers and Bavarian government, RG 260, NARA, Box 73, File 11.   147  rewards of government aid. Selbtshilfe factored prominently in their story and yet they did not present it in a triumphalist narrative, but rather in a matter-of-fact stocktaking of what they had sacrificed for the greater good of the postwar economic project. Politicians and the press however gladly adopted the mantle, crafting a marketable story. In the 1950 Heimatbuch publication Waldkraiburg: vom Bunker zur Siedlung, Waldkraiburg’s mayor touted the “lucky circumstance” that greeted the expellees in the form of a large former munitions factory adjacent to their camp. His glowing treatment continued with an acknowledgement of the “true contentment that flows in the long run from the blessing of honest and value-creating work.” Moreover he tipped his hat to the Bavarian state for granting the factory to expellee enterprises.391 Though he mentioned the hardships and obstacles to success, he did so in more dramatic fashion, maintaining the narrative of resilience and triumph over these obstacles. Moreover, he referred back to the plight of their forefathers as borderland Germans in a Czechoslovakian state. He crafted a narrative that tied the distant past with the realities of the present and vision for the future, a practice so essential to the Heimatbuch medium: Of all the goods that they and their ancestors had gained in centuries of work and lifelong pursuit, all that was left to them was what they could bear with their hands. This was not new to them. They and their fathers in border areas or people under foreign sovereignty have always struggled daily under the heavy burden of self-preservation...For four and a half years we have proven through tireless work, how seriously we take it. The special merit of these men will ensure that their names find a place of honourable mention. The day will come when all will realize that these hardworking refugees are not a burden but a blessing for the country.392 According to this account, for the expellees reviving their industries meant rising out of victimhood obscurity and building something that would leave a lasting legacy. After years of 391 Lindner, Waldkraiburg. 392 Ibid.   148  struggling to belong within borderland regions, according to the mayor, they would finally carve out a definitive, secure place for the next generation. Though the mayor lauded the Waldkraiburg expellees as men with “special merit,” they were not unlike the expellees who settled in Bubenreuth or in Neugablonz. What set this community apart was the volume of expellees who settled there as well as the variety of craft trades they practiced. Between May 1939 and July 1949 the population in the district of Mühldorf surrounding Waldkraiburg rose from 43, 514 to 67,046.393 Each individual craft firm attracted its former employees along with generally skilled expellees from other locales and even local Germans looking for employment. The Graslitzer musical instrument makers simply resumed their cooperative association upon arrival in Waldkraiburg, setting to work to rebuild their international reputation and expand their capacity. They began reassembling their cooperative association in the Pürten camp, first working in instrument repair in primitive shops then moving to a new workshop site in March 1947, to begin production. At that time, they received a small credit, enough to build through voluntary labour eleven apartments with simple workshop space. They also used the funds to purchase basic machine tools and resume brass instrument production. As well, they were able to bring some hand tools in their expulsion allotment. Though they suffered Currency Reform-induced setbacks, including major layoffs, by 1950 the Graslitzers employed 90 skilled workers in their firms and had regained some of their former export glory.394 In the end Waldkraiburg became the West German centre for brass instrument production in the 1950s. 393 Ibid. 394 Report from the National Association of Musical Instrument makers, Erlangen, 1 November 1950, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 3020, File 89, The Cooperative of Graslitzer Musical instrument makers in Waldkraiburg, a member of the Land Association since 1946. What began as a 12 man operation soon grew to 118 employees, as the Graslitzer toy makers rapidly expanded production to meet demand. Many of these employees were paid in vouchers rather than cash, which caused massive layoffs during the Currency Reform. In the end the business   149   Graslitz had also been home to toy makers, particularly toy musical instruments. The Köhler & Blohberger firm achieved international success by the mid-1950s, working from five bunkers designated by task (administration, painting, finishing work, shipping and packing, etc.). Following a piece-work process similar to the Schönbach violin makers, these toy makers consistently applied for ERP funds in order to ensure greater proximity of each stage in the production process and the flow of raw materials to prevent bottlenecks. Fortunately, most of the raw materials for this trade could be obtained nearby (spruce, nickel-iron, zinc), though the firm still required funding to purchase them from local sources.395 This easy access to raw materials gave the Graslitzer toy makers a distinct advantage. Because toys were for play and did not require precise sound or aesthetic qualities, toy makers could use makeshift materials like the tin from American import food cans and other scrap metals. This improvisational ingenuity impressed many site visitors.396 The re-fabrication of American tin cans into “Made in Germany” toy musical instruments was, without a doubt, marketing gold. Because toy makers could immediately begin crafting from the rubble upon arrival in West Germany, they were in many ways exemplars of the Selbsthilfe ideal as they required little initial assistance. Moreover, toy making, I argue, could represent the epitome of a benign, even benevolent handcraft and thus the antithesis of the Nazi-affiliated industrialist. As the Waldkraiburg Heimatbuch relays, citizens of the town believed in “an even stronger economic recovery on account of these people who work with their hands to bring joy to the hearts of children.”397 Though economic recovery depended not only on toy makers but many other industries, it is obvious that this particular story carried extra promotional weight in terms rebounded with expanding export markets in the early 1950s. As of 1951 the toy makers were back to full employment and working to fill large export orders. 395 Credit correspondence, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 3123, File 738-744. 396 Lindner, Waldkraiburg. 397 Ibid.   150  of advancing the export program, the local resettlement cause and the overall reconstruction project. Marketing toys and toy makers as peaceful enterprise seemed almost too easy. In some instances, international demand for a particular firm or region’s handcraft wares precluded the need for verbose marketing and self-promotion. This was the case with glass. Government planners for the Waldkraiburg settlement had high hopes for the glass industry, recruiting 30 firms from the former Sudeten towns of Gablonz, Haida and Steinschönau. Their international reputation was built on their ability to combine aesthetic elegance with function, crafting artistically rendered, colourful vases, bottles, cups, chandelier crystals, glass jewelry, door knobs and other home fixtures. Unlike the toy and instrument producers, Lindner felt in the Heimatbuch that due to the export demand for these glass products, “their high value for economic policy need not be emphasized."398 Though the glass making expellees and their goods were in high demand, they still needed to apply for loans through the bureaucratic process just like their compatriots in other industries. On December 21, 1954 Gablonz glass plant owner Eduard Dressler applied for a loan of 35,000 DM to compensate for lost assets estimated at 825, 762 Reichsmarks. One of the application requirements, however, was proof of lost assets. This was something Dressler could not provide. By 1949 he had written to the State Secretary for Refugee Affairs, addressing the issue: “Since my old company in Gablonz produced original designs custom made for a reputable clientele, I can not prove a backlog.”399 Because his wares were not mass-produced, records of their production were not readily available after the expulsion. In large-scale industry this problem would not arise, as bookkeeping was a necessity in the organization and smooth operation of any large enterprise. 398 Lindner, Waldkraiburg. 399 Correspondence between Eduard Dressler of Kraiburg and the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 2808, File 17.   151  Expellee craftspeople presented a complex case for bureaucratic processes in this regard as responsibility fell to OMGUS and German government bodies to flexibly adapt to small-scale anomalies. Officials had to make concessions for one-of-a-kind production, to trust in the claims of the expellees themselves as to what they had lost and what they were capable of contributing to reconstruction. In a sense, elected officials and local personnel had to place their faith in the expellees’ purported entrepreneurial skills and the value of each craft in terms of export potential. In addition, government leaders such as Ministers of Refugee Affairs, Ministers of the Economy, etc. had to assess the potential of each craft firm in the larger national reconstruction scheme. To aid with this task, the government laid out the following criteria for affirming loan applicant “professional competence” and “credit worthiness”: proof of refugee status, proof of membership in professional associations, amount of damages suffered in the expulsion, operating conditions and business plan, type of production (factory or handcraft), technical production capabilities, performance, resource base and backup (insurance), and sales and marketing (world competition ratios).400 These applications laid the groundwork for constructing the Selbsthilfe narrative, as expellees were forced to reflect on their individual histories and possible future contributions to the economy in order to obtain funding. Though the applications did not call for evidence of the cultural or local significance of one’s firm, as these aspects became more important in the marketing and exhibition process, they did give the expellees an opportunity to demonstrate the value of their skills and the trade legacy they had built before the war. Aware of the assessment that would follow his application, Dressler assured the Ministry that his clients “have had the greatest interest in my proposed establishment since my arrival in 400 Credit correspondence, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 2791, File 268-278.   152  Bavaria.”401 For additional leverage he attached a letter from one of his good friends and happiest customers, Paul A. Straub & Co. Inc. of New York City, in which the company asked specifically for his expertly engraved ashtrays stating, “Recently I wrote to you that we would support you as much as possible and as soon as possible in any business that has the potential for success.”402 While Dressler did receive ERP funding in 1950, he continued to apply for funds as opportunities arose.403 There was a certain self-assured approach among glassmakers as they lobbied the government for funding. They arrived in Bavaria with an existing international customer base and a backlog of export demand. Though they too worked amidst the rubble, for them Selbsthilfe lay in their ability to procure export dollars for the JEIA program simply by drawing up new contracts with former clientele. To fill that demand, however, they admittedly availed themselves of the government’s cooperation. Reputation would only carry the expellee craftspeople so far in a climate of need. 3.2 Neugablonz Fortunately, the international reputation of Gablonz glassmakers preceded them. Not only did they form a large contingent of the Waldkraiburg settlers, but they received an additional 401 Correspondence between Eduard Dressler of Kraiburg and the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 2808, File 17. After his expulsion Dressler came to Waldkraiburg and started the construction of a new glass production plantin 1950. Credit: good reputation. The company was founded in 1860 by the grandfather of the applicant in Jablonec. Lodging: The glass works company is housed in rented premises, in a bunker. The factory building is in a long building formerly used by a German explosive chemistry company. 402 Ibid. 403 “Committee on Government of Upper Bavaria. Special quota for the Gablonzer industry in Waldkraiburg using ERP funds. 13 Dec. 1950, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 2799, FIle 33-35. Pursuant to Section I (credit quota) of the guidelines of the State Ministry of Finance on the granting of state guarantees for loans from displaced ERP funds up to 100 000 DM, dated November 10, 1950...the Marshall Aid counterpart funds initially put 50 million towards refinancing loans for displaced people...the Bavarian state has a special quota of 2,155,000 for Gablonz industries based in Bavaria, and the Government of Oberbayern has a quota of 125,000 DM was allocated for the Gablonzer industry in Waldkraiburg. According to section III, of the instructions dated 10.11.1950 to the guildelines for the granting state guarantees loans for displaced peoples using ERP funds is earmarked for Gablonz industries, a special quota to award the proposal from the Bohemia Glass cooperative eGmbH Waldkraiburg. Money allocated to the following companies. Eduard Dressler-DM 40,000. Josef Gaertner-DM 5,000. Hans Josef Pfeifer-DM 5,000. Rieger u. Jelinek-DM 5,000. Walter Rohra-DM 15,000. Max Schmidt-DM 10,000.   153  settlement near the existing town of Kaufbeuren. The Bavarian government granted the expellee community use of the name Neugablonz on August 8, 1952, hyphenating it with the existing town to make Kaufbeuren-Neugablonz. The expellees believed that the retention of the name of their former Heimat would signify continuity between their past and future, connect all former Gablonzer glass makers now living in Bavaria, and signal to international buyers that their particular 400 year old “tradition” lived on in a new context.404 The Gablonz “tradition” boasted 150 years of global exports, crafting faux pearls to the tune of 2,400,000,000 beads annually in 1820.405 In the town larger manufacturing plants worked in cooperation with household workshops to create a system of production that relied on community. Almost every home in Gablonz had its own workshop with individuals contributing unique specializations. The Jewish members of the community provided a link to department stores and other buyers abroad. When they traveled, they sold Gablonz wares while collecting data on new trends and market demands. Once they returned home they enlisted Gablonz firms to fulfill market demand, encouraging them to create new techniques and patterns for different markets. These designs would then require the cooperation of a network of industrial chemists (colour development), metalworkers (to create settings), and glass blowers, all of whom resided in the town.406 As glassmakers developed bead shapes, colours and surface texturing in ever greater variety, their global reach grew, to the point at which the Masai tribe in East Africa was 404 Kossert, Kalte Heimat, 312. “Neugablonz was built on the site of the former Dynamit AG in Kaufbeuren, after they had decided in December 1945 to establish a settlement there for displaced craftsmen from the North Bohemian Gablonz on the Neisse River. The Gablonzers resorted to self-help and founded in June 1946 on a former military base of the Allgäu glass, metal and jewelry GmbH as well as the construction and settlement company, which leased the land to 25 years for RM 2000 per month." See also Correspondence between the Gablonzer Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft and the State Minister Dr. Fritz, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 2663, File 287-301. 405 Lees, ‘Fractured Lives,” 140. 406 Ibid.   154  purchasing bead strings directly from Gablonz. While this development encouraged further adaptability to market demand and financed the growth of the town and its workshops, some chose to criticize export to Africa. As Lees found, many Germans saw it as “racially not acceptable to wear jewelry produced for ‘Negroes.’” She found one SS publication that had deemed the Gablonz industry a “Mumpitz (rubbish) Industrie.’”407 Perhaps this is just an ugly example of the heated competition that existed between German and Bohemian producers for market share of the early twentieth century boom in luxury exports. Perhaps the real issue was not that the jewelry would be worn by Africans but that it was not made in German territory, and thus German producers found a way to demean its quality. Such attempts on the part of German competitors were common in other industries, such as the musical instrument making industry in which local German products were promoted as more “authentic” than those produced in the Sudetenland.408 What is clear is that Gablonz makers did not discriminate when it came to their buyers and worked to diversify their markets as much as possible, finding success because of their flexibility and openness to change. The ability to adapt quickly to circumstance continued to serve the Gablonzers well after their expulsion. Once in Bavaria they scrapped together metal tank plates and shell cases for tools and used discarded American tin cans for jewelry settings. As people began to rebuild their lives after the war demand for consumer goods, even fashion, increased.409 The Gablonzers ensured that their circumstances would not count them out in the race to produce for expanding markets. Soon, they found a way to reconnect with Jewish contacts in America, and pulling the addresses of former buyers from memory, rebuilt what they had lost. During the expulsion, 407 Ibid. 408 See following chapters for an expanded discussion of German producers’ tactics to discredit Sudeten expellee wares, in the face of competition. 409 Ibid.   155  expellees were prohibited from taking factory documents, and yet it did not hold them back as many of Lees’ respondents proudly stated, “they [the Czechs] could take everything but not what our parents carried in their heads.”410 They rebuilt their lives on muscle memory as well, imprinted on their hands through years of repetitive, detail-oriented tasks. Though craft was not the only identifying marker of expellee success, it did lend them the tools they needed to survive great loss and upheaval. Many expellees acted out of necessity and for the good of the glassmaking community. Gablonzers placed placards at railway stations, notifying arriving expellees to go to Kaufbeuren to reunite and rebuild their industry. Dr. Erich Huschka, known as the “Father of Neugablonz,” played the role of town founder for Neugablonz. He began coordinating government efforts and planning the settlement as early as 1945. The first 17 glassmakers to settle were viewed as “pioneers." The term was appropriate as Huschka and others had paved the way for other glassmakers to migrate to the area, eventually fostering 300 firms, 2,500 employees and their 5,500 dependents by April 1947.411 The 17 expellees who “pioneered” Neugablonz had a very similar story to those who first arrived in Waldkraiburg. They too worked amidst the rubble of a former munitions industry to craft a vibrant community. On September 15, 1946 they moved within the 3m-high barbed wire fence of the former Dynamit AG munitions factory. The buildings that remained after American dismantling and demolition were windowless, and though a small road network remained, the rubble on the site still took ten years to clear. In the years that followed, 80km of new roads, 410 Ibid. 411 Correspondence between the Gablonzer Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft and the State Minister Dr. Fritz, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 2663, File 287-301. “In 1945, after being expelled from Jablonec, Dr. Huschka was planning together with business people, the men of the new Bavarian government, and of course with the American occupation forces, the possibilities for the resettlement of his exiled countrymen...it was the resolution of the district branch of the CSU [Christian Social Union] in Swabia on 8 September 1946, and with the particular emphasis on the forward looking perspectives of the former Bavarian government under Prime Minister Dr. Wilhelm Högner, concluded the resettlement of those displaced from Jablonec.”   156  sewage treatment plants and canals for sanitation, street lighting and a new water supply were developed for the settlement, costing an estimated 67 million DM.412 Like typical pioneers, the Neugablonzers chose to construct settlements from the land, rather than working with existing settlement structures, making the process costly, yet tailored to the needs of their growing communities. While they planned their settlements with growth and development in mind, the Neugablonzers, like their Waldkraiburg counterparts, felt uncertain what the future would hold. The expellee glassmakers were not convinced of the government’s support. In a 25th anniversary Heimatbuch for Neugablonz, Huschka himself relayed the story from the pioneers’ perspective. He claimed that in 1946, he questioned the viability of their industry in Germany, “because it was such an unfriendly country.” It caused them to wonder whether they should have “joined those with more sense to emigrate to Austria, France or even overseas.” They described themselves as “shipwrecked without an answer to these questions.” They remembered the Economic Ministry’s decision to produce rod glass in Northern Bavaria rather than near their site as akin to the loss of a child, and they recalled waiting a “year in vain” for the promised release of the DAG site as their “application stewed in the Military Government in Munich, which in 412 Ibid. “On 2.1.1946, the mayor of Kaufbeuren Dr. Volkhardt, requested that the government presidents in Augsburg, government commissioner for refugee affairs meet and to accommodate the refugees in the buildings on the grounds of the old Dynamit AG in Hart. He also suggested that some additional industries be relocated to the area to create more employment for the refugees and locals. The Dynamit AG in Kaufbeuren was among the first munitions factories to be subject to explosion and destruction. The Americans announced the complete demolition of all buildings. The installation and heating systems were pulled out, along with the windows and doors and taken away. Of the 190 buildings standing on the grounds of Dynamit AG, 90 buildings were destroyed completely under the command of the American Military, including the steam heating system. Buildings that were intended for commercial or residential purposes were left in the state which the Americans found them. On 4.2.1946 the governor of Augsburg drew up a plan with the mayor of Kaufbeuren to settle the Gablonz glass industry in the closed terrain of the Dynamit AG factory. On 21.6.1946 the Allgaeuer glass and jewelry production eGmbH Kaufbeuren was founded. In December 1946 the first Neugablonzer glass hutte began operations. Only after the currency reform could a planned development be initiated."   157  turn invoked disastrous consequences for the industry.”413 At that point, future recovery seemed a distant possibility. Their response, however, was one of Selbsthilfe rather than resignation, as they negotiated a loan with private banks in Augsburg without mentioning the status of their application in Munich, and finally signed a lease agreement for the DAG site for a monthly rent of 2000 RM for a period of 25 years. To strengthen the industry at the DAG site through centralization, they then recruited glassmakers from other regions. They eventually moved the Allgäuer Glass, Metal and Jewelry Cooperative association headquarters to the site. Based on former Sudeten cooperatives, this association administered a sales tax and utilized the funds for construction and other practical purchases. Though Huschka did not mention government support, he did acknowledge the “silent helpers” like church groups who provided aid in the form of supplies and hot meals.414 In later years, the government did take a much more proactive stance towards the Neugablonz industry, as the export program began to pay dividends and they realized the capital required to fund large-scale export production. It is clear from Huschka’s narrative, however, that the expellees still viewed their own agency as the driving force in their industry’s revival. They did demonstrate incredible principles of Selbsthilfe, never losing sight of their end goal and yet they were uncomfortable with the official narrative of cooperation between state and expellee, as it seemed to conceal the government’s initial role in creating barriers to resettlement. The impact of early struggles between expellees and local Germans, and between expellees and government officials for some may have hampered their ability to socially integrate, indefinitely. It is possible that as some expellees were pushed to help themselves, they were also pushed 413 Wondrak and Lang, Kaufbeuren. 414 Ibid. “Dr. Muschak came from Dillingen to us and took over the leadership of the company, then later with farsightedness named it the “Gablonzer Siedlungswerk”.   158  further into modes of self-isolation, turning inwards into their expellee communities and away from their German neighbours. 3.3 Buyer Tours When the government did cooperate with expellee projects, they were quick to advertise it and to remind funding recipients of their aid. A sign hung on a set of new apartment blocks near Heidelberg in 1951 read “This Project is Supported with Marshall Plan Funds,”415 an advertisement reminding expellee communities that they relied on ERP funds, that soon its residents would live closer to their workplace, in a private home and would have the Americans to thank for it. It meant a more permanent settlement, a new beginning of cooperation between Americans and West Germans.416 What the expellees had achieved through individual initiative, official channels soon matched, creating a relationship in which neither party was solely responsible for Germany’s success. Rather, each was dependent on the other. Though self-help was the watchword, it went hand in hand with U.S. aid. And yet Military Government depended on tales of German entrepreneurial success to sell the Marshall Plan to their taxpayers at home in the United States. Americans would help fund German enterprises in exchange for the satisfaction of witnessing and benefiting from a democratic, capitalist Wirtschaftswunder in a former enemy nation. In order to market expellee-made wares for export markets, producers had to find ways to reach consumers abroad. They had to create a brand that buyers could relate to, a marketable 415 “ERP Providing Homes," by William T. Neel (US Resident Officer), Heidelberg, OMGUS WIB, No. 190, April 1951, 14. 416 Memorandum. Counter Intelligence Corps Region V, Passau, Subject: Sudeten German Organizations, RG 260, NARA, Box 289, File 13. “The newly founded (May 1947) ‘Baugenossenschaft Neu Heimat’ (building association New Home) has been created with the express purpose of serving all German refugees (not just Sudeten Germans). At present, ‘Neu Heimat’ cooperative associations exist in Munich, Regensburg, and Passau...It is the intention of this cooperative to construct housing projects. Each participating investor needs to pay a minimum fee of three hundred Reichsmarks.”   159  ideal that was universally shared. There was no better principle than that of hard work, of individual initiative, of Selbsthilfe. These were, after all, principles that were part and parcel of “the American dream,” the belief that anyone and everyone has the potential to rise above their circumstances through hard work. Through the press, and later through Military Government and corporate sponsored buyer tours, the world market quickly learned in the early 50s that West Germany was again open for business. The new face of that business was not only local German, however, but also Sudeten-expellee. Buyer and press tours were designed to take in the sights of the newly developing workshops and settlements in Waldkraiburg, Neugablonz and elsewhere. These tours ultimately put the “expellee at work” on display. In a sense their fledgling workshops were the Schaufenster (shop display windows) of the immediate postwar years. In Februray 1949 a journalist reported on his visit to a large glass-cutting workshop “tucked away in nearly 3 square miles of forest far from Kaufbeuren,” where “they worked in the camouflaged bunkers of the large former operation of Dynamit AG.” Setting the scene, the journalist wrote as a tourist filled with curiosity of what they might find “tucked away” in these bunkers. Inside there are “gypsy ovens” (the producer’s description), and machines that “the man has tinkered...from the remains of metal found in the debris of an aircraft factory.”417 It seemed from this article that the expellees had created something awe inspiring out of nothing, and that they had done it all on their own initiative, foraging amongst the rubble. While press renditions of these tours may make it seem as if the group simply stumbled upon a “tucked away” gem, the reality is that these tours were well mapped and coordinated. General Clay himself invited delegations of businessmen to tour the U.S. Zone of occupation as early as June 1946, when representatives of the National Associations of Manufacturers (NAM) 417 “The Bavarian Display Window (Schaufenster),” Weekly Munich newspaper Bayerische Heimat, 3 February 1949, BayHStA, MK, Box 63241, File 621.   160  touched down on German soil. These tours created chains of information transmitted from the participants to their business contacts at home in America.418 Military Government would first give the buyers a detailed briefing of their own trade policies, operations and aims during the tour group’s initial visit to Berlin. The Economics Division of OMGUS even prepared a guidebook for the buyers’ use while in Berlin and the two zones. Its pages advised that when “dealing with Germans, [remember] that they respond, as do most other peoples, to courtesy, friendliness and consideration. Do not fight the war all over again with provocation and undignified raillery. Remember that we are attempting to help the German people…strike out afresh on the paths which will lead them to democracy and freedom.”419 The goal was to take the wartime enemy and rebrand them in the minds of consumers, which ultimately started with shifting the mindset of buyers as they encountered Germans while on tour. Each stop on the tour was carefully chosen to highlight German merit through small-scale industrial achievements. With these principles of reconstruction in mind, buyers embarked on a 20-day tour of both the U.S. and British Zones, including a side visit to Vienna. Schedules were often hectic, including one or two stops per day to view workshops and manufacturing plants of all varieties. For example, in a two-day span one tour plan called for a stop at a chemical plant, a small glass workshop, a toy workshop and a brewery.420 As of June 1949 buyer tours and tourism in general 418 Berghahn, Americanization, 83. 419 "The Export Buyers Guide to Germany," OMGUS WIB, No. 90, April 1947, 4. “New Guide for Export Buyers. The Bipartite Export Buyer’s Guide, a pocket-size handbook published by the US and British Military Governments, contains essential information to aid businessmen in planning to visit the Combined US/UK Area for the purpose of negotiating commercial export contracts. This booklet, a development from the Export Buyers Guide to Germany issued last spring by the Economics Division, OMGUS, is concise and informative, and covers the many problems which a visiting businessman may encounter. Its contents include sections on regulations and procedure for export, regulations for imports, procedure for entry into Germany, travel and visitors’ bureaus, financial arrangements, travel facilities, accommodations, communications services, legal position of businessmen, and permitted business operations in Germany. In the introduction to the booklet, the sponsors commented: ‘Every effort will be exerted to make your visit comfortable and productive, but conditions in Germany will call for your patience and consideration. Visits of businessmen will, it is hoped, be a means of improving conditions in Germany." See Also "New Guide for Export Buyers," OMGUS WIB, No. 107, August 1947, 5. 420 Ibid.   161  had become big business once again, as visitors could pay in Deutsche Marks and stay in German-run hotels, rather than depending on American dollars and army facilities.421 In fact, the export tours became such an institution of the postwar system that professional tour services began capitalizing on them, namely the Export Taxi Service which operated 700 cabs in 38 cities and the Export Buses offering long-distance trips from seven cities in Bavaria throughout the countryside. As well, JEIA licensed specific hotels to participate in these tours, offering meals and accommodations in exchange for dollars.422 While tour goers often recalled the wonderful hospitality they received, the political purpose of the trip was always kept in view. Once visiting buyers arrived back in Berlin, they were free to offer counsel to Military Government, commenting on the general state of the economy and particular firms of interest for export contract. Some of the visitors on an April 1947 tour included the president of Bausch and Lomb Optical Co., retired chairman of the Board of Directors of Sears Roebuck Co., Edwin Thomas, and president of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.423 Though many of the visitors represented large corporations, especially in the early years of the JEIA program, they said that they often claimed to have been impressed by the value and beauty of the products despite the 421 Export report on toys, RG 260, NARA, Box 74, File 4. "Prior to the use of Deutsche Marks and the re-opening of tourist hotels, visiters were billeted in Army camps and traveled in Army transportation. Restrictions on the entry of foreign businessmen into the Bizonal Area were gradually relaxed. To meet this situation, the JEIA, which controls the foreign trade of the three western zones, evolved its ‘dollar hotel’ program. This plan was inaugurated early in 1948 in cooperation with the European Command, which derequisitioned one of the better hotels in or near each of seven major cities in the US Zone. The hotels were refurnished and redecorated, equipped to offer comforts and conveniences of a high standard, and were licensed by JEIA and German ministries to operate for foreign travelers only." See also "Hotels for Tourists and Businessmen," OMGUS WIB, No. 150, December 1948, 15. 422 Export report on toys, RG 260, NARA, Box 74, File 4. 423 "MG's Task in Industry," OMGUS WIB, No. 90, April 1947, 3; RG 260, NARA, Box 50, File 1. “Mr. John J. McCarthy, corporate personnel director for Gimbel Brothers and Saks Fifth Avenue Stores in New York City, has arrived in Berlin as a consultant to the Manpower Division, OMGUS. He is to tour the US Zone of Germany to observe conditions and consult with German government, management and worker organizations regarding training programs.” See also "Visiting Business Men," 26 February- 4 March 1947, OMGUS WIB, No. 143, September 1948, 16.   162  “shabby shops” in bunkers and the “primitiveness of the means of production.”424 While these tours served to convince buyers of the merits of “Made in Germany” (and made by expellees under a German label) products, they also served the practical purpose of demonstrating the time intensive labour of many craft processes so as to prepare buyers for long wait times. In other words, these tours highlighted the fact that only with taxpayer aid and corporate investment could the expellee firms produce quantities large enough and quickly enough to create large enough profit margins to justify export contracts. The Military Government buyer tours in effect lent support to the JEIA program and Marshall aid in general by allowing Americans to experience German needs first hand. When American tourists started to make their way to Germany again, they similarly reported back to their fellow Americans and Military Government personnel. In 1949 the first group of American tourists was comprised of 33 women and two men from the mid-western states. Spending four days in Bavaria, their “chief interests lay in observing rural farm life, displaced-persons and refugee conditions and the working of the European Recovery Program.”425 Their post-tour comments reflected the interests of their hosts (Military Government), and their own unique, gendered, mid-western perspective. Mrs. Chester Cunningham of Omaha, Nebraska remarked, “Before I came to Europe on this trip, I was not sure whether American money for the Marshall Plan was being used to good advantage or going down a rat hole. On the basis of what I have seen in France, Italy, and Bavaria, I now am convinced the money is being well spent.” After visiting refugee camps, several of the American women reported that they had been moved by the stories of hardship told by the refugee 424 Lindner, Waldkraiburg. 425 "Tourists from Mid-West see Germany," OMGUS WIB, No. 158, April 1949, 16.   163  women.426 In these instances the Schaufenster had had its desired effect, opening American eyes, minds and eventually wallets to the plight of postwar Germans, especially refugees and expellees. In February 1947 a group of American correspondents travelled to various export industry locales within the U.S. Zone to determine the extent to which Military Government’s 100 million dollar export program could be implemented. They interviewed OMGUS and German officials, factory managers, technicians and craftspeople. In their report, the general consensus was that all concerned sought to make the US Zone with its processing and finishing facilities, “the workshop of Germany.” The tagline, “We have the know-how. We have the manpower. We have the equipment. Give us the raw materials, particularly the coal and we can pay our own way.” In other words, “Give us the raw materials and we will pay for the food which you are importing to feed us.”427 This was the expellees’ chance to win JEIA’s favour by impressing visiting buyers while also making them aware of their plight. One tour of US congressmen was particularly noteworthy in that it focused primarily on refugee camps and refugee industry, including a stop at the Haus der Kunst refugee industry exhibit in September 1949.428 It is important to note that the expellee craftspeople and their makeshift workshops were on display from an early stage in postwar reconstruction. Moreover, the scale of these visits should be noted, as by May 1949 JEIA had sponsored 5,000 foreign (American and other international) buyers.429 By the end of the 1940s expellee craftspeople were not strangers to the 426 Ibid. 427 Article, “Germany’s Workshop” by Arhtur Settel in the Military Bulletin, OMGUS WIB, No. 83, March 1947, 5. 428 “Office of Military Government for Bavaria. Schedule: For Inspection Tour of Bavaria of the Congressional Committee of the House of Representatives, 14 September 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 3. 429 JEIA Memorandum, RG 260, NARA, Box 281, File 12. "As of this date almost 5,000 visiting businessmen have cleared through this organization. 3. Over 3,500 Bavarian businessmen have been sponsored by this office for trips to foreign countries. Countries visited include not only European countries, but also North and   164  American gaze, nor were they strangers to the American marketplace, often adapting their wares to suit demand from abroad. 3.4 Expellee Perspective The expellees were on display from the moment of their arrival in Bavaria, whether under the microscope of local Germans and Military Government or tourists and export buyers. Though not Einheimische, they were by the latter years of the 1940s, poised to represent “Made in Germany” resilience and perseverance. The expellees experienced integration quite differently than the simplistic oft-marketed narrative however. The state-led obstacles and failures of integration that the expellees encountered early on pushed them to help themselves which in turn fed into the successful integration narrative, which earned expellees funding from the state. In some cases, state policy was the obstacle to expellee progress and in other cases, the antidote. And self-help initiatives were both the catalyst to overcoming funding obstacles and proof that the eventual funding was warranted. Thus the expellees’ relationship to the Selbsthilfe narrative was complicated, to say the least. In the initial years after their arrival in Germany, expellees did not have access to housing in close proximity to industry and no means of obtaining or maintaining jobs suited to their skills. They faced the challenge of finding employment in an atmosphere of Allied restrictions on industry and widespread financial penury.430 Many realized that the process of acquiring funds was replete with obstacles, including competition with local producers. Despite laws that stipulated that refugees were to be treated as equal to German citizens in matters of employment, many experienced a clear divide, especially when it came to joining professional communities, South America, Africa, and Asia. For the Director, Foreign Trade Division: Peter H. Smith, Deputy Director for Foreign Trade.” 430 Harris and Wülker, “The Refugee Problem,” 20-21; Bouman et. al., Refugee Problem, 6.   165  as licenses to practice were difficult to obtain.431 Though local Germans were charged with the task of billeting and employing expellees, their efforts often fell short, leaving many expellees to dwell in camps, awaiting gainful employment. Those who were billeted and employed often lived far from their job site, travelling by bicycle or foot each day. Many of these jobs were well below the skill level of the expellees, a number of whom were master craftspeople.432 Established business owners within Bavaria were often hostile to the newcomers, fearful of sharing an already depleted market for consumer goods. These factors contributed to the eventual creation of expellee enclaves, as many had been living in camps excluded from Einheimische towns for so long that it had become the norm. While the Refugee Law of 1947 stipulated that the Bavarian State Secretary for Refugee Affairs in cooperation with the Ministry of Economics were to license refugee workshops according to the ratio of refugees to Bavarians in their respective fields of trade and industry, statistics show that a disproportionate number of refugee license applications were never granted (in comparison with local German requests). In Bavaria, licenses required the approval of local trade committees, whose prerogative it was to turn down the applications of new members who might develop competing industries.433 Recognizing the limitations of the bureaucracy, OMGUS Land Director Murray Van Wagoner, wrote to Hans Ehard, Bavarian Minister President on September 24, 1948: “It is the democratic viewpoint that free enterprise cannot expand where 431 Isaac, “Problems of Cultural Assimilation,” 29; Kossert, Kalte Heimat. 432 Ibid. 433 RG 260, NARA, Box 284, File 6. Stats table shows that of the 15,173 handicraft licenses applied for, only 9,313 were granted. [“Expellee Draft Law-The Laenderrat has been directed by OMGUS to enact their ‘Draft Law concerning the Reception and Integration of German Expellees,’ with certain changes as contained in OMGUS Letter AG 010 (CA), dated 24 January 1947. The letter, directed to the Ministers-President of the three Laender, points out that action by the states of the US Zone is subject to international agreements to which the United States is a party; and that, since the subject of expellees is one which involves an international agreement, decisions about the expellees will continue to be made by the Allied Control Authority, or in the absence of quadripartite agreement, by the MG of each occupying power for its zone of occupation. "Industrial Production Declines," OMGUS WIB, No. 79, February 1947, 6.   166  each person desiring to enter into any trade or business can do so only by permission of governmental authority.” 434 Though Bavarian and Military government regulation initially hampered the expellee cause, in time it became clear that without Military government authorities like Van Wagoner advocating on their behalf, expellee industries would find little help. By April 1948, many expellees refused to work as unskilled labourers and subsisted in camp settings set apart from their German neighbours. On one hand, authorities feared the camp situation would lead to idleness and eventually political unrest; on the other, evidence of growing apathy and inactivity prompted fears of future expellee dependency on the state.435 The refugee uprisings in the Dachau camp in 1948 in particular fostered global skepticism and local antagonism towards expellee integration.436 McLaren argues that outsiders did not spend enough time in the camps to recognize the positive aspects that were taking shape in the later 1940s, namely feelings of safety and stability in a “self-contained environment where they could form relationships and assert their cultural identity away from the hostility of the locals.”437 McLaren uses the examples of Camps Poxdorf, Langenzenn, Poggenhagen, Hof-Moschendorf and 434 Correspondenc from Ehard, Licensing of New Businesses, RG 260, NARA, Box 4, File 3. 435 McLaren, “Out of the Huts,” 36. “A report by the Technical Assistance Commission of the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) on the integration of the refugees in the German Republic made explicit the problem of refugee camp residence and unemployment, stating that many camp refugees were ‘temporarily confined to a life of idleness and boredom’, and skilled workers in the camp were ‘gradually losing [their skills] through inactivity’…In his 1953 study of expellee youth, the sociologist Karl Valentin Müller described the ‘human situation’ in refugee camps in 1951 as increasingly worsening, and counted himself among those who saw the main mood in the camps as apathy. His theory to explain this was that the independent, quiet, capable refugees were more likely to move out of the camp sooner, leaving the unindustrious, indecisive, resigned, less positive elements.” 436 “Editorial Opinion in German Press-Refugee Problem- In a post-mortem on the short-lived hunger strike of German expellees in the German camp at Dachau, the Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich) said the refugee problem concerns not only Germany but the whole world: ‘Nobody has denied that there were abuses in camp Dachau...But hardly a non-Bavarian newspaper found it necessary to mention the fact that the number of refugees living in Bavarian camps has risen from 18,000 to 110,000 in a few weeks...30,000 are still being expected this year. ‘These uprooted and disinherited people are being radicalized with terrifying speed, and dubious individuals who hitherto lived behind the Iron Curtain have already started to organize them politically under application of terror methods.” OMGUS WIB, No. 150, December 1948, 13. 437 McLAren, “Out of the Huts,” 41.   167  Schafhof in which refugees engaged in handcraft and started small business enterprises in which many camp residents could participate, developing “cohesion, of the enterprising community spirit.”438 She argues that local discrimination against refugees may have “stimulated self-help initiatives”439 within the camps, as both refugees and county refugee officers acknowledged the limitations of setting up shop outside the cooperative atmosphere of the enclave. Therefore, while expellee enclaves may have seemed politically ominous to Military Government authorities, in the end they became the most profitable and comfortable path for all parties concerned. In 1949, the Military Government Head Committee for refugees and expellees conducted a survey of the remaining refugee camps in Bavaria and their home industries. The results of the survey indicated that without sufficient credit, these industries had nearly come to a standstill, disrupting the entire supply chain for the Import-Export Program, a problem specific to expellees who could not weather the Currency Reform. The Committee realized that these industries would need four million DM in credit to create jobs, an unrealistic goal from their perspective. For the time being, they recommended that German state and U.S. occupation authorities work together to create an organization that would take advantage of the skills of home industry workers on a non-profit, co-operative basis in the production of wooden toys, lace and needlework, embroidery and linen, as well as musical instruments and their sales domestically and abroad. They concluded their letter to the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior by stating that by granting loans, “We are deeply convinced that such measures serve not only the refugees but also the Bavarian state and the entire Western civilization.”440 At this time in 1949, the expellees had 438 Ibid., 36-37. 439 Ibid. 440 Letter from F. Herlinger and Dr. Maresch of the Military Government, addressed to the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior for Refugee Affairs in Munich, 11 May 1949. BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1825, File 313-319.   168  been in Germany for three or four years working with what little resources they had in camps, proving that although help was forthcoming, it would be granted based on initiatives already taken by the expellees themselves. One example of self-sustenance was the former manager of a Sudeten glove-making firm, Albin Renner, who sent word to his former employees in camps throughout Western Germany to come work in the new firm he had set up in a former SS barracks at Offingen, Bavaria. Once gathered together they set to work with what sewing machines they had brought with them during the expulsion. At the time of the interview in 1950, he had already applied for ERP loans to finance a move from the wooden barracks to a fire-safe brick building and to acquire new machines. Waiting for loan approval he noted, “There’s a certain hardship there, but at the same time we can derive some satisfaction from the fact that we are supporting ourselves. Furthermore, instead of being a drain on the country we are helping in our small way to improve its economic condition by providing employment as well as dollar credits.”441 Though it was clear that a level of outside funding would be needed to reach manufacturing goals, to create jobs and to fulfill international export contracts, the expellees could take pride in the fact that they were at the very least self-sustaining. Though his loan application may or may not reveal his actual sentiments regarding his resettlement or level of integration, it does demonstrate a sense of pride in his work and a belief in his contribution to the community. Loan applications were a part of expellee life and it is plausible that many craft entrepreneurs learned through trial and error that one would need a certain level of finesse to succeed within the system. “We point out that this preliminary report comprises 142 districts, and that for 41 districts the reports and survey results are still pending. Nevertheless, the result is so illuminating that we can now get a fair view of the possibilities and measures to be taken for the relevant occupational skills of camp occupants. It is now time to report back so we can provide assistance to those refugees located that are in the greatest distress. This request should be urgently addressed justified by the great danger that unemployment and lack of credit could lead to socio-political, and ultimately purely political complications.” 441 “Expellee Glove Firm,” OMGUS WIB, No. 179, May 1950, 13.   169  Applications for credit were on the rise after Military Government implemented the Currency Reform policy in June 1948, as expellees had no assets to fall back on. The government's intent was to address economic recovery by injecting a dose of consumer purchasing power into the system (40 DM per person) to kick-start production and revive savings and investment practices.442 The common narrative of the Currency Reform goes hand in hand with Wirtschaftswunder imagary: consumer goods became available virtually overnight and raw materials could be obtained without the black market. While accessibility was crucial for economic revival it also led to fixed prices that moved many goods out of reach of the average entrepreneur.443 Wholesalers and retailers had hoarded goods in order to garner higher prices after the Currency Reform and asked for additional bank loans for production, corrupting the entire credit system for those expellee firms that desperately needed credit at this time. As the Military Bulletin reported, “Five months ago shop windows were empty and pockets were full of worthless money; today we hear the complaint that the shop windows are full but the people cannot afford to buy.”444 Expellee and refugee consumers were particularly hard hit, as they had few assets and savings to fall back on to purchase raw materials or pay their employees' wages. In order to address the discrepancy between locals and newcomers, Military Government established a Reconstruction Loan Bank for medium and long-term loans for new firms.445 In 1949 the West German government passed the Soforthilfegesetz (Immediate Aid Law) to provide 442 Michael L. Hughes, “Hard Heads, Soft Money? West German Ambivalence about Currency Reform, 1944-1948,” German Studies Review Vol. 21, No. 2. (May, 1998): 311-317; Adam Tooze, “Reassessing the Moral Economy of Post-war Reconstruction: The terms of the West German Settlement in 1952,” Past & Present, No. 210. (Nov. 2010): 64-70. The Currency Reform saw the doling out of 40 DM to each German resident as a safeguard against further hoarding and black market trading of consumer goods. It was this policy that is said to have filled the shop windows literally overnight, giving Germans a sudden wide array of product choice. 443 Report. December 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 284, File 7; Cahan, “The Recovery of German Exports," 4. “[1949] The stimulus of currency reform has died away and the high interest rates and credit restrictions within Germany have tended to damp down economic activity. The cost of imported raw materials to German manufacturers has risen and there is, therefore, a tendency to buy less and to carry lower stocks. 444 “Economic Situation can Develop in a Healthy Manner,” by General Sir Brian Robertson (British Military Governor). OMGUS WIB, No. 149, November 1948, 10. 445 Ibid.   170  loans to expellees, specifically.446 Perhaps more famously, they instituted the Lastenausgleich or “Equalization of Burdens” Act of 1952, aptly named in that it burdened German property owners with a new tax which was to be paid out to the expellees and refugees, or others facing war damage. It was meant as reparation for the expellees’ material losses, losses that had been a direct result of the locals’ support for the war.447 In a memorandum in the Military Bulletin, Military Government acknowledged, “that the matter is complicated, difficult and full of political controversy,”448 as responsibility for the war and those displaced by it could not be definitively placed on the shoulders of property owners. And yet, the country required greater integration and economic parity among groups, prompting Military Government to, “trust most sincerely that those who are responsible for taking these steps will take their courage in their hands and drive [the equalization Act] through.”449 In the end the Lastenausgleich failed to satisfy the needs of expellees. There were far too many expellees and refugees and not enough taxpayers to collect from. Without adequate funds, many had no choice but to remain in camps.450 Kossert argues that although many locals assumed the expellees were “generously compensated,” the losses they had endured were far too great, making the Lastenausgleich feel like a “drop in the bucket” for individuals.451 The expellee craftspeople who had managed to rebuild workshops out of bunkers and rubble experienced a setback at the hands of the Currency Reform. Because they had arrived with no 446Ibid. 447Pertti Ahonen, “Taming the Expellee Threat in Post-1945 Europe: Lessons from the Two Germanies and Finland,” Contemporary European History Vol. 14, No. 1. (Feb., 2005): 3. 448 Economic Situation Can Develop in a Healthy Manner- by General Sir Brian Robertson (British Military Governor), OMGUS WIB, No. 149, November 1948, 10. 449 Ibid. 450 OMGUS Weekly Intelligence Report, 11 March 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 284, File 6. The amount that property owners were expected to pay was based on their assets as of June 1948. They would be required to pay through a property tax, mortgage tax and credit income tax. The collected payments would then be put towards home reconstruction, financing for businesses and real estate purchases, and compensation of savings for displaced persons. 451 Kossert, Kalte Heimat, 102.   171  assets or savings, these expellees were now fully dependent on the Lastenausgleich and on bank loans to pay for raw materials, machines and to expand their businesses through land development and factory renovations. The Lastenausgleich and the Currency Reform were official attempts at levelling the playing field, yet they ultimately failed to aid the expellees in their entrepreneurial ventures. Private funding sources, such as Catholic church groups and regional or municipal banks were available to the expellees. However, social exclusion bled into the banking system and adversely affected expellee industries, as local banks and credit institutes only reluctantly extended loans to refugee firms of any sort. The Bavarian and Military governments could no longer ignore the failures of integration.452 It was clear that expellees would have to earn financial support by first proving their pursuits worthy of financial credit. The worthiest of all pursuits for expellee craftspeople was perhaps the construction of exclusive settlements geared towards craft production. The US Military Bulletin journalist reporting from the Darmstadt construction site wrote: “These expellees are now solidly anchored in their community and have no desire to return to their homeland.”453 The fears of mass political upheaval and demands for a return to the Sudetenland were effectively quelled by these permanent settlements. They also alleviated some of the sting of social exclusion and inequality. While ERP funds and private bank loans did come to many such settlements eventually, from the expellee perspective they had achieved their own integration into the greater West German community by building enclave communities of their own and enacting Selbsthilfe on their own terms. 452 OMGUS Weekly Intelligence Reprot, 11 March 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 284, File 6. 453 "Integration on its Way," by Zackman (Deputy Chief Displaced Populations), OMGUS WIB, No. 188, February 1951, 6.   172  While initially the expellee reconstruction process was about necessity rather than the re-branding of their image, the marketable allure or romance of small-scale, home-based industry was not lost on craftspeople. They recognized the rhetorical power of the “entrepreneurial spirit” and the impact it had on the overall Economic Miracle narrative. As Wiesen argues, the narrative was not simply a post-factum, scholarly interpretation of the era but was a discourse which many entrepreneurs, firms and government officials “actively imagined, scripted, and propagated” at the time.454 Narratives and meanings attached to objects and their production were so tied to marketing and branding that it is often difficult as a historian to discern between how the expellees viewed themselves in reality, and what was merely part of a finely crafted sales pitch. As was evident in the Mittenwald case, reviving one’s craft as “traditional” figured into the larger processes of achieving settlement. In addition, branding one’s wares soon became extremely important as the focus shifted from resettlement to global export. Ultimately, expellee craftspeople were exemplars of the entrepreneurial spirit and of a pre-Nazi ideal of a German work ethic. The expellee craftsperson as ideal entrepreneur and the wholesale branding of craft industry as “traditional” also later came into play in the Cold War antagonism between East and West. Expellee production was a feather in the capitalist cap, an example of quality production that countered Soviet accusations of West German products as Americanized, mass-produced kitsch. Because craft was implicated in economic recovery, national rebranding, Cold War politics and expellee integration, the complexity of meanings attached to it were often difficult to unravel. Trade in the late 1940s and early 1950s went beyond simple production targets and economic policy; it needed to be far more attuned to the dreams of consumers and the power of marketing. Jonathan Wiesen argues that because the country was hungry for “symbols of success 454 Wiesen, West German Industry, 194-195.   173  and affluence,” and because that success depended on convincing “a mass audience of the virtues not simply of a product but of the producer as well,” entrepreneurs “held the key to Germany’s economic and spiritual revival.”455 Expellee firms had a story of entrepreneurial virtue that many American buyers saw firsthand on buyer tours and that marketers could employ to sell “Made in Germany” products. In addition, the early 1950s saw a steady rise in international demand for German products, which was as Jarausch argues, “undoubtedly linked to older national stereotypes of diligence and workmanship...[offering] Germans a surrogate identity that eventually developed into downright 'Deutschmark nationalism.'"456 Indeed, one might describe postwar West German nationalism as dependent on economic prosperity, as proud patriotism based on quality production and abundant consumerism. Upon recognizing the value of this “surrogate identity” and its basis in workmanship, government authorities began to foster a stronger relationship with expellee firms. Soon, 2400 refugee enterprises sprang up in Bavaria, bringing industrial life to a predominantly agricultural land.457 Though based on the entrepreneurial spirit, it was only with outside investment that expellee firms began to flourish. In time, the JEIA and other Military and West German government programs recognized expellee efforts to the extent that they granted them not only financial credit but also resettlement favour and a legacy that through this study and others has become part of a larger postwar narrative. For Germany’s large-scale industrialists, having a hand in the country’s prosperity meant a return to riches but also a rebranding of the company image from producers in the back pocket of the Nazi party to producers with a genuine, spiritual connection to the work itself. What better 455 Ibid., 94-95. 456 Jarausch, After Hitler, 64-65. 457 Yearly Report of the Bavarian Refugee Administration, January 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 281, File 16.   174  way to do that than to co-opt the term Unternehmer, the primary meaning of which is “entrepreneur.” Wiesen argues that in describing themselves using new language, the industrialists associated their efforts with the country’s success as its “providers and protectors”—as exemplars of economic reconstruction. They sold a narrative in which their newfound “industrial spirit” acted as the antithesis to Nazi-era product massification.458 In effect they were re-branding themselves as Unternehmer, similar to the way in which officials branded their contemporaries, the expellee craftspeople (whose entrepreneurial efforts were perhaps more genuinely exhibited). The entrepreneurial ideal was such a powerful marketing tool in the postwar era that even the large-scale industrialists sought to adopt its principles of work-spirit connection. The power of Selbsthilfe was not lost on anyone wishing to market his or her wares. The case studies of expellee-exclusive craft enclaves Waldkraiburg and Neugablonz demonstrate how this triumphal narrative of resilience was constructed and why it held so much weight in Bundestag and Military Government policies. These two communities serve as excellent examples of how actual expellee Selbsthilfe was co-opted to market objects for global export. And, in turn, they determine how the expellee craftspeople and their histories came to be marketed and therefore commoditized. Through local production and global market exchange of both the stories and the objects, the expellees themselves became objects of inquiry. To come through a traumatic experience and come out ahead was the ultimate Cinderella story, perfectly fitting the luxury goods the expellees aimed to sell and the desires of their audience of upper middle-class and affluent Western Europeans and Americans. Once on display for buyer tourists, the expellees in a sense became objects. In a general sense as forced migrants, they were at the mercy of the winds of occupation and the realities of 458 Wiesen, West German Industry, 7-8.   175  war’s end. They were expelled from their homes, limited to a 50kg bag of belongings, transported by train and transferred from locale to locale, from camp to settlement. Once settled, they became tools in a larger system orchestrated by Military Government in general and JEIA in particular. Like the objects they crafted, their reputation and their image were for sale. JEIA could promote the expellee as “centuries-old traditional” artisans of quality goods, as the entrepreneurial stereotype and even as war victims, branding then selling their identity. Herzfeld argues that the artisan is labelled just as much as the object, personifying marketable “tradition.” Artisans themselves are caught up in a cycle of dependency in which “their bodies become the site of an extremely comprehensive commodification of stereotypical selves,” a cycle sustained by the small workshop system and projected onto the national “imagination.”459 And yet, they were subjects, agents of their own recovery through Selbsthilfe. Without the will and foresight to pack their tools, to chip away at the rubble, to revive their industries on a very small scale, to form cooperative associations, to recruit employees and negotiate with the government for better settlements through letter writing, they would not have achieved a level of success worthy of showing off to JEIA bus tours. Understanding that a certain power lay in their objectification, the expellees could use their position as leverage to obtain funding, support, exclusive settlements on new town sites and eventually export contracts. By emphasizing the state of these sites upon arrival and using the imagery of bunkers and unsanitary camp life, expellees could very easily draw on a victimhood narrative that placed them in line with other displaced persons and wartime victims such as liberated Jewish concentration camp victims and Polish and Ukrainian former slave labourers. They too had lost everything to the Nazi war machine and they too were resigned to camp life. Expellee lobbyists protesting for a return to their homeland, however, more often used the 459 Herzfeld, Body Impolitic, 27-28.   176  tactic.460 More common among craftspeople was a focus on the future. Rather than rely on their status as victims, they also worked to create an image for themselves of self-reliance and self-assured confidence in their own abilities and the merits of their craft objects. In effect, they became agents in a larger project to overcome the Nazi past, rather than to utilize that past for their own gain. Expellee craftspeople acted as exemplars of what Germans and the U.S. Occupiers at the time chose to market as “German”. The attention paid to these objects and to their makers shows their power in terms of the postwar economy and the political balancing act between democratic West Germany and communist, Soviet Zone East Germany. The implications were in fact quite dire and the stakes were high as the expellee craftspeople were one of the groups believed to be teetering on the cusp of these two political outcomes. It was this fear of expellee radicalization that pushed U.S. Military and Bavarian governments to settle, employ and integrate expellees as quickly as possible. It soon became apparent, however, that the expellees were not a group that could be hastily dealt with or assimilated into an existing economic structure. Rather the expellees required distinct communities that would later help reshape a largely agricultural landscape into “Germany’s Workshop.” If one considered the expellees’ situation in the late 1940s in isolation, they could be disregarded as powerless and yet the expellees held a great deal of power to influence Germany’s future. While buyer tours of camps and workshops had been helpful in the process of rebranding the expellee image, in order to sell their wares to a wider audience of consumers a bigger stage was required. In what follows, the expellees take their samples and finished products to the trade fair floor, displaying their abilities to German and foreign onlookers and effectively announcing their return to the global marketplace. 460 Melendy, “Expellees on Strike,” 108-116.   177  Chapter Four The Export Schau: Exhibiting and Selling Germany’s Workshop For expellees, exhibiting at Export Schaus or trade fairs served as a key tool in re-branding their experience, from one of victimhood to business success, and to sell that message through their products to the world. In displaying their objects, expellee craftspeople made their community and their story legible to a wider audience. Legibility led to recognition. Though not necessarily branded as “expellee” products at trade fairs or upon export many did carry a company logo, linking them to their pre-war consumer base and global reputation. This was made even easier in a trade fair format in which buyers met directly with producers and their sales representatives. As Wiesen suggests, “successful business thus depended not simply on selling quality merchandise or on legislating a political environment conducive to the practice and principles of free-market capitalism. It also meant convincing a mass audience of the virtues not simply of a product but of the producer as well.”461 In the previous chapter this took the form of a Selbsthilfe narrative and buyer tours. By 1946 OMGUS had parlayed this into the exhibition format, putting entrepreneurial wares on regal display. Though OMGUS especially benefitted from this dressing-up of expellee integration, the expellees also stood to gain greater recognition for their plight, their skill and potential contribution to the new country. In this instance there were winners on both sides of the policy fence. The macro-political context of the late 1940s was such that ultimately all transactions between German and American governments and business people could be construed as an attempt to strengthen Western Europe against potential communist influence. As Wiesen asserts, business "transcends the realm of the economy proper," in that encounters between business people were transmission of sociocultural mentalities. In postwar West Germany, business 461Wiesen, West German Industry, 100.   178  people worked to confront the Nazi legacy and combat communism.462 Trade fairs provided ample opportunity for sociocultural transmissions of this nature, while also rebranding expellee contributions and the overall “Made in Germany” image. In addition, a study of trade fairs reveals the bureaucratic and regulatory processes behind export sales. In this chapter we gain access to the contract policies, laws and overall infrastructure of early postwar American-German exchange. In turn, we benefit from a better understanding of how the American occupiers sought to rebrand the German nation, and the ways in which Germans adapted their policies to suit their own needs. In order to sell West German products, OMGUS needed to create a marketing strategy that put both Heimat “tradition” and Selbsthilfe on display in a trade fair format. In effect they were re-branding Germany’s identity, drawing on global recognition of Made in Germany quality from decades past. The desired result was a product that sold the idea of a West German reconstruction along capitalist and democratic lines, a postwar recovery that also included the successful integration of expellees. For OMGUS, it was beneficial to achieve international recognition for their efforts in Germany, but more importantly to convince American taxpayers of the merits of occupation and aid, namely the prevention of a violent fascist resurgence and the promise of building European safeguards against communism. For this reason, stabilizing both expellee populations and the economy was paramount. In the future, trade partnerships between West Germany and America would only strengthen resolve against the Soviet system, legitimizing capitalism. The trade fair format not only put German wares on display for American buyers, but diplayed American marketing, showmanship, and general promotion techniques for German producers and 462 Jonathan Wiesen, "Study Tours, Trade Fairs, Publicity Campaigns: German-American Business Encounters and Cold War Anxieties." in Junker, ed. The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945-1990, 573-574.   179  consumers who were, still struggling to purchase the basic necessities of life at this time. American-sponsored trade fairs reminded Americans what the Germans were capable of creating through skill and hard work and held out the prospects for Germans of the prosperity that awaited them should they buy into American-style democracy and capitalism. Militarily pacified but also economically indebted to the American taxpayer for food and shelter, Germans had no choice but to cooperate with their occupiers. In understanding this, we can trace the ways in which OMGUS was able to control the rebranding of the nation in its own capitalist, democratic image. Germans were not helpless to the whims of an American reconstruction project and could decide which aspects of American culture to adapt to their own. However, they lived with the daily impact of reconstruction projects based on American values. The economic policies placed on postwar production and trade were a reflection of core American values, and yet not altogether dissimilar from those found in Germany’s past. For generations, Germany and its regions had supported their artisans and small proprietors by marketing them through the trade fair or Messe format.463 The postwar resurgence of these fairs in occupied zones was a testament to the strength of historical German trade practices and demonstrated the extent to which German-American relations were negotiated processes in which the two cultures often overlapped. Marketing wares through elaborate display booths laid out in department store-like fashion, revived pre-war German practices while speaking to the Americans in a language they could appreciate. Craft objects displayed in the exhibition format attracted buyers from abroad, taking centre stage in OMGUS’ reconstruction project. These wares were the crown jewels of the Joint Import/Export Program (JEIA), representative of a postwar nation in the process of being re-branded as peaceful, entrepreneurial and prosperous. In the April 1946 issue of the OMGUS 463 Ibid.   180  published Weekly Information Bulletin, an article titled, “Germany Enters World Trade” read “[t]he world is eagerly awaiting German cameras, optical equipment, toys, musical instruments, fabrics, leather goods and a host of other manufactured products that it used and enjoyed before the days of ‘You Can’t Do Business with Hitler.’ Some of this demand is now about to be met—as fast as the Germans can produce and MG [US Military Government] can arrange to sell products declared not essential to the German economy.”464 It implied that global demand for German goods had not subsided despite ideological conflict and total war, as trade partners were actually quite abundant. However, the situation required a marketing marvel to revive trade to pre-war levels, a re-branding that bridged the Nazi years, re-tooled Germany’s image in the minds of global consumers, and laid the foundations for lasting prosperity. Advertising took many forms in the 1940s and 1950s. Export show catalogues and mail order pamphlets contained ads for individual companies and cooperatives and newspapers and other publications ran stories on new expellee industries. The Münchner Allgemeine newspaper published a recurring segment entitled “Das bayerische Schaufenster” (the Bavarian display window), touting the merits of craftspeople, giving their readers images of craft wares as well as the histories behind them, highlighting one expellee community at a time. In their article on the Gablonzer jewelry makers, the paper advised its readers to remember the value of export for their economic life.465 In this way, German publications were not all that different from American ones, both taking the time to explain postwar economic policies and assure their respective readerships that export was the best option for recovery. Expellee craftspeople recognized that advertising was the key to reaching their pre-war customer base. Moreover they realized that addressing the “sensory differences between the 464 "Germany Enters World Trade," OMGUS WIB, No. 36, April 1946, 5. 465 "Das Bayersiche Schaufenster," Bayerische Heimat (newspaper), BayHStA, MK, Box 63241, File 621. February 13, 1949.   181  various countries and the mutability of taste [was] no easy task.”466 To reach new markets and restore faiths in their product, they would need to attend trade fairs at which buyers could sample, touch and compare the quality of expellee-made products to those at home. The Gablonzers in particular implored government officials to support trade fair showcases and fund the shipment of sample collections abroad to save their industry from obscurity.467 There was no more effective method of advertising craft objects than allowing buyers and consumers to experience them firsthand in three dimensions. Unlike published advertisements, the trade fair was a living event, a space in flux where consumers and producers flowed in and out, interacting and adapting to one another. Reasons for attending the show varied, as did the experiences of its participants. To study the export show is to demonstrate the element of performance involved in marketing craft and the negotiated relationships between postwar players (U.S., German, and expellee) as each worked to construct a new brand or identity. There was an element of performance involved in these exhibitions, in the visual representations of display booths and tables and textual accounts of the layout and spectacle of the fairs. It is challenging for historians to capture these types of “living events” as there is no possible way to experience the show as it was lived. Rather, I rely on the few available accounts of those in attendance and the speeches and brochures that they may have heard or held in their hands. I acknowledge that these accounts often came from those working within the fair in an official capacity, whether as organizers of the fair, politicians reliant on its success or journalists charged with the task of promoting it. As scholars of museum studies argue, the social 466 "Gablonzer erlangen wieder Weltgeltung," Schwäbische Landeszeitung, Augsburg, BayHStA, MK, Box 63241, File 629. “[newspaper article] From the Schwäbische Landeszeitung, Augsburg, Nr. 128, 25. October, 1950. 467 Ibid.   182  interaction between visitors may influence their reading of the exhibit.468 Likewise, the speeches of American and German officials and/or exhibition organizers and the forward printed in show catalogues may have influenced visitor perceptions of what they were about to see, in subjective and complex ways. As museum studies demonstrate, interactions between the viewer and what they are seeing are relational rather than one-sided.469 Knowing this, I acknowledge that a piece of the puzzle is missing in what follows. For while I am able to ascertain what the organizers of the shows may have intended to convey, there are but few opportunities to hear how visitors related to the objects and makers on display. What is clear is that these fairs were meant to convey a “dreamworld of consumption”470 in which the items on display promised a future of luxury, modern comfort and a return to prosperity. These objects were a reality in sample form, but their wider availability was still a dream for many in the 1940s. As Rosalind Williams argues: the consumer revolution intensified the pain of envy by bringing within the realm of possibility the acquisition of a degree of wealth that had formerly been considered out of reach…But the consumer revolution also brought an anodyne in the form of environments of mass consumption, where envy is transformed into pleasure by producing a temporary but highly intense satisfaction of the dream of wealth.471 Though Williams applies her theories to the department stores and expositions of 1900s Paris, the same can be said of the 1946-1950 trade fairs advertising German products. The fairs may have sparked a twinge of envy in those German visitors still living amidst bombed-out buildings, and existing on rations. However, they most certainly would have also produced a degree of “intense satisfaction” among visitors, as they may have been seeing and touching new luxury 468 C. Heath and vom Lehm, D., “Configuring reception (Dis)regarding the ‘spectator’ in museums and galleries." Theory, Culture, Society 21, No. 6 (2004), 43-65; C. Heath, vom Lehn, D., Hindmarsh, J. and Cleverly, J., “Crafting participation: designing ecologies, configuring experience” Visual Communication 1, No. 1 (2002). 469 S. Macdonald, ed., CoDesign (Blackwell: Oxford, 2007). 470 Rosalind Williams, Dreamworlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). 471 Ibid., 92. Environments of mass consumption in Williams’ study include the department store, the exposition [or exhibition], and the “picture palace” [movie theatre].   183  goods for the first time since the beginning of the war. Moreover, the fairs gave expellees a forum to promote their products and reach out to new customers, taking them from a place of obscurity to a place of recognition and possible wealth. In that sense, the fairs acted as “dreamworlds” for producers as well as consumers. They provided a space to imagine something just around the corner, slightly out of reach, but sure to come. In this chapter, I explore the tactics employed by craft producers, the German government and American occupation authorities to market and export craft wares. Often, this included employing Heimat, Selbsthilfe or pure spectacle to win the hearts and minds of buyers. What follows is a close exploration of the expellee and OMGUS trade fairs and JEIA (Joint Export-Import Agency)472 policy initiatives that shaped American-German and producer-consumer relations in the 1940s. 4.1 Trade Fair as Tradition German trade fairs had long played the role of making local craft legible to a global marketplace, attracting international buyers and consumers. Stephen Gross argues that obstacles of time, distance and cultural translation historically acted as barriers to global trade, fostering the early trade fair format in which merchants convened in one locale. He argues that the Leipzig Trade Fair overcame these early barriers in the 1920s and 1930s, circumventing cumbersome south-eastern European trade treaties, bilateral currency agreements and diplomatic issues. He argues that though technological advancements in transportation and communication eliminated many distance and time barriers prior to the 1920s, the Leipzig Fair survived by reinventing itself. It became a showcase for models and sample products rather than actual products, freeing up cargo space and border hassles for traveling merchants. 472 For an introduction to the JEIA see Chapter Three.   184  Trade fairs across Europe followed Leipzig’s lead, though it remained the marquee fair, hosting the longest and largest fair on the continent.473 Coinciding with the 1920s Leipzig renaissance in trade fair format was the “Weimar Schaufenster-era.” As Janet Ward Lungstrum put it, economic stability in the years 1924-1929 ushered in a “zenith period” of commodity display mixed with “New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit)” design to create display windows which played “host to the daily (and especially nightly) acts of seduction that occurred on the city street.”474 The early twentieth century marked a turning point in the way products were exhibited and consumed, shifting focus from production to marketing. This trend would only grow over time, culminating in the advertising booms of the postwar era. One common thread existed between the Schaufenster-era and that of the early postwar, namely the divide between what one could see and what one could actually afford to purchase. Lungstrum refers to this phenomenon as an “aching gap between the display window’s ability to arouse consumer desire and the consumer’s corresponding ability to buy.”475 Department stores acted as a counter to this divide, creating a democratized shopping space in which customers could openly browse, touch and in a way consume objects with or without purchasing them.476 It then became the department store buyer’s task to find and assemble a fitting combination and 473 Stephen Gross, “Selling Germany in South-Eastern Europe: Economic Uncertainty, Commercial Information and the Leipzig Trade Fair 1920—40,” Contemporary European History, Vol. 21, No. 1. (February 2012): 19-39. “new exhibitions arose in London, Maastricht, Paris, Lyon, Milan, Zagreb and many German cities. But after 1918 Leipzig could claim to host Europe’s largest fair: in 1928 it attracted over 10,000 official exhibitors to its spring fair and 8,000 to its autumn fair, each of which would last a week to ten days.” “The Leipzig fair was the crown jewel of Saxony’s export-oriented economy. 474Janet Ward Lungstrum, “The Display Window: Designs and Desires of Weimar Consumerism,” New German Critique. No. 76. (Winter, 1999): 122. 475 Ibid., 147. William R. Leach, “Transformations in a Culture of Consumption: Women and Department Stores, 1890-1925,” The Journal of American History Vol. 71, No. 2. (Sep. 1984): 320-327. 476 For more on Department stores see Williams, Dreamworlds; Martin Daunton,“Scotch Drapers and the Politics of Modernity: Gender, Class and National Identity in the Victorian Tally Trade” in Daunton, The Politics of Consumption (Oxford: Berg, 2001); W. Hamish Fraser, The Coming of the Mass Market, 1850-1914, (Hamden Connecticut: Archon Books, 1981), 132-133; Meg Jacobs, “The Politics of Plenty in the Twentieth-Century United States” in Daunton, 228; Paul Lerner, The Consuming Temple: Jews, Department Stores, and the Consumer Revolution in Germany (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015).   185  wide variety of goods to fill the shelves. Trade fairs proved instrumental in completing this task. Foreign buyers arrived eager to discover new products and collect an array of products that their department store shoppers at home would appreciate. Though these buyers represented their local customer base, they themselves were required to be cosmopolitan and future-oriented in outlook, agents with the power to transform small industries and influence global trends, taste-makers in their home market place and patrons of small industry abroad. As for the customers, by 1900 they were treated to glistening sales floors that hid the darker, bleaker side of retail sales, namely accounting rooms, manufacturing floors and low wage earners stocking shelves.477 Like the realities of expellee integration after the war, the more difficult realities of production and trade were hidden behind the white linen tablecloths of the trade fair exhibitions. Not only did exhibitions distract from the refugee crisis, but also from the growing problem of black market trading and the lack of raw materials available to engage in global trade in 1946. Unlike the buyer tours of the previous chapter, the trade shows promoted the future of German craft production rather than dwelling on its present realities. Relying on showmanship over and above victimhood narratives or Selbsthilfe tours, the trade fair offered an alternative, more confident approach to marketing postwar craft. Expellee entrepreneurs and local German craftspeople alike sorely needed a glistening sales floor in 1946. They found it in the trade fair format. The shows also played a role in the reconstruction project that went beyond marketing. One could argue that OMGUS’ adoption of a trade fair format for marketing German goods in 1946 was in direct response to elicit black market trade. Nearly every resident of postwar Germany engaged in the black market on some level, as “most women saw it as an extension of 477 Leach, “Culture of Consumption,” 320-327.   186  housework and believed that given its prevalence it was, therefore, not illegal or immoral.”478 Hilton argues that the ubiquity of illicit trade allowed Germans to simultaneously rely on it and bemoan its effect on the economy. It simply added another notch to a larger victimhood narrative in which Germans were at the mercy of the negative forces around them and therefore could not be held accountable. Hilton describes this as a “ ‘coping mechanism,’ a way for Germans to avoid facing the actual reasons for the shortages; the Nazi years, the refugee crisis, the worldwide food shortage and a non-existent currency.”479 If residents relied on the black market as a crutch, it was up to the German government and American occupation authorities to control, combat, and replace it with something stable and fitting their democratic goals. German police were charged with the task of inspection, border control, conducting raids and confiscating goods, while 900 bureaucrats investigated price violations in 28 offices throughout the Bizone. Between the black market and the “white market” or legal trade, a gray market consisting of “compensation trading” (barter) acted as a compromise. The solution was only temporary however as legalized compensation trading with big business would inevitably weaken legal trading networks.480 A long-term solution required strengthening legal trade thus rendering black market prices and goods obsolete, something the Currency Reform was meant to accomplish. Long-running German fairs drew attention equal to that of the larger Export Schau in Munich, reviving their visitor numbers to prewar levels. The Leipzig Fair in the spring of 1947 478 Laura J. Hilton, “The Black Market in History and Memory: German Perceptions of Victimhood from 1945 to 1948,” German History, Vol. 28, No. 4. (Dec., 2010): 490. 479 Ibid. 480 "The Black Market and Barter Deals," OMGUS WIB, No. 128, February 1948, 5. “[Compensation trading] is the result of the discredit of the currency and an extreme scarcity of all goods and materials. The products bartered come chiefly from German production or stocks, but through contact with black-market channels some quantities of Allied gasoline, chocolate, soap, and small quantities of imported raw material enter into compensation trade, too. The agents of this trade are generally businessmen...The gray market cannot be abolished by legislation as long as the white market does not have the bases for economic vitality that would make the cumbersome devices of the gray market unnecessary. Until the white market gains that vitality through increased supplies and through reestablishment of a functioning money and a functioning system of prices and wages, there can be no real solution of the gray market problem.”   187  boasted over 700 new exhibitors and over 1,500 visitors from outside of Germany. Like the Export Schau the main aim was to display export samples to buyers, to host “a businessman’s and industrialist’s event” and yet “makeshift stands selling cheap toys and souvenirs sprang up at every bombed-out corner.”481 It was after all still a street fair, much more accessible to the German public eager to join in on the festivities surrounding the Fair. Inside the designated exhibition halls, however, German visitor numbers were limited, favouring foreign buyers and granting access to Leipzig’s businessmen only at certain hours on specified days.482 German consumers were thus still on the outside looking in. Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, and Hanover all revived their proud traditions of the annual Messe (trade fair).483 Drawing on the tried and true marketing format of the trade fair from decades past allowed German and American officials to combat the black market and restore German pride in Made in Germany products through export contracts. Other obstacles to a full revival of pre-war export trade remained however. In 1948, having traveled to fairs in Milan and Paris, H. Tichauer remarked on “the staggering absence of rights concerning patents-and trade mark protection.” It was his recommendation in his speech at the second anniversary of the Munich Export Schau that foreign trade restrictions should be lifted immediately in order to take advantage of this openness in the foreign market. He then complemented the JEIA and its Foreign Trade Director Paul S. Nevin for being receptive to and 481 “Leipzig Fair” article by Marjorie A. Yahraes WIB Staff Writer, OMGUS WIB, No. 84, March 1947, 5. 482 Ibid. 483 Wiesen, West German Industry, 134. “It had been many decades since ‘Made in Germany’ had first been worn as a badge of pride…German workers partook of this view themselves. As meticulous specialists—as Facharbeiter—they saw themselves producing wares of unsurpassable quality...During the interwar years most German companies continued to focus more on quality than on volume. But this marketing was always accompanied by a love-hate relationship with the consumer market and its echoes of American-style business methods.” Consequently, postwar German industry turned to the most familiar means of drawing attention to itself and its creations: the industrial and technical trade fair. By the late 1940s, the public had already begun flocking to convention halls to peer at the most tangible manifestations of the market economy—its products.” "Show Windows for Bizonal Export," OMGUS WIB, No. 112, September 1947, 8.   188  supportive of German proposals for improving trade.484 There were many difficulties to overcome as a new generation of buyers came to learn to distinguish German goods from foreign imports, which was one downside of trademark leniency.485 However, as trade restrictions were lifted and collaboration between Germans and their American occupiers grew, the global reach of German products followed. By 1949, West German manufacturers were exhibiting throughout Europe, in Africa, Asia and the United States. The first German product exhibition on American soil took place in April 1949. Sponsored by the Museum of Science and Industry in New York in conjunction with OMGUS, this exhibit titled “Germany 49” provided samples and a buyers’ guide for American businessmen who were unable to or perhaps prior to this exhibit not eager to visit fairs in Germany. Concurrently the George C. Marshall House in Berlin held an exhibition showcasing American industry, trade, labour, government structure and democracy. Visitors to this exhibition included both curious onlookers and manufacturers wishing to network with foreign buyers.486 Germans were so anxious to regain a foothold in foreign markets that when the JEIA eased restrictions on German travel abroad, 3750 applications poured in from Bavarian businessmen alone.487 As of March 1948, JEIA operated under a new charter giving it complete autonomy over foreign trade within the bizonal area. The charter also included provisions for “100 million dollars in raw materials imports, 80% of which will go towards export and 20% towards manufacture for German consumption.” In addition the new charter eased travel 484 "Germany 49," RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 1. 485 Cahan, “German Exports,” 7-8. He acknowledges a ten-year gap in German goods availability and that there was a “general hostility to Germany and Germans to be overcome.” In particular he notes the competition between British and German products, in fine mechanics, optics, ceramics, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, steel and engineering, tools, textiles, toys and musical instruments. 486 Wiesen, West German Industry, 146-156. 487 JEIA Monthly Newsletter, June 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 74, File 4. “German Representation Abroad: Bavaria has issued, since March 1948, 1800 licenses to German principals to engage commission agents in foreign countries who acted as their representatives for the sale abroad of German manufactures. Of this number, 1,140 licenses have been issued in 1949.”   189  restrictions and gave the JEIA the authority to issue export licenses.488 As direct U.S. and German legislative restrictions and controls eased, the two countries were free to develop stronger ties through trade. 4.2 Expellee Fairs Expellee industries were particularly successful and supported by refugee commissioners and Ministries as well as larger agencies like the JEIA. To achieve such ends, government personnel worked alongside refugees and expellees to develop trade fairs that would showcase expellee firms. By January 1949 the Bavarian Refugee Administration reported that refugee tradesmen and artisans had received 20,344 export licenses and their work had been showcased at noteworthy, refugee-specific exhibitions in Traustein, Ansbach, Rosenheim, Kulmbach, Rottach-Egern, and Garmisch-Partenkirchen.489 The latter was of particular note as the first all-refugee exhibition of its kind, boasting 126 exhibitors and a four-week run all within a former German army barracks.490 In a March 1949 article in the OMGUS Weekly Information Bulletin, John A. Biggs reported on the unique significance and “drama” of the story behind the scenes of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen show, calling it a “comeback performance, on a very small scale.”491 He was especially enamoured with what he called the “ingenuity and inventiveness” of the makers, 488 Address given by Hanns Seidel on January 28, 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 2. 489 “Third Yearly Report of the Bavarian Refugee Administration , Munich January 1949. RG 260, NARA, Box 281, File 16. Outside of Bavaria: “30,000 at Wiesbaden. See Expellee Show. Thirty thousand persons visited the Hessian Expellee Exposition during its two-month stay in Wiesbaden. The show, which features the contribution which Hesse’s half-million expellees are making to the state’s industrial and cultural life, moved to Limburg and opened there on 15 December. It is planned that six more principal Hessian cities be included on the tour, which is scheduled to continue until the autumn of 1949. The exposition, which is housed in two huge tents covering some 20,000 square feet, features the finest products of Hesse’s 260 recognized expellee-operated firms.” OMGUS WIB, No. 124, December 1947, 10. 490 “Refugee Handicraft—Bavarian Group Displays Work," by John A. Biggs, OMGUS WIB, No. 157, March 1949, 6. 491 Ibid.   190  despite raw material and machine shortages: “Some of the innovations had been born through necessity like the chair that converted into a reasonably comfortable bed. There were jewelry and brass coffee pots made from shell and cartridge cases salvaged from German Army supplies.”492 In addition to ingenuity, he touted the international reputations of many of the firms, singling out the Schönbach Musikinstrumentenerzeuger (musical instrument producers). Biggs acknowledged the impressive quality of their work by including a photo of a woman holding one of their recently finished violins, made from a 700-year-old beam from the bombed out Frauenkirche in Munich. The choice of this particular object seems deliberate as its power was three-fold. It was an expellee handcrafted object, made from a 700-year-old church beam and was a remnant of the rubble. The object may have pulled on the emotions of those with a spiritual connection, a connection to Germany’s history and those struggling with the state of postwar desolation and scarcity. The story of this particular violin was meant to speak to the viewer, to create a level of “intersubjectivity” between person and object, as material culturalist Ian Woodward might argue.493 In this case the achievement of intersubjectivity may have directly contributed to a sale, even mass consumption of the object and the renewal of the maker’s reputation as well as that of the “Made in Germany” label. Biggs notes that this particular violin was “considered by experts to be as rich in tone as a Stradivarius.”494 The mention of this famed, and highly sought-after Italian brand of violin gestured at the high quality of the instrument, made more remarkable by the circumstances under which it was crafted and the materials from which it was hewn. 492 Ibid. 493 Ian Woodward, Understanding Material Culture (London: Sage, 2007), 15. 494 Ibid. The Stradivarius is a fixed mark of sound comparison, as it is undoubtedly the most well-known, sought-after and revered object of the violin-making world.   191   6. Craft wares on display at the Garmisch Expellee Fair    495   Finally, Biggs touched on the relationships between the newly arrived makers in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and their unwelcoming neighbours in nearby Mittenwald. He acknowledged their products to be of equal quality and stated competition as the reason the Schönbachers had “incurred the [Mittenwalders’] resentment.” The article ended on an optimistic note, with Biggs citing the obvious difficulties plaguing the industry and trade in general but applauding the “philosophical good humor of people to whom so much has happened that all additional burdens can be accepted with a shrug.” He projected that by 1950, many hoped to have stores and showrooms of their own.496 Biggs saw these expellee craftspeople as models of 495 Both photos taken from “Refugee Handicraft—Bavarian Group Displays Work," by John A. Biggs, OMGUS WIB, No. 157, March 1949, 6. 496 Ibid., As an additional problem, each exhibitor throughout the show had the same story of shortages which he repeated with surprisingly few variations—shortages of credit, work space, showrooms, money and   192  the Selbsthilfe ideal, believing them to have adopted the role with enthusiasm. By participating in the show and displaying one particular violin, the Schönbach makers had garnered media attention, taking one step closer to the dream of having their own showrooms. Perhaps inspired by the response to the expellee-exclusive show in Garmisch or in direct competition with it, organizers (including the director of the violin making school and violin makers of Mittenwald, members of the media and one professor specialist of culture and music) developed the “Deutsche Musikinstrumenten-Messe 1949 Mittenwald.”497 It took place from August 28th to September 5th, 1949, just months after the Garmisch-Partenkirchen expellee show of the same nature. Journalist Dietrich Bosing reported that 20,000 visitors were expected at this, first ever German all-musical instrument exhibition. It showcased all things related to music and instrument-making, including sheet music and artisanal tools. He emphasized the wide range of exhibitors represented and the foreign countries sending buyers while also reminding readers of important exclusions such as makers from East Germany who were restricted to selling at the Leipzig Fair.498 The aim of the Messe was to set the musical instrument making industry apart from the other export industries of the day and in turn set West Germany apart from other global exporters. It was meant to shine a spotlight on Mittenwald, to solidify the customers plagued them all constantly. However, most of them manage to retain the philosophical good humor of people to whom so much has happened that all additional burdens can be accepted with a shrug. Of one thing they were sure: conditions seemed better this year than last, and they had been a little better last year than the year before. With a successful first showing behind them, including over DM 2,500,000 ($750,000) worth of orders, and the promise that the show would become an annual affair, most of the refugees have taken on a new optimism. 497 "Deutsche Musikinstrumenten-Messe 1949" (promotional pamphlet), BayHSt, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 476. 498 "The Village of 1000 Violins," (newspaper article), 18 August 1949, BayHSAt, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 483. “In the violin making school at the foot of the Karwendel Mountains, the only one in Germany, the final arrangements are made to accommodate over 100 exhibitors from all four zones of Germany. Also interested parties from the USA, Switzerland, Holland and Austria have confirmed their appearance. At the Mittenwalder fair, all musical instruments that are used today are issued. Stringed and fretted/plucked instruments, organs and brass wind instruments will find their place here, as well as harmonicas, drums, sheet music and tools. The largest organ, small pianos, and harpsichords will also be on display. Musical events of well-known artists, including chamber singer Julius Patzak were advertised, and you will also be able to hear all the instruments that can be seen at the exhibition. Although the “German Economic Commission” of the East Zone has the Saxon luthiers and other instrument makers they are prohibited to visit the fair in regard for the exhibition held in Leipzig.”   193  community’s status as a central locale or heart of the musical instrument industry while also reigniting tourism to the area. 7. Mittenwald Deutsche Musikinstrumenten Messe 1949, program cover.499   For many musical instrument makers the show served to bring people together to exchange innovative ideas, deepen and make new business connections and hold trade organization meetings.500 It was as much a conference of makers meeting to gauge the state of the industry as a trade fair for exporters and buyers. Musical performances and instrument demonstrations by well-known artists accompanied the trade fair highlighting classical, church and folk styles.501 For the music-loving attendees the Messe served as a reminder of peacetime, a bygone time of cultural pursuits and delights. Graslitzer brass instrument makers came from Waldkraiburg to present orchestra equipment and horns for jazz bands.502 The fair was not only 499 Photograph of Musikinstrumentenmesse pamphlet, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 475. 500 "Deutsche Musikinstrumenten-Messe 1949" (promotional pamphlet), BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 476 -480. 501 Ibid. 502 "Vor der Stainer-Geige bis zur 'Fidel': Einheimische und ausgewiesene Instrumentenmacher stellen in Mittenwald aus." (newspaper articles), BayHStA, MK, Box 63273, File 649.   194  about generating sales for the industry but about offering an experience to the visitors (consumers) whom the music industry serves.503 To this end, brochures and articles advertised Mittenwald’s scenic and peaceful Alpine location and its proximity to tourist attractions like the Passion play site in Oberammergau.504 In addition, the Messe acted as a demonstration of musical innovations still to come in a more prosperous future West Germany. For the expellee makers, the show was a chance to prove their firms worthy of aid. Even those instrument makers living nearby in Garmisch-Partenkirchen required support just to exhibit at the show. The cooperative of Schönbach makers living in Garmisch addressed a letter to the State Secretary for Refugee Affairs in Munich on June 30, 1949, requesting financial aid: The importance of our group’s attendance at this show is absolutely imperative. However, the cost of the space rental is so high that it seems impossible for us because of our poor economic situation to participate or represent our industry. To spend that amount just to exhibit in an area of 4-5 square meters would defeat the purpose entirely. As you can see from the enclosed the rent is DM 28 per square meter. With the variety of our instruments and their various component parts and the like we would absolutely expect a space of 20 square meters, if we do not want to look inferior to the domestic industry of the Mittenwald violin making industry in any way. Our cooperative, which collectively with its 105 members would like to exhibit...if it were possible, that from state resources or with your support a financial subsidy might be granted.505 Representation at the Mittenwald Messe was political due to its location and status as the first-ever German musical instrument showcase and first postwar gathering of German makers. Not to attend would be to concede that Mittenwald makers held pre-eminence in the industry and to reveal to the world a weakness in the Schönbachers' ability to produce for export markets. In 503 "Deutsche Musikinstrumenten-Messe 1949" (promotional pamphlet), BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 476-480. 504 Ibid. 505 Correspondence between the Schönbacher Musikinstrumentenerzeuger and the State Secretary for Displaced Persons/Refugees, 30 June 1949, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 481-482.   195  addition, this plea to the government came just short of accusing Mittenwald Messe organizers of deliberately excluding the expellee makers by demanding exorbitant booth fees. In asking for a mere 560 DM, the Schönbach cooperative drew attention to the desperate financial state of their firms and the necessity of attending such shows in order to reverse their circumstances. An Erlangen county representative of the musical instrument makers attended the show and reported directly to Minister President Hans Ehard, calling the show an “impressive picture” of “the creative forces of this craft” despite a lack of raw materials and “failed organizational measures.”506 His assessment was that the industry could be easily revived to its former glory if firms received government support in the form of equipment, tools and advertising abroad. With 350,000 DM (including 100,000 DM in tone wood supply for steady production), he estimated, the government could ensure the Schönbach makers dominance in the marketplace, beating out rivals inside Germany and in their former homeland of Czechoslovakia.507 The Mittenwald Messe was an opportunity for German craft to regain a foothold in the international market and for the expellees to reassert their place within the industry. Moreover, the expellees’ presence at the show proved that they were in Germany to settle and make an impact, and that they would not bow to the pressures of local resentments and exclusionary tactics. 506 Correspondence between the Handwork association in Nurnberg and Ehard (Minister President), 15 February 1950, BayHSt, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 544-547. 507 Ibid. Czechoslovakian makers had taken over former Schönbach workshops and supplies, even carving their own market internationally, a development that did not sit well with the expellees, who became increasingly motivated to surpass all rivals and regain their customer base. “The distribution of funds to the ailing craft would most appropriately according to the proposals of a committee, consisting of the district of Erlangen, a representative of the Chamber of Crafts, the foreman of the musical instrument maker’s guild, the chairman of the Guild of Erlangen, and some delegates of the Schönbacher musical instrument makers. It is in Germany’s interest to raise our power and eliminate the Czech competition. The Erlangen settlement is under way but it requires the support of the State Secretary for Refugees and the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior .The Chamber of Crafts of Middle Franconia is trying to create through close examination of the economic conditions and opportunities the basis for the development and maintenance of the Schönbach violin makers...Signed Landratsamt Erlangen, Handwerkskammer Fuer Mittelfranken, Musikinstrumentmacher-Erlangen, Musikinstrumentenmacher- Mittelfranken.”   196  Though shows specializing in one craft were crucial for exposure, large exhibitions often had a much wider reach. OMGUS planners included expellee firms in Munich’s Haus der Kunst exhibitions, giving them the opportunity to stand alongside local German producers. For OMGUS, the goal was to bring all Bavaria’s producers together to showcase one strong, resilient “Made in Germany” label.  8. OMGUS poster outside Haus der Kunst Exhibition  508   508 “Wenn Sie auch heute das hier Ausgestellte noch nicht kaufen können, vergessen Sie nicht, daβ der Export der wesentliche faktor zum Wiederaufbau unserer Wirtschaft ist.” Translation: If you can not yet buy what is exhibited here today, do not forget that exports are a significant factor in rebuilding our economy. RG 260, NARA, Box 76, File 2.   197  4.3 Haus der Kunst Exhibition The OMGUS-issued poster above reads, “Even if you cannot yet buy what is exhibited here today, do not forget that exports are an essential factor in rebuilding our economy.” Posted outside the Haus der Kunst exhibition in Munich in the fall of 1946, one interpretation might be that it served as an implicit reminder to all German exhibition visitors of the power dynamics at play in their occupation. Still under Military Government supervision (OMGUS) and indebted to American taxpayers, the underlying message was that the German people must be patient. They must continue to work in the spirit of Selbsthilfe to re-brand themselves on an international stage in order to repay their debts and become self-sufficient. It would not be a task dictated from above, but one collaboratively entered into. It would require the self-directed work of craftspeople, the cooperation of expellees and local Germans and the creation of a new Made in Germany brand, palatable on an international stage. Exhibitions and trade fairs like this one in Munich provided a literal stage for this reconstructive task. An alternate reading might view the sign as benign, in that its message was typical of all trade fairs, where small samples are put on display in place of larger batches or inventory left behind in the workshop. However, even if it were simply a reminder that attendees would be viewing samples, the inability to purchase the goods on display would have cut a little deeper in the postwar context. Few consumer goods were available on store shelves in general in Germany at this time. The inside of the hall did not reflect what one found outside its walls, as after their visit many would step outside into Munich’s rubble-strewn and beleaguered streets. Journalist Thomas A. Falco captures this dichotomy quite well in his article “Showcase of Bavarian Industry,” from 1946 in which he juxtaposes the natural beauty and former glory of   198  Munich with its contemporary reality as a relic of Hitler’s architectural legacy and a hub for future economic hopes: On an edge of Munich’s English Garden, a large park amid the ruins of what was once a ‘queen among continental cities,’ stands the gleaming white, neoclassical “Haus der Deutschen Kunst,”…Today, the Haus der Kunst still gleams white against the green of the English Garden, but the purpose for which it is now being used is a far cry from Hitler’s dream…a display of Bavarian goods that symbolizes not Nazi culture, but the goods a peaceful Germany would like to sell to a peaceful world.509 Had the Nazis accomplished their war aims, it would have served as the central cultural symbol of the new Nazi-ruled Europe. Though controversial, the decision to use the Haus der Kunst was approached as one of necessity. In 1946 approximately one-third of Munich’s buildings had been destroyed by war, and Military Government had repossessed many of the remaining buildings for office space. Its grand stature and floor space were unrivaled and, after several months of renovation in the summer of 1946, 25,000 square feet of exhibition space was made available for use.510 The brainchild of Lutz Schützendorf, a representative of the Bavarian Minister of Economic Affairs and Head of the Department of Exhibitions and Trade Fairs, the Kunst Hall Exhibit proposal underwent weeks of negotiations and the generous support of Military Government, before its inception. At issue in these negotiations was the use of space. Organizers eventually agreed to divide the hall into west and east wings, with the west housing the existing art and museum collection of the hall including fifteenth and sixteenth Century Bavarian artworks, paintings by Dürer, Grunewald, Cranach, Holbein, as Falco relays, “men who brought 509 “Showcase of Bavarian Industry,” by Thomas A. Falco. OMGUS WIB, No. 61, September 1946, 4-5; 24-25. 510 OMGUS WIB, No. 61, September 1946, 5. "The Haus der Kunst was a natural candidate. But its use would mean cutting out some of Military Government’s recreational facilities in Munich; it would also mean a certain amount of repairing and redecorating. Nevertheless, the one-time apple of Hitler’s artistic eye was finally elected. On 25 May, even as carpenters were still swinging hammers, about 6,000 square feet of floor space was stocked with toys and handicraft items, and quietly opened to the public. It was a preview of the show to come. Two months later, four times as much floor space, some 25,000 square feet, was ready."   199  German art to the peak of its fame and made Munich the ‘Florence of Germany.’”511 The east wing was opened exclusively for the craft exhibition.512 A portion of the building was also re-purposed as a mess hall for Military Government officers. The choice to use the hall was not taken lightly, as its function as an art museum was ever-present in decision-making processes. The size and location of the hall were undeniably suited to hosting an exhibition, yet these were not its only beneficial qualities. As Falco reminded his readers, the goods on exhibit would act as symbols of a “peaceful Germany,” rather than of “Nazi culture,” in a sense re-branding the hall itself. When the Ministry of Economics in cooperation with industry associations advertised the opportunity to exhibit, over 4000 firms responded to the call, exceeding all expectations. In order to accommodate this overwhelming number of applicants the exhibition was re-worked into a collective show, grouping branches of industry together. While this diminished the input of individual firms, it did have the advantageous effect of substantiating the breadth and depth within each branch of Bavarian industry. Firms were carefully selected for inclusion based on their ability to demonstrate the full potential of future production, even though at the time the raw materials and technologies to mass produce these objects were in short supply.513 Therefore, this was an exhibition or “show” in the truest sense, in that the objects in many cases were merely representations of what might 511 Ibid. 512 Exportschau Catalogue, Collegium Carolinum, Munich. This information appeared in the foreward tot he catalogue, giving general introductory information to the visiting public. 513 Ibid. This information appeared in the foreword to the catalogue, giving general introductory information to the visiting public.   200  be possible should export buyers open their wallets to support exhibiting firms. It was a performance of what mass production might bring, in the future.514 A wide array of choices were on display to pique the buyer’s imagination, including optical goods, glassware, motorcycles, musical instruments, toys, ceramics, electrical equipment and adjacent to the hall in the English Garden, a set of nine prefabricated houses designed and built by the Association of the Bavarian Wood Working Industry.515 Much of what was on display was made or built with only the meagre resources on hand in and around cities and refugee camps, a fact that only served to reinforce the touted ingenuity and skill of the craftspeople represented. The fact that all of the 3500 manufacturers in attendance also resided within Bavaria’s borders further cemented the region’s reputation as “Germany’s Workshop.” The Exhibition’s marketing and ultimate rebranding of German goods was achieved with the help of the Export catalogue and a series of speeches given at the inaugural opening. These two tools of oratory and visual spectacle provided ample opportunity to extol the virtues of “Germany’s Workshop” and the possibilities for expellee integration, economic prosperity and peace. Common tropes emerged in the language as politicians—one after the other—expressed the vital importance of the Exhibition and became salesmen of a new German image. 514 For more on performance see Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1986). 515 OMGUS WIB, No. 61, September 1946, 5. In total there were 800 exhibits, representing 3500 manufacturers, all currently located in Bavaria.   201   9. Export Schau catalogue cover 516   The catalogue was shipped to the United States to both buyers and the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. for distribution. In some instances interested buyers wrote directly to OMGUS requesting a copy.517 The cover depicted cargo trains rapidly crisscrossing Bavaria, to and from destinations yet unknown, denoting the efficiency and speed of future trade deals. The placement of the Export Schau at the crossroads in bold block letters suggested the centrality and strength of the exhibit and the Bavarian firms in particular, as the trains crisscross 516 ExportSchau Catalogue. The Export Schau catalogue cover reads “Exhibition of the Bavarian Economy. Bavarian Economic Export-Exhibition Munich. Haus der Kunst, July to December 1946.” The following page of the catalogue lists the following names: Organizer. Bavarian State Minister for Economics, Lutz Schuetzendorf. Secretary for the fair and exhibitions in collaboration with the military government of Bavaria, Economic Division. With cooperation from the Land economy ministry and provincial agencies. Dr. Von Kauffmann. National Foreign Trade Office Bavaria. Dr. Kraul and Albrecht. Foreign trade departments of industry and commerce in Bavaria. Professional associations of the Bavarian Economy. Bavarian Administration of State Schoeffer. 517 US Civilian Chief, Import/Export Section, Subject: Products for the Middle East, 25 April 1947, RG 260, NARA, Box 49, File 1. Peter H. Smith, US Civilian Chief of the Import-Export Section, Trade and Commerce Branch, OMGUS was often responsible for responding to these requests and sending the catalogue along with additional pamphlets.   202  over a map outline decked out in the blue and white diamonds (colours of the Bavarian flag). These design choices reflect the importance of export and of Bavarian firms to the overall reconstruction project and economic recovery. The catalogue included lists of participating firms, names, addresses and advertisements as well as a foreword by Ludwig Erhard, State Minister for Economics. The tone of his address was one of frank acknowledgment of both the world’s view of Germany as reprehensible and Germany’s dependence on that outside world for survival. While expressing some humility, it seems that Erhard’s confidence in his nation far outweighed it. It is an excellent example of re-branding in that he was attempting to foreground Germany’s redeeming qualities while still acknowledging its dire reality by employing language that referred concurrently to German hardships and capabilities. American readers, for example, might have been taken aback by the first line in which Erhard described those who survived the war as the “faint-hearted” who were “left with nothing standing after the collapse of a world of illusion and no friendly sign beckoning us once again to have the courage for a new start.”518 Opening as he did, with a plea for sympathy, he set the narrative as one in which a hapless few were taken in by grand Nazi illusions and innocently led astray. With his subtle reference to the “courage” required of all Germans after the war, he prompted the foreign reader to buy into the sales pitch that followed in subsequent paragraphs in which he described German craftspeople as “pulling ourselves out of the rubble,” as possessing “high skill and diligence,” as demonstrating the “noble human spirit of this nation,” and its “imperishable spiritual values and moral forces, over all aberrations.”519 Erhard’s use of the word 518 ExportSchau Catalogue. 519 Ibid.   203  “aberrations” served to denote what he wanted to sell as a minor, insignificant period of Nazism in a broader range of German history, a blip on the much longer radar of the past. Erhard’s address was followed by a message titled “Export and our Future.” Writing in German, exhibition organizer Lutz Schützendorf expressed confidence in the intrinsic values of the nation but acknowledged that the “noble human spirit” on display at the exhibition might not be enough to convince the rest of the world that a new Germany had emerged. We know well that to win back the trust of the world it requires much more effort than an exhibition, and we are also aware that even with a maximum export of our products it will not solve the economic, political and social problems in Germany. Yet if we want to be happy we have to make it our goal to push against the understandably still suspicious view the world has of us...It is our intention to show in this Hause the width of our commercial activities to the world, and yes I confess that even with all of Bavaria’s specialization in manufacturing I believe it will not even be enough...All the greater is my humility when I think of how much we need the rest of the world in order to be able to develop our own economic forces.520 In using the words “I confess” and “humility,” he was bowing to the realities of German dependence on the “suspicious” outside world and appealing to a shared humanity. After all he seemed to say here that Germans simply wanted to “be happy.” For German readers, it signaled that, although they were not able to buy items from the show, it was a necessary step in regaining respect from the outside world, from which prosperity and happiness would follow. He admitted the vulnerability of the country, showed humility and in doing so likely won a sympathetic ear among many Export catalogue readers. Moreover, in acknowledging that it would take more than an exhibition to regain the world’s trust, he assured readers that while proud of their craft accomplishments Germans could not forget the Nazi years, nor should they harbour any illusions that the world would simply forgive and forget once dazzled by Germany’s economic resurgence. 520 Ibid.   204  For those readers not taken in by a matter-of-fact and humble acknowledgement of Germany’s present reality, Erhard and Schützendorf employed language that contrasted the dark, deplorable Nazi years with wholesome visions of Heimat. This was an interesting shift, as the Nazis had also used Heimat as a means to reach out to local communities and control cultural organizations, appealing to people’s desire for belonging and home.521 The vision of a wholesome Heimat had changed very little, but the actual demographic makeup of small communities had drastically changed to include displaced persons and expellees. The story of an idyllic Heimat was simply told for a different purpose, for reconstruction rather than war recruitment. Erhard assured readers that “people are aware that the National Socialist principle of self-sufficiency has become a curse,” and implored them to believe that the “misguided German nation has not lost in the darkness of tyranny twelve years of its soul.”522 In a gesture towards overcoming this dark past, Schützendorf added, “our yearning that all peoples should not harden in hatred against us who are willing to show that a twelve year madness and hate ideology could not alienate the German makers of their task to create in the love of [their] Heimat, in the dedication to work and constant cultural values.”523 They do not deny that the Nazi years were a time of “madness and hate” and yet this language also suggested that it was a brief lapse of sanity and a hate based not on intrinsic values, but on ideology alone, an ideology that could not overshadow a culture of craft and a love of Heimat. The proof of the strength and long dureé of 521Applegate, A Nation of Provincials, 202. “Having achieved power, the Nazis moved quickly to insure that all imaginings of the whole were in line with their own, and this meant bringing Heimat organizations under their control, along with singing clubs, youth groups, hiking fellowships, and all other expression of German sociability. The Gleichschaltung, or coordination, of the German Heimat consciousness proceeded in the Pfalz in three stages, each a further intensification of Nazi influence on local institutions. From the consolidation and centralization of some groups to the transformation of others and finally the invention of new ones, the Nazis attempted to appropriate and organize the sentiments of hometown patriots.” 522 ExportSchau Catalogue 523 Ibid.   205  these values over those of madness lay in a practiced “dedication” to them despite recent years of hate ideology and current hardships. Germans must be “willing and happy and ready to do everything to detoxify German industry” in order that “the tears that are the plight of our people gradually become dry.”524 With enough commitment to and focus on the present task, Erhard and Schützendorf seemed to suggest, the past could be overcome. It is clear that Erhard and Schützendorf were focused not on the victims of Nazism than on the task at hand, “to allow people to return to their rightful lives.”525 In other words, the German people deserved a return to peaceful pursuits, despite the crimes of the Nazi years. While this end goal was eventually shared by OMGUS officials, German politicians, economists and German citizens alike, convincing the general American taxpayer and business person that Germans indeed had a rightful claim to postwar happiness required a persuasive sales pitch. After all, they not only had to buy into the idea of a peaceful and prosperous Germany but were expected to pay the bill.526 Show organizers also had to appeal to German audiences to convince them of the merits of hosting an export show. Schützendorf alluded to the fact that residents from Munich visiting the exhibition “may feel it as a contradiction that so many beautiful things are shown, which are intended to express an upscale and sophisticated lifestyle and therefore appear to him to belong to a lost world.”527 Schützendorf believed that many Germans misunderstood the exhibition and the value of producing export goods in exchange for foodstuffs and basic necessities. With this audience in mind he explained, “the opening up of foreign markets and the maintenance of 524 Ibid. 525 Ibid. 526 A reminder here that the American occupation was at first based on the Morgenthau plan which sought punishment for German collective guilt through harsh reparations, industry dismantling, etc. By the time of this trade fair, American views and policies had changed considerably, understanding that German civilians deserved a return to peace and prosperity. See footnote 172; Guradze, “The Landerrat,” 190. 527 Ibid.   206  foreign trade for our Heimat is of almost fateful significance.”528 The dramatic language of his message was intended to combat the confusion and to sell the importance of an Export Show of this magnitude, to explain and justify the allocation of resources to such a lavish exhibition in hard times. For while the Kunst Hall underwent extensive renovations, much of the rest of the city remained in ruins, including the homes of those who were given the option to look but not touch (or consume) export wares. The export catalogue was not simply selling Made in Germany objects. It was selling a new way for foreign visitors and locals to view the nation’s past. In the end the best selling feature they had in their arsenal was the “entrepreneurial spirit” and moral character of the craftspeople exhibiting at the show. Schützendorf reminded visitors of the show to be “especially mindful of the hopes and longings of the people who fulfilled these tasks, giving their high skill and diligence, their utmost to be allowed to return to work and to be able to live.”529 Key among these people was the expellee craftsperson who provided an indispensable narrative of loss, hardship and the German love of craft and Heimat (though a Heimat they had left behind) in one convenient package. Bavarian Minister President Dr. William Hoegner referred specifically to the “influx of over a million refugees” in his catalogue message as a burdensome presence. It was the “limited absorption capacity of agriculture” available in Germany to accommodate the influx, he argued, that created the impetus behind the export show. He placed his faith, however, in the “artistic talent of the Bavarian people” which he believed would “come forth in the goods they produce, thereby facilitating their inclusion in the world.”530 The craftsmanship would speak for itself, driving refugee integration in Bavaria and in a larger sense Germany’s re-integration into a global trade sphere. 528 ExportSchau Catalogue. 529 Ibid. 530 Ibid.   207  Speeches on the second anniversary of the Haus der Kunst Export Schau in 1948 similarly adopted the language of craftsmanship and the entrepreneurial spirit. Politicians used the public platform provided by the Export Show to update their populace on changes wrought by the Marshall Plan. They sought to prepare Germans for more uncertainty ahead and to motivate them to work through it, to persevere. If the first export catalogue sold the re-branding of Germany to export buyers and American taxpayers, this round of rhetoric on the second anniversary of the Kunst Haus Export Schau sold the idea to the Germans themselves, assuring them that through continued hard work and sacrifice they would reach prosperity. On January 28, 1948, Deputy Minister President and Minister of Justice, Josef Müller addressed a crowd gathered at the Bavarian Export Exhibition to welcome the show’s one millionth visitor. He used the opportunity to express his gratitude to Bavaria’s entrepreneurs who “by their industry and their spirit of enterprise have created the prerequisites for this Exhibition.” Next, he tipped his hat to the American Military Government for its support.531 In a similar vein, Bavarian Minister for the Economy, Hanns Seidel,532 sought to give the audience a hopeful and positive message. He believed that the “special German skill” coincided perfectly with a “strong tendency of the world market towards special articles dependent upon prosperity.” Moreover, he expressed his faith in the “high abilities” of the “German labouring man.”.533 A large Marshall Plan fund contribution to small business loans, construction and raw materials would not hurt either. While German craftspeople did indeed rise to the challenge and thus prove their ingenuity, they were also fully aware of their dependence on these foreign funds to 531 Address of the Bavarian Minister of Economics by Hanns Seidel, delivered on January 28 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 2. 532 Dr. Hanns Seidel was Bavarian Minister of the Economy from 1947-1954. He later became Bavaria’s prime minister from 1957-1960. 533 Address of the Bavarian Minister of Economics by Hanns Seidel, delivered on January 28 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 2.   208  launch fully operational export firms. Once again the rhetoricians charged with explicating the exhibition tempered romanticized notions of intrinsic German values with a large dose of economic reality. Their audience after all was still living amongst the real and metaphorical rubble of their former lives. With the Marshall Plan in mind, Seidel devoted the bulk of his speech to explaining the implications and implementation of the forthcoming aid. He first acknowledged that without American support, progress would not be possible. He described 1948 as an “in-between state of affairs” in which craft firms anxiously awaited raw materials, the currency and price reform, and start-up credit in order to reach full export capacity. The first solution to this impasse he concluded was the100 million dollar import contract which was already granted and in the process of delivering raw materials. The second recommendation was to loosen the policies for granting export licenses in order that the “German export merchant [be] freed from the present unnecessary red-tape,” a measure already underway at the time his speech was given.534 His speech began with an acknowledgement of dependence on American aid: “We therefore appear like beggars living at the expense of the victors...that today the American taxpayer must pay for Germany’s diminished food basis.”535 However, by the end of the speech he argued that aiding Germany was in fact in America’s best interest, because after all “the danger of political and social demoralization of the German people is so imminent, a danger which does not only threaten Germany but the entire occidental culture.”536 This plea to safeguard “occidental 534 Ibid. “The granting of general licenses to reliable export firms, the granting of the airmail traffic, admission of representatives of German firms abroad and the approval to pay agents’ commissions to foreign countries, facilities in the mutual foreign travelling, bilateral agreements for the exchange of goods, and the introduction of the cif-clause, all these items might be introduced at once and might visibly boost the export trade... We are happy that it is being seriously considered to grant these facilities. As far as we know, in the question of general licences a favourable decision has already been reached.” 535 Ibid. He refers to the loss of Eastern territories as the reason for this diminished food basis. 536 Ibid. Another fear was the pull of the black market, “The instinct of self-preservation drives a man to the black market with all its devastating economic, social and moral consequences.”   209  culture” was perhaps one of the oldest foreign policy sales pitches in the book, conjuring thoughts of crusades and moral obligations to protect the West against an Eastern threat. What was the solution to this power imbalance, this German dependence on the outside world for aid? According to Seidel, it was “sacrifice,” and the German people’s “willingness to work with its last nerve.”537 Meanwhile, other German politicians were not so accepting of American help. Johannes Semler (a founding member of the CSU), for example, gave his famous “chicken feed speech” in January 1948, describing American aid as chicken feed that Germans would have to pay dearly for with their labour and exports, and be expected “to say thank you for it.” He argued that Germans should not be content with whatever the Americans offered them, simply because they had lost the war.538 Some advertisements emphasized the role the German working man played in the economic shift, skipping over Marshall Plan aid and Currency Reform policies.539 Thus the Kunst Haus export show organizers and other American-sponsored exhibitions that followed had the dual purpose of selling German export products as well as selling American policies and the prospect of an economic miracle. They too relied on an image of the industrious German male entrepreneur to convince Germans to support American policies and export programs. By August 1948, on the second anniversary of the Export Show, speakers had developed a more nuanced approach to discussions of Marshall Plan aid, having witnessed its effects. 537 Ibid. 538 Müller, West Germans against the West, 22-23, 27. “An opinion poll conducted by the Allensbach institute in November 1950 is a further example of many West Germans accusing America of ‘technocratic’ self-interest, both economically and strategically: asked for the two most important reasons the USA had to introduce the Marshall Plan, 58 per cent reckoned that the US intended to prevent Western Europe from becoming communist; 32 per cent thought the USA was securing allies in a possible war with Russia; and 29 per cent claimed that America was using the financial aid program to dump its surplus commodities. A mere 19 per cent thought in 1950 that it was America’s real intention to help people who were starving or otherwise in need.” 539 Spicka, Selling the Economic Miracle, 43, 74, 135.   210  Export Show organizers referred to the Marshall Plan and Currency Reform as events that had cast a shadow over the exhibition and anniversary celebration, making it seem less relevant or urgent as stores re-opened their doors for business. Germans no longer had to gaze longingly from the outside in as they walked the halls of the Haus der Kunst. And yet, they argued that the exhibition still held great value as “the big shop-window for our country.”540 The need for export had not diminished, as the restoration of trade networks was the impetus for Marshall aid in the first place. Moreover, expellee firms were suffering at this time, under the weight of Currency Reform induced setbacks. The show still played a role in connecting foreign export buyers to craft firms. The Marshall Plan had provided a sufficient flow of raw materials but it was now a matter of allocating these and developing infrastructure and output capacity. As one exhibition organizer put it quite casually, “[t]hose directing the economy cannot now do much more than to help the economy into the saddle; it must then do the riding itself.”541 The exhibition facilitated the German ride out of difficult economic circumstances, simply by providing a shop-window for national achievements in craft. Moreover, because Germans developed the show (with financial backing from the U.S. Military Government), they demonstrated the necessary agency to steer their own economic course. Some politicians even went so far as to designate the exhibition as a test case for the return of national government to German hands in 1949.542 Its achievements therefore were political as well as economic. In a speech made at the celebration of the one-millionth visitor in 1948, Van Wagoner announced 540 Second Annual Export Exhibition Munich. Official celebration of 2nd annual Export Show, RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 1. 541 Ibid. “The motto ‘export or perish’ governs now as before all our economic efforts. In this respect the Marshall plan has changed nothing. It cannot exonerate us from the necessity, by sufficient and purposeful export to secure our living basis. It promises us, however, a valuable help: an interim aid for some years allowing us to equip our production means with all required raw materials and other materials...It is our task to use the transition period, that at the end of the 4 envisaged years we may have become self-supporting.” 542 Radio Program: AFN Munich, “Command Report,” AFN Studios, 65 Kaulbachstr. Munich, January 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 283, File 4.   211  that the wares on display at the show represented Bavaria’s growing export record, and its lead over other states in the bizone: $53 million worth of export contracts signed and $21 million worth of commodities shipped in 1947 alone.543 A once hopeful approach to attracting export buyers had grown into an inspiring symbol of Bavaria’s immense manufacturing capabilities, pushing traditional firms further and creating opportunities for entirely new industries. For the American occupiers, a focus on their ability to transform their occupation zone into an economic hotbed of activity placed them in good stead with taxpayers at home. Though expellee integration was acknowledged as part of the success story, organizers mainly sold the show as an exhibit of exports made in Germany, under one label, thus rebranding the country as integrated, working together towards a common goal. Knowing the rhetoric surrounding the show and its intended purpose in a complex re-branding scheme, it is important to also address the presentation of the show itself, the objects on display and its reception among its visitors. The ways in which visitors experienced Germany’s “big shop-window” was obviously highly subjective. Yet one might hypothesize general differences between American export buyers and local German viewers, in how they approached, took in and processed what they saw after leaving its halls. In 1949, for example, American military government set up an exhibition in Frankfurt entitled “So wohnt Amerika” (how America lives). It used photographs and miniature models of suburban homes to convey how Americans live. The fact that it was a mere visual representation of actual products, however, dissuaded visitors and journalists from visiting the exhibition. Later, 543 Address of the Bavarian Minister of Economics, Hanns Seidel, delivered on 28 January 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 2. “In addition it means more factories have swung into production which would otherwise be idle: it has meant more workers have obtained gainful employment, industrialists are tapping new markets for the sale of their products, and government has new opportunities to provide the leadership and planning for economic recovery. And most important of all, it indicates that Bavaria, in the field of industrial revival, has taken the lead, over other states of the bizonal area. This Export Show is an example of Bavarian leadership in this field. It was the first exhibit established in post-war Germany and it has had the largest attendance of any exhibit of its kind. Bavaria was also the first land in 1947 to achieve and surpass its export goal of $50,000,000.”   212  in 1950 when the George C. Marshall Haus on the main fair grounds (Messe) in Berlin hosted an exhibit with real housewares and appliances entitled “Amerika zu Hause” (American at home), it boasted an overwhelming numbers of attendees.544 One year may have made the definitive difference in the way Germans perceived their own situation, in terms of their ability or inability to consume household goods. In 1949, they may have felt that such an exhibition was irrelevant to their daily struggle for basic shelter. On the other hand, it may have simply been the inability of visual representations to convey what the material objects could. Rather than providing an empty promise via photographs, material exhibitions placed the samples in front of the consumer. Once that proximity of consumer to object had been established, the reality of one day possessing those objects, came one step closer. Thus the first step in convincing German exhibition visitors of the forthcoming prosperity they would experience, was for American and German governments to bring future consumers to the display tables. Managing that experience and directing the message visitors carried home with them, was the next step. Josef Müller argued that to many German visitors of the Kunst Haus exhibition, “it appears as a glimpse into fairy-land and it is only with a heavy heart that they understand, that for the time being we have to forego a lot of things we can see here.” On the other hand, he noted that the foreign visitor may have been disappointed with the wares presented in the show as they “had been accustomed to seeing better German achievements.”545 There were clear differences between domestic and foreign visitors: one group saw the wares as glorious yet unattainable and the other as admirable yet inadequate. Similarities lay in a shared sense of the exhibition as a land of make-believe, in which most craft firms presented wares they could not yet produce to buyers who could not yet purchase them (at all or in desired quantities). By Müller’s 544 Castillo, “Domesticating the Cold War,” 7-10. 545 RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 2. Taken from Müller’s address on the occasion of the one-millionth visitor to the Show.   213  interpretation, the lasting impression of the visit may have therefore been quite grim regardless of one’s perspective. In an opposing interpretation, journalist Falco excitedly wrote: They are still passing through the doors at the rate of 20,000 a week and the roster includes Fiorello H. LaGuardia, the ex-mayor of New York and now director-General of UNRRA; Senators…Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, who expressed surprise that the German economy had recovered sufficiently to put on such a show. Byrne’s surprise was no greater than that of almost every German who visits the show. They too are amazed by this display of come-back power—and rather dazed by the sight of so many scarce goods under one roof. Their ‘Oh’s!’ and ‘Ah’s!’ are to be heard at every turn; their wistful glances are to be seen before every display…By next spring, if all goes according to schedule, the Export Show will move to the more spacious Fair Grounds…provision for a 350-room hotel with every convenience for prospective buyers from outside Germany…The idea is to build Munich into a US Zone super-center for export trade.546 Seemingly caught up in the excitement of it all, Falco regaled his largely American Military personnel readership with a play-by- play of celebrity visits and future plans for the Show’s expansion. He wrote of amazement, wistful glances, of power, spaciousness and conveniences, even employing onomatopoeia to pull the readers in and make them feel as if they too were there, gazing starry-eyed at the displays. In effect he played on the position of his readers who may have felt “disheartened” as Müller described them and in need of a little escape. Falco’s position as a journalist tasked with selling the show’s merits to OMGUS personnel and foreign visitors and thus working on the promotional side of the event, places his words in a slightly different role than those of Müller, a politician charged with ensuring Germany’s economic prosperity. Falco writes as if audiences were already convinced of Germany’s “come-back power,” and were even ready to expand the Export Show to the more spacious fairgrounds. These supposed plans for a “US super-center” seem overly optimistic, even overblown, when 546 “Showcase of Bavarian Industry” by Thomas A. Falco, OMGUS WIB, No. 61, September 1946, 4-5; 24-25.   214  one considers that German leaders and journalists were simultaneously counselling German audiences to temper their expectations and practice patience. Ideas like the construction of this super-center had the potential to negate Military Government’s efforts at “providing and setting the conditions within which the Germans themselves assume responsibility for the performance of the German economy.”547 Though Military Government developed trade fairs to promote German interests as well as their own, the speed and decisiveness with which marketing tactics swept in was unsettling for the German population. Even though Hanover was 60 percent destroyed during the war, in three months time an entire factory was dismantled and “its buildings turned into exhibition halls; special restaurants, booths, and gardens were built; flags of all nations hung; until the whole brisk pace resembled that of a fair in the United States.”548 Though the trade fair format was a long-practiced German tradition, the circumstances of Allied occupation, on the one hand, facilitated the adoption of American-style showmanship, promotion and marketing. Moreover, it opened the door to visitors from around the world and a new tourism infrastructure to accommodate them. On the other hand, perhaps the outside influence was as much global as it was American. In 1948 over 1,000 buyers visited the show from countries around the world, proving that new marketing tactics were widely accepted in the global marketplace. Moreover, the Swedish “Stockholm Fair” on September 1, 1948, boasted export sales of $1.5 million, shared among 42 547 OMGUS WIB, No. 24, January 1946, 27. OMGUS WIB, No. 112, September 1947, 10. “These things the Germans must do for themselves. In all of the information media the task of re-educating Germans is a German task. It is American policy to guide, supervise and control but not to perform operational tasks.” OMGUS WIB, No. 82, March 1947, 21. As well, numerous other exhibits opened in cities across the American Zone, attracting buyers from Britain and China as well as top-tier department stores in the United States. For information on the exhibition in Stuttgart see OMGUS WIB, No. 51, July 1945, 21. For information on similar exhibitions in the Soviet Zone (Leipzig) see OMGUS WIB, No. 43, May 1946. For information on the exhibit in Wiesbaden see OMGUS WIB, No. 68, November 1946, 15. For a list of names of noteworthy visitors/buyer to the Munich show refer to “Showcase of Bavarian Industry” by Thomas A. Falco, OMGUS WIB, No. 61, September 1946, 4-5 and 24-25. 548 "Show Windows for Bizonal Exports" by Marjorie A. Yahraes, OMGUS WIB, No. 112, September 1947.   215  German exhibitors from the "Bizone." In fact, the British and U.S. Zones had their own exhibition site at the fair called “Exhibition Hall Bizonia,” which received 2000 visitors on opening day with Bavaria’s porcelain industry selling $955,000 worth of goods in just that one day alone.549 New York’s German export exhibition in May 1949 saw 135,000 visitors and 5 million dollars worth of export contracts signed.550 While the Kunst Haus exhibit gave Bavarian producers a unique platform, their goods were not showcased exclusively in Munich but traveled to foreign locales, garnering export sales from around the world. The greatest source of American influence came in the form of high-powered department store buyers with deep pockets. The Associated Merchandising Corporation represented 25 American department stores, sending various buyers and the General Manager of the Central European Buying Offices, Mr. Hans Streicher, to the show.551 The promotion and marketing of the show was structured to put Bavaria’s best foot forward, as foreign press correspondents were given scheduled JEIA-led tours that showcased the three leading Bavarian export firms and Bavaria’s best hotels. Representatives of the Bavarian tourist trade personally greeted press correspondents as they arrived.552 There was big business in providing hospitality for foreign buyers. In October 1946, a Bavarian Export Taxi service was established, with just 20 cabs available exclusively for businessmen. By 1948, the service boasted 650 cabs in 32 cities, garnering $500,000 in foreign exchange. They also expanded their services to accommodate the 549 JEIA Foreign Trade Division Bavaria. Newsletter for Month of September 1948. Informational Highlights, Issue No. 2, October 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 1163, File 6. 550 JEIA Newsletter, May 1949, Issue No. 9, RG 260, NARA, Box 74, File 4. The Milan Fair in April 1949 hosted 40 Bavarian firms. The Leipzig Fair of March 1949 hosted 579 West German exhibitors, of which 75 were from Bavaria. Report about the Leipzig Fair condensed from a newspaper article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 10 March 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 78, File 5. 551 JEIA Newsletter, May 1949, Issue No. 9, RG 260, NARA, Box 74, File 4. 552 Ibid. In an effort to launch the program in foreign countries, a Foreign Correspondents’ Tour was sponsored...As guests of the Hotel and Export Taxi Associations, a number of press correspondents, representing publications in France, England, and the United States, visited outstanding Bavarian tourist localities during the Christmas season of 1948. A very favourable and wide press coverage of the tourist situation in Bavaria was the result.   216  growing demand for sightseeing and mountain tours.553 These taxi companies expanded alongside the hotel industry, not quite ushering in an age of “US Super-Centres” but having a major impact on the local economy nonetheless. The Americans were still in control administratively, issuing military entry permits to visiting buyers. The maximum stay was 60 days, with an option for extension exclusively for businessmen and only through the Entry and Exits Branch offices located in the Länder capitals. Buyers did have the option of repeat visits, as no limits were placed on the number of entry permits one could obtain.554 In particular, the OMGUS Information Bureau played a pivotal role in guiding visitors and providing export information and hospitality services. Considering many foreign buyers only stayed in Munich for a few days, the Bureau provided a concise overview of the exhibits relevant to each visitor. In addition, buyers were given pricing and delivery information for specific firms and, in turn, each firm received feedback and suggestions on how they could improve to reach a broader market. Facilitating communication in a very systematic and efficient manner, the Information Bureau became essential to generating export sales. In the end buyer feedback was positive in regards to the exhibition, though often not in regards to the flow of exports. Assuaging buyers’ doubts and complaints about pricing and delivery was yet another task of the Information Bureau that made it indispensable in the larger export scheme.555 553 Ibid. Visiting businessmen enjoyed US Army privileges as a rule as of 1948. 554 Ibid. 555 Second Annual Export Exhibition Munich. Official celebration of 2nd annual Export Show, RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 1.   217   10.  Export Schau visitors approach the Information Desk  556   Once inside the show, visitors were greeted at the Information desk pictured above. Next, they were treated to two large displays representing the railway network and the Reichspost. A mechanical model railway showed the flow of transport for all exports and imports, while the Reichspost sponsored a bank of telephones available for international calls.557 These displays helped to reassure foreign buyers that trade logistics would soon revive the flow of goods in and out of Germany. It was both admirable and necessary that the show and its associated promotion should be so well structured and organized, a deliberate testament to the efficiency of US occupation and of core German values. When staging such an elaborate exhibition amidst a city in ruins, it was imperative to prove that Bavaria’s economic show would go on and that Germany had not lost its flair for craftsmanship, quality and a refined tourism experience. The overall message of the show was that, though defeated, Germany’s value in global trade and European cultural exports was not lost. 556 Ibid. 557 Monthly Newsletter of the Joint Export Import Agency of the Foreign Trade Division, Bavaria, Munich Germany, Issue No. 11 June 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 3.   218  While the Kunst Haus Export Schau boasted thousands of foreign visitors, German attendance reached 1.5 million. Though Müller seemed to suggest that the show acted as a reminder of all that had been lost and still remained out of reach, there was a flipside to his perspective. One cannot discount the impact of the spectacle, of the visual power of the show and the experience of walking through it. 11. Ceramics on display at the Kunst Haus Exhibition  558   The linear way in which the tables were arranged, as well as the height differentials created on each table added a layering effect, allowing the viewer to see many points of interest at one time, almost overwhelming one’s sense of sight. This supported the idea of a buffet of choices, a feast of consumer goods on offer for all varieties of taste and budget. It gave a sense of the depth of Bavarian industry as well, as accomplished and bountiful. Moreover, the long hallway peering out just behind the doors gave an infinity effect, suggesting that the flow of 558 Photograph of ceramics on display at the Kunst Haus Exhibition, OMGUS WIB, No. 61, September 1946, 5.   219  these goods would live on without end into Germany’s prosperous future. This singular view of the show on its own proved the principles of the reconstruction project, as one of renewed hope, optimism and recognition on a world stage. The museum-like quality of the image, devoid of bustling crowds or craftspeople standing behind their products, sets this exhibition apart from traditional German fairs like the Leipzig Fair. The layout of the booths was impressive, depicting strength and refinement, nodding as well to the elegance and skill of German craft as tradition. Images mirror Falco’s language as he reported on the show, gesturing at the “aristocratic grace”559 that had thrived throughout German history. Various marquee events were held in conjunction with the exhibition, including speeches, celebrity appearances and stage performances by screen actors, a lavish ball and fashion shows.560 These added to the allure of the show while also giving German audiences something extra to temper the sting of not purchasing the goods on display. One journalist reporting to OMGUS personnel recounted: Fashion Show…packs the auditorium’s 350 seats and is forced to turn away an average of 150 persons every performance…Germany has never been known as a leader in the fashion field; export hopes center around sophisticated versions of traditional Bavarian clothing—dirndl dresses, ski clothes, and peasant sweaters and costumes. But it is the first real fashion show the Germans have seen in seven years and they love it.561 In reading that hundreds of Germans relished the opportunity to take in a fashion show, it relays the extent to which such spectacle provided a break from an otherwise difficult postwar existence. At the base level it speaks to a desire and appreciation for material culture, for the processes of production and consumption. After years of deprivation and rationing, to see 559 Ibid. 560 Second Annual Export Exhibition Munich. Official celebration of 2nd annual Export Show, RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 1. 561 “Showcase of Bavarian Industry” by Thomas A. Falco, OMGUS WIB, No. 61, September 1946, 24-25.   220  beautiful things must have been an emotional and psychological respite. And yet this report comes courtesy of Military Government, for an American audience. Invested as they were in Germany’s success and the success of their occupation, Americans sought to depict a positive image of German export products and reconstruction. In reality attempts to produce sophisticated garments for the export market were not sustainable. Within a year production had shifted from finished garments to fabric. The demand for woolen and cotton whole cloth had grown, and German styles had grown “outmoded according to western standards.”562 Fashion gave way to practicality, just as visiting Germans reconciled fantasy with reality, leaving the bright lights of the fashion show, stepping out of the exhibition and into the rubble-lined streets. Some reactions to the show were not just based on fantastical hopes of future prosperity but may have also conjured nostalgia for the nation’s distant past. Falco directly linked the objects on display to Bavaria’s past: Here are toys made by Bavarian craftsmen with a tradition of 1,000 years behind them. Here are porcelain and chinaware designed with an aristocratic grace that reflects the time, some two hundred years ago, when the industry was a prerogative of the ruling families in the Laender. Here are rings, pins and bracelets fashioned to a loveliness that mirrors the beauty of Bavaria’s lakes, mountains and meadows.563 The objects themselves, according to Falco, would act as a cue for visiting Germans. They would link present industry with that of nineteenth century rulers and ageless natural beauty in Germans’ minds. The objects would play to memories of Bavaria before the World Wars, most importantly bridging over the recent Nazi past and constructing feelings of national unity. As Walter Benjamin might argue, these commodities and their display helped Germans and expellees alike tap into the “dreaming collective” in which the object had the ability to house 562 OMGUS WIB, No. 112, September 1947, 8-10. 563 “Showcase of Bavarian Industry” by Thomas A. Falco, OMGUS WIB, No. 61, September 1946, 4-5 and 24-25.   221  wishes and aspirations. It was a dream in which these consumers were not just negatively manipulated under a capitalist system, but also positively released from the constrictions of war, poverty and want. The way in which objects were displayed, the layout of the export show, the accompanying entertainment and the choice of the Kunst Hall all worked to feed the hopes564 of aspirational, downtrodden postwar consumers and producers. It extolled the promises of capitalism in messages of freedom from want and from loss. As Guy Debord argues, the “spectacle is able to subject human beings to itself because the economy has already totally subjugated them.”565 In the late 1940s, Bavarians were subject not only to American, capitalist policies but to the extremes of scarcity and demand, making them susceptible to the export show’s “dreamlike” design. The show succeeded in reaching thousands of visitors, employing spectacle, to at the very least, engage the German public in the import-export process. The Kunst Haus Export Schau was also significant for the rebranding process because it took place in Munich, the centre of “Germany’s Workshop.” It was the most convincing place to showcase the potential for future prosperity through export sales. As Falco mentioned, Bavaria housed 60 percent of US Zone industry at the time, and had been a region world-famous for its toys, ceramics, cameras and musical instruments before the war.566 The influx of skilled expellees into the the region further solidified Bavaria’s potential through a concentration of handcraft firms. In 1946 the hopes and fate of the Zone undeniably rested on the entrepreneurs’ shoulders. Though present, expellee contributions to the show were not highlighted in German 564 Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), BI, 22; See also Graeme Gilloch, Walter Benjamin: Critical Constellations (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002). 565 Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith, (Black and Red, 1967), 10; Vanessa R. Schwartz, Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siecle Paris (University of California Press: Berkeley, 1998); Williams, Dreamworlds. 566 “Showcase of Bavarian Industry” by Thomas A. Falco , OMGUS WIB, No. 61, September 1946, 5. Also heavily involved in implementing the show was Col. S.Y. McGiffert, Chief of the Economics Division, OMGB- Military Government, Bavaria.   222  publications. The omission seemed to be a product of government attempts to present a united, integrated “Made in Germany” label to buyers, rather than reveal fissures between expellees and Einheimische. Responsibility for planning and promoting expellee-specific trade fairs fell on the shoulders of expellee associations and cooperatives. All they needed were advocates in the fields of trade policy, marketing and promotion. The larger Export Schau depended on representatives of US department stores and local Bavarian government officials. And on a micro level, support came in the form of those who planned the show, produced the catalogue, worked in hospitality industries and operated the Information Bureau welcome booth at the show. What began as an idea formulated by several members of the Trade and Commerce Branch of OMGUS for a “a show-case for Bavarian industry to let a merchandise-hungry world know what at least one part of Germany could do in the way of satisfying its postwar economic appetite”567 was quickly approved by Ludwig Erhard, Bavarian Minister of Economics and carried to fruition through the hard work of hundreds of participating craft firms. The American occupiers clearly recognized the potential at their disposal in Bavaria, but were reliant on the “entrepreneurial spirit” of the craftspeople, the organizational efficiency of the Bavarian government and the long German trade fair tradition to make the show a success. Perhaps most remarkable was the fact that many of the goods on display at these early trade fairs were fashioned with makeshift materials and tools. Some 20,000 German and foreign visitors flooded past the display tables each day, inquiring as to where they could buy these 567 Ibid.   223  goods and in what quantity. Unfortunately some firms were forced to admit that the display model was currently one-of-a-kind.568 The Bavarian Export Show is at once a confession and a challenge. Through it…Bavaria tells the world. “Give us raw materials and we will show you what industriousness and ingenuity can accomplish toward rebuilding a peaceful Germany!’”569 Unlike fairs held in Frankfurt and Hannover, the Export Show showcased a wide array of goods produced by firms of all sizes, including samples of new and innovative expellee and refugee-produced goods.570 It could not compete with the larger, established fairs but it played an indispensable role in rebranding and promoting “Made in Germany” products for export markets, especially for expellee craftspeople still struggling to rebuild their workshops in addition to garnering global trade contracts. The Kunst Haus Export Schau gathered momentum from its first show in 1946 to its 1948 incarnation in which it contributed to a Bavarian export total of $54 million in the first six months of 1948. This total is quite remarkable when one considers export totals failed to reach more than $53 million in the previous year’s sales (1947).571 There was also a parallel Import Exhibit, which opened on September 10, 1948 in the Haus der Kunst.572 The display of imported goods helped to balance visitors’ perceptions of the trade process as a whole. The heights reached by the Export Schau could not be maintained indefinitely, however, as the need for the show waned over time. With the Currency Reform acting as a crucial turning 568 Ibid. “Bavarian State Ministry of Economy, Munich. September 23, 1947. To the Office of Military Government for Bavaria. Attn: Mr. P.S. Nevin. Subject: Export Exhibition...On the occasion of the visits of foreign parties interested, to the Export Exhibition which are increasing lately there is an increasing number of instances that these visitors wish to place private orders when viewing the exhibits; It has also happened that single samples had been asked for. 569 Ibid. 570 JEIA Newsletter, May 1949, Issue No. 9, RG 260, NARA, Box 74, File 4. 571 JEIA Foreign Trade Division Bavaria. Newsletter for Month of September 1948. Informational Highlights, Issue No. 2, October 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 1163, File 6. 572 Ibid; JEIA Newsletter, May 1949, Issue No. 9.   224  point and goods returning to store shelves, the divide between life inside and outside the show began to narrow. The novelty had worn off, as most “Made in Germany” goods could now be found in one’s own neighbourhood shop. Moreover, increased leniency in the matter of exit permits allowed Bavarian businessmen greater mobility. Not only would foreign buyers have access to Germany but Germans would also have greater access to foreign markets, fostering a more efficient trade system that was far less dependent on fixed-locale exhibitions. There were still difficulties, however, as exchange rates between the DM and the US dollar often adversely affected export earnings.573 JEIA initiatives continued to support entrepreneurs, providing 400 million dollars worth of raw materials in 1947, in addition to 800 million dollars worth of food. OMGUS also completed infrastructure reconstruction projects at this time that directly benefited export business, including telephone, telegram and postal services. Perhaps most importantly, bureaucratic measures and red tape had been “radically reduced” to allow greater ease in obtaining export licenses and contracts.574 Steps taken initially in conjunction with the Export Schau had now come to override its role in the overall schema of export sales. The legacy of the Haus der Kunst exhibition was not diminished, however, as Germans and occupation authorities alike continued to extol its virtues. The American Land Director Murray Van Wagoner spoke at the second anniversary celebration of the show, addressing the German audience in a new way, “as never before, I can talk to you with more confidence because of your increased objectivity and understanding.”575 The objective was no longer to impress upon the German people their dependence on American imports or the necessity for their hard work and skill. Rather, on this particular occasion, it was to regale Germans with tales of success, with no small thanks to American cooperation. Van Wagoner reminded the audience 573 OMGUS Press Release, RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 1. 574 Ibid. 575 Ibid.   225  what had two years ago been a “hopeful experiment” had now “developed beyond the fondest hopes of its original founders” to become “Bavaria’s greatest international advertisement.” He carried on to explain that like all business adverts, the export show served to sell the Bavarian name abroad. More importantly, he argued, the show stood as a “gesture in good faith of Bavaria’s desire to recover, and its ability to aid in that recovery.”576 Therefore its final achievement was the way in which it sold German-American cooperation in addition to German independence and agency. The sales pitch that was the export show was so convincing that foreign buyers and statesmen came to ask for it by name when they arrived on German soil and were “amazed that such merchandise could be produced under the difficult economic conditions of war torn Germany.”577 To this end the Land Director offered a quote: “As one American congressman put it: ‘We have more confidence in lending our money to Germany, when we see such examples of industry and ability as this.’”578 While American praise for Germany seemed altruistic in this moment, his last remarks compared Western Germany’s “bright” future to the Soviet zone, pointing out the American zone’s “immeasurably higher living standard.”579 By linking capitalist success with democracy and disparaging the Soviet zone, American occupiers took the opportunity of the show’s success to pat themselves on the back for installing what they believed to be a superior system. The exhibition had without a doubt, proven the strength of Bavarian entrepreneurial willpower and skill and above all the cooperation possible between American occupiers and their German counterparts in government. It created greater German independence from American 576 Ibid. 577 Ibid. 578 Ibid. 579 Ibid.   226  handouts, a higher standard of living and in turn greater security (a boon to Germans and foreign powers alike). This was the common narrative that officials wove into each speech and report on the second anniversary of the Export Schau on August 6th, 1948.580 Though the road to security and independence from American influence was more complex than a single trade fair, the exhibition had been a way for expellees and local producers to reach individual and community prosperity through self-help. Van Wagoner’s speech reiterated this sentiment: “By sacrifice, hard work, an enterprising spirit and intelligence this success can be achieved."581 Individual achievement and initiative were never left out of the narrative, but stood at the crux of the rebranding process. Individual stories gave buyers an image of ideal craftsperson-entrepreneur they could buy into. In the following image, ample varieties of glass products are layered on black cloth in a regal display. Boldly hung behind the pressed tablecloths and glistening glass is a portrait of the maker, a reminder that these wares were crafted by hand. Further, the portrait reassures the audience that little had changed in German craft, though the war had left irreparable damage in many other areas of life. Moreover, this was an image of masculinity far detached from that of military might and violence, a comforting precursor to the 1950s domestic ideal in which returning POWs and young German men were encouraged to focus on private life, domesticity and fatherhood as opposed to politics, radicalism and violence. A shift in how society defined masculinity was therefore also required in the grand rebranding scheme. 582 Exhibition displays that showcased man as artisan thus helped to shift German masculinity and the country to a more 580 Ibid. 581OMGUS Land Director, Murray Van Wagoner’s speech at the second anniversary of the export show. RG 260, Box 282, File 1. "Durch Opfer, schwere Arbeit, Unternehmungsgeist und Intelligenz kann dieser Erfolg errungen werden." 582 Robert G. Moeller, “The ‘Remasculinization’ of Germany in the 1950s: Introduction,” Signs 24, No.1. (Autumn, 1998): 101-106; Uta G. Poiger, “A New, ‘Western’ Hero? Reconstructing German Masculinity in the 1950s,” Signs 24, No. 1. (Autumn, 1998): 147-162; Susan Jeffords, “The ‘Remasculinization’ of Germany in the 1950s: Discussion,” Signs 24, No. 1. (Autumn, 1998): 163-169.   227  domesticated, entrepreneurial focus, far from militarization and heavy industry. In addition, displays of domestic consumer goods signaled to the average German fair attendee that a luxurious home environment was within reach, facilitating a shift in taste towards quality, domestically produced products.583 Exhibitions promised a future of home ownership and consumer normalcy in a peacefully reconstructed country. 12.  Glass maker’s exhibit at the Haus der Kunst, 1948  584   4.4 Export Sales The toy trade was one of the liveliest craft trades to connect German makers with American consumers. Toy contracts were plentiful in 1947 with orders coming in from Macy’s 583 Jennifer L. Jenkins, “Introduction: Domesticity, Design and the Shaping of the Social,” German History 25, No. 4 (Oct. 2007): 476-480. 584 OMGUS, WIB, June 1949, No. 163, 11   228  New York, FAO Schwarz and the National City Bank of New York to name a few.585 Toys could carry meaning as harbingers of happiness and play, as evidence of increased leisure time and prosperity and as implicit symbols of a new peaceful Germany. Moreover, toys had long been an example of German engineering prowess in miniature form and as such were not easily discarded for American imitations after the war. In the late 1940s “Made in Germany” toys carried historical clout as well as future staying power in a global marketplace. Perhaps another clue to the popularity of German toys resides in the nature of toys themselves, as both children’s everyday possessions and adult collectors' items. As Sharon Brookshaw relates, toys are often “the adult’s favourite form of childhood material culture and therefore collected more often...[because of] the human delight in miniaturization...and the fact that they (as lost possessions) remind the collector of a childhood they themselves have grown out of.”586 Toys represented an innocence or naiveté that had been lost in the war. When lost, material objects often take on a meaning beyond their everyday use value.587 It was a nostalgic desire that could not be easily replaced by obtaining new objects. What could be revived in the case of Germany, however, was a brand, a level of quality and skill “tradition” from before the war that spoke to innocence. It was an innocence based on the notion of local Heimat (small-scale workshops), family (the passing down of skills from one generation to the next) and self-sustaining industriousness (working with one’s hands to make a living). When foreign collectors began buying German toys and decorative miniatures again, it was perhaps a way of capturing what had been lost and preserving a more innocent time. This 585Toy Contract for FAO Schwarz. RG 260, NARA, Box 50, File 1. The file contains toy contract for mechanical toys from the National City Bank of New York, toy contract for FAO Schwartz, RH Macy, Mr. Richard Appel’s Jo King, Spring Street, NY, N, contract to Switzerland, contract with Louis Marx & Co., NY, from Nuernberg and Fuerth to NY, ‘The contract which had bee made out in the amount of $1.998.00, has been reduced to $1.482.00, because supplier cannot supply the 200 ds.mech.horses with cowboy in the amount of $516.00.” 586 Sharon Brookshaw, “The Material Culture of Children and Childhood: Understanding Childhood Objects in the Museum Context,” Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 14, No. 3. (Sept., 2009): 369. 587 Auslander, et. al., “Historians and Material Culture,” 1358   229  was clearly demonstrated in the mass purchase of Hummel figurines by Military personnel living in Germany after the war. In 1935, Marshall Field of Chicago purchased a large order of these porcelain figurines at the Leipzig Fair, starting a collecting trend in the United States. After the war, American GIs were happy to exchange chocolate and cigarettes for the figurines, often sending them home to their wives. The figurines featured rosy-cheeked children, rural scenes, musicians and domestic scenes of a happy Heimat. As John Chaimov argues, both Americans and Germans consumed Hummels in “a cognate post-war ‘remembering’ of childhood that had the effect of forgetting the Third-Reich past,” in which Hummels figured prominently in the Nazi era Heimat aesthetic.588 The idea was to give Germany a brand that would not necessarily negate or erase but outlast their dark past and create an enduring legacy for the “Made in Germany” label of the future. While interest in German goods was healthy in the early postwar years and promised an even healthier future, a variety of obstacles and bureaucratic measures stood between makers and their markets. First, in order to trade with German firms, American buyers were required to apply to the US Treasury Department for a license under the “Trading with the Enemy Act.” This license gave companies the ability to purchase goods produced in the British and American Zones from the JEIA. Without a license, companies were only authorized to buy from a middleman, the U.S. Commercial Company in Washington, D.C.589 American companies could 588 John Chaimov, “Hummel Figurines: Molding a Collectible Germany,” Journal of Material Culture Vol. 6, No. 1. (March, 2001): 5-13.“Certainly the figurines of shepherds and laundry maids, concertina players and apple pickers correspond to this vision of a harmless Morgenthauian pastoral Germany…When they describe their production style as ‘a throwback to the time when true craftsmanship reigned’ or give their company slogan, ‘Hands make Goebel,’ they capture the archaic, artisanal, pre-industrial moment that corresponds so well to Morgenthau’s vision of a deindustrialized Germany.” 589“Export-Import Program. President Truman has approved the import-export program agreed upon by OMGUS and the US Commercial Company at conferences held in Berlin last month. Under the terms of the agreement, the US Commercial Company, a subsidiary of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, will make commodity advances in the amount of $7,750,000 to Military Government for the purpose of importing needed materials for specific export programs...Suspension of the transfer of expellees into the US Zone of Germany has   230  write directly to German firms and work out the details of a contract but could not sign an official Sales Contract. Rather, the American buyers would contact the JEIA (with a Treasury License) or the Commercial Company (without a license) to reach an official agreement.590 Even if a sales agreement could be reached, there was no guarantee that the contract would be fulfilled as originally specified. Shortages of raw materials forced German firms to delay shipments or alter the contents altogether.591 As a Military Government Economics Division letter laid out: “It is common practice in the toy export business for producers, due to fluctuating production problems, to substitute different quantities of specific toys which may vary slightly from the export contract, but which do not alter the total export prices. The exact quantities of the specific toys to be shipped are not usually known until time of shipment.”592 In short, a great deal of patience was required of both buyers and exporters in order to navigate OMGUS‘ new bureaucratic systems. Adaptation and flexibility while maintaining high quality standards were important factors driving German industries in markets abroad. As one journalist writing for OMGUS’ Military Bulletin argued, “[t]he secret of Germany’s traditional eminence in the toy industry lies in the fact that artisans turn out a continuous stream of new ideas, and that toys have been produced to accommodate every price level.”593 Expellee craft firms depended on the past been effected by cable V-10164 dated 8 November 1946…‘a complete survey has been made in the US Zone of Germany and it has been determined that it is not possible to accept German minorities in a humane and orderly manner during the winter months.’” OMGUS WIB, No. 71, December 1946, 6. 590 From correspondence between American buyer and JEIA dated December 1946-February 1947, RG 260, NARA, Box 49, File 1. 591 RG 260, NARA, Box 49, File 1. To: Joint Export-Import Agency (US/UK) Melitta House, Minden. “1. In reply to your letter, dated 11 April 1947, subject “Export of Toys to Marx & Co...This office wishes to point out that Louis Marx & Company intended to place a much larger order for toys but production difficulties compelled acceptance of smaller quantities as specified. For the Chief Trade & Commerce Branch. John H. Backer, US Civilian Chief, Export Advisory & Liaison, Sub-Section, Import/Export Section.” 592 Signed D.N. Smith, Lt. Col., AG, Chief, Licensing Sub-Sec. Import-Export Section, Trade and Commerce Branch, RG 260, NARA, Box 50, File 1. 593 OMGUS WIB, No. 83, March 1947, 8.   231  strengths of the “Made in Germany” label but also understood the need to rise to the demands of new consumers, innovating their process, designs or raw materials. Some of the pressure was eased by December 1948, when JEIA further loosened its grip on export regulations, allowing German exporters to sign contracts with foreign buyers without JEIA licensing or German government agency approval. At this time, German banks were having trouble keeping up to the volume of foreign business, slowing exports. The best solution for reducing the red tape seemed to be to allow German manufacturers to export without Military or German government oversight. In practice it meant that exporters would negotiate their own export agreements without prior approval based on international market pricing and decide on terms of delivery and payment. 594 Exporters received payment directly in Deutschmarks, however, the JEIA still oversaw the distribution of all foreign exchange earned, in the form of raw materials and food imports “for the benefit of the population as a whole.”595 It was important to control the distribution of imports so as to prioritize long-term economic recovery and national stability, rather than satisfy domestic consumer demand in the short term. Though Germans would enjoy a prosperous future, they would have to pay for that privilege by measuring their expectations against postwar realities. The Germans who attended export shows had already received this message, viewing the luxury possessions of the future without being able to purchase them as of yet. 594 New Export Procedure for US/UK Zones of Germany...Effective 1 December 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 1163, File 6. b) In documentation of export transaction, exporter will submit to his foreign trade bank (Aussenhandelsbank) a so-called export control document, hereinafter and in future trade practice referred to as ‘ECD’, in six copies duly signed and cortified as to truth of statements and confirmation that all terms and conditions have been complied with c) Aussenhandelsbank will approve and sign the ECD, thereby assuming responsibility that the goods are to be paid for in acceptable currency.” 595 Ibid.   232  By February 1949 exports and foreign exchange had reached numbers substantial enough to simplify the import procedure, thus terminating the JEIA’s direct involvement in trade.596 In three years through Selbsthilfe, Marshall Aid and JEIA marketing, German manufacturers had achieved a level of stability and independence for the country. This quick success further enhanced a brand founded on notions of quality, long-held tradition, and perseverance. It set the tone and propelled “Made in Germany” products into the 1950s, where the need for flexibility and the pressure to innovate would only increase. Expellee craft firms were ready to step up to the challenge, in many cases proving more flexible and adaptable, adopting the “Made in Germany” label in order to ride the export wave while still remaining true to their own methods and community affiliations. Though their story was often lost in the larger glitz of the Export Schau or the local focus of the Mittenwald Messe, their wares were present and their firms were open for business. In that way, though not widely publicized, they contributed to and benefited from OMGUS’ export program. In the spring of 1946 export trade was in its infancy, largely consisting of craftspeople selling directly to US Military personnel. OMGUS deemed these early craft products “intrinsically remembrance pieces,”597 as German handcrafts were more souvenirs of a pre-war age, than innovative, globally sought after luxury goods. However, by 1949, Americans were purchasing German goods at their local department stores by the thousands. In large part, this shift was due to new advertising campaigns, the structural oversight of JEIA, the easing of trade restrictions and the attendance of foreign buyers at lavish export shows. 596 OMGUS Report, RG 260, NARA, Box 283, File 8. 597 OMGUS Monthly Historical Report, November 1946, RG 260, NARA, Box 373, File 11. The report specifically mentioned the sale of Mittenwald violins to military personnel.   233  The re-branding scheme had been successful, jumpstarting the West German economy while reminding foreign consumers of the country’s pre-war reputation for artisanal craft. In this way the objects acted as a bridge over a sinister Nazi past, imbued with hope and optimism as they sat proudly displayed on the white tablecloths of exhibition halls. Though fascism and war had irreparably scarred the country, reminders of a bygone, peaceful age remained. By 1953, OMGUS projected that through export sales Germany would fully pay back its debt to the United States.598 To repay one’s debt was to rebalance power and restore a sense of national pride, and to do it on the backs of craftspeople elevated its significance, as it linked future prosperity with past achievements in skilled craft production. Bringing expellee and Einheimische producers together under one trade fair roof, and one label, also allowed OMGUS to sell their integration policies as successful. Government officials did this by shifting the focus to an idyllic Heimat, to which all Germans could contribute through craft production and consumption. Export sales could not right the wrongs of the Nazi era, but the “Made in Germany” label and the objects and people who represented it found renewed hope in the process. There were definite imbalances in the way various historical actors perceived the export shows and JEIA policies. Though journalists relayed the fantastical spectacle of export shows, for many a visit to the show was but a temporary retreat into a “dreamworld” of consumption. The glitz and glamour of OMGUS- sponsored fashion shows, celebrity visits and exhibitions were undoubtedly impressive to many visitors at the time of their inception. However, over time skepticism began to set in. By 1950 opinion polls suggested that Germans were becoming increasingly critical of American policies, and that one third of respondents “reckoned that the 598 The ERP exhibition at the Munich Export-Messe. Munich, 7 July 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 283, File 4.   234  Americans did not speak freely enough about their own country’s problems.” A majority of respondents in 1950 (58 per cent) started to see American involvement in Germany as nothing more than self-interest, insurance for a future war against the Soviet Union.599 As the Cold War set in, a further layer of complexity was added to West German rebranding, requiring once again the expellee as exemplar of entrepreneurialism and capitalist success. As expellee firms received funding to rebuild their workshops and obtain raw materials, they were able to resume production on a mass scale, fulfilling export demand. Known for crafting quality goods in large numbers at affordable price points, many expellee firms appealed to a modern global consumer. I argue that efficient production of quality goods narrowed the gap between the consumer dreamworld and reality. Luxurious handcrafted goods became attainable for many after the war, as expellee firms continued to innovate to meet growing demand. As Williams notes “the satisfaction of this dream” was a “long-term accomplishment of the consumer revolution.”600 In the 1950s, consumers influenced the course of events for expellees and the “Made in Germany” label as a whole. In the next chapter I address these changes and the expellees’ ability to adapt to them. 599 Anna J. Merritt and Richard J. Merritt, Public Opinion in Occupied Germany: The OMGUS Surveys, 1945-1949 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1970), 12. 600 Williams, Dreamworlds, 92.   235  Chapter Five Enclaves and Innovation: Going Global to Sustain the Local The 1950s brought great economic success but also the sweeping changes of a modernizing global marketplace in which transportation became more rapid, homes and workplaces became more efficient and technological advances touched everything from everyday appliances to luxury items. Though expellee firms moved progressively forward adapting deftly to change, obstacles and cultural conflicts with local German craftspeople continually plagued them. After the Schönbach violinmakers had settled in their new home in Bubenreuth, they encountered further animosity for their modern process and their penchant for supplying en masse to schools and orchestras. Naturally, they continued the practice they had enjoyed for decades in Schönbach and rebuilt their industry. The expellees’ success quickly disturbed local German violinmakers, who believed it threatened the valued traditions of the “Made in Germany” label. Once again the method of production came to stand in for the meaning of the objects themselves. Expellee craftspeople chose to adopt global production and marketing trends, which in turn allowed them to sustain their industries and local ways of life. As I will demonstrate in this chapter, in doing so many expellee makers reconciled tradition with modernization and held on to a distinct expellee identity. For the entrepreneurial set among expellees, the 1950s was an age of optimism. They rebuilt their workshops through government funding (refugee credit) and ERP loans, reunited with former employees and cooperative members and gradually reconnected with their foreign customer base. Because they had made a conscious choice to modernize their production methods in the late nineteenth century, they were well equipped to handle the modernizing changes of the 1950s. Once they had received funding for workshop buildings, new machines   236  and raw materials, sales increased and expellee firms hired large numbers of fellow expellees, women and youth, and developed a new, modern workforce tasked largely with piecework. This mechanized piecework process allowed expellee companies to launch innovative new products such as electric guitars, further cementing their global reputation as progressive leaders in their industry. The expellee story dispelled fears that forced migrants might have been unable to adapt to their new context. Even though they faced obstacles throughout their experience, the forced migrants’ precarious and unsettled position from the very moment of expulsion forced them into an immediate process of adaptation, aided of course by their skills as makers. Throughout that process, many learned to survive and thrive amidst devastating loss, shifting sands of displacement, transfer and resettlement. Moreover, expellees were acutely aware that they were at the whims of governmental policies and policy makers from the moment of their expulsion and as such learned to negotiate directly with those in power. In letter writing campaigns to governing bodies, leaders of the community such as Karl Höfner and Fred Wilfer proved particularly skilled. And while their firms grew into profitable export brands, not all expellee firms achieved the same success. By 1950, the Graslitzer toy musical instrument manufacturers, Koehler & Blohberger declared bankruptcy. They had 90 expellee employees at the time. Even with an ERP loan and a refugee production credit, the company continually struggled to generate large enough profit margins in the high seasons to survive throughout the year.601 Often, funding and an available workforce were not enough to sustain expellee craft firms. Those that did succeed seemed to be those that were quick to rebuild (Wilfer began building Framus immediately upon his expulsion) and more adept at marketing, reaching out to foreign buyers 601 Credit correspondence, 14 December 1954, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 3123, File 738 to 744.   237  and adapting their products to suit foreign market demand. For the expellees it seemed that quick decision making and ingenuity was necessary to thrive. In this chapter I explore the final steps of the expellees’ adaptation process, revealing the ways in which many Sudeten craftspeople remained true to their postwar culture while adapting to modern industrial demands, first by reconnecting old labour networks in new factory settings and, second, by embracing a workforce made up largely of women and youth, developing trade schools and eventually inventing new and exciting products and advertising methods to attract a global clientele. Many expellee craftspeople proved particularly adept at going global to remain local.602 They renewed aspects of their Sudeten Heimat by rebuilding their former workshop and community cultures in a new context. In the process they gained recognition for their new local community, sustaining it economically. It was the expellees’ progressive willingness to adapt to change and to negotiate with policy makers at all levels that allowed them to retain many aspects of their Heimat, including craft networks, cooperative production methods and Sudeten cultural heritage. 5.1 Expellee Success In general, the 1950s was a decade characterized by increased global trade in which the borders between capitalist states became less rigid. States worldwide began to reach out to foreign manufacturers to grow and develop domestic technologies and supply increasingly diverse product demands.603 In the case of German-American relations, this meant funding business exchange trips, trade fair appearances and export buyer tours. The expellees were not 602 Herzfeld, Body Impolitic, 125. “This is a search for the global in the heart of the local-for the hidden presence of a logic that has seeped in everywhere but is everywhere disguised as difference, heritage, local tradition.” 603 Marko Maunula, Guten Tag, Y’all: Globalization and the South Carolina Piedmont, 1950-2000 (University of Georgia Press, 2010); De Grazia, Irresistible Empire.   238  unique in the ways they conducted business in the 1950s, as many other firms were diversifying their markets, developing new technologies and shifting their marketing strategies.604 The successful expellee firms simply made every effort to get in line with the contemporary trend towards globalization, taking advantage of each opportunity to go global, and in turn retained the cultural legacy that they had built prior to the war. I argue that in fact many expellee craft firms in the 1950s demonstrated continuity with prewar markets, as they sought to regain the global trade networks they had built in the early twentieth century. Perhaps they would have continued to seek global markets regardless of 1950s globalizing trends or American, German or European influence. The most telling demonstration of the Sudeten expellees’ ability to go global to remain local was their successful reconstruction of workshops and factories on exclusive plots of land neighbouring the towns of Bubenreuth, Kaufbeuren, and Kraiburg am Inn (to name a few). By applying for Marshall Fund ERP loans and promising municipal officials tax revenue through exports, entrepreneurial expellees laid the foundations for new settlements in which their cultural and economic traditions could live on. The editor of a piece on the “Violin Makers of Bubenreuth,” J. Stoehr wrote that he was “glad that the local and regional agencies managed to relocate the Schönbacher violin makers, especially in Erlangen counties,” because they were allowed to return to work without major interruption. Perhaps more importantly they were provided the supportive benefits of a second home: “Because the Schönbachers live in a settlement in Bubenreuth and have it all to themselves, they have the opportunity to cultivate native traditions in music, dance and costumes, and they do so in ample mass.”605 While one might interpret this as evidence of their rootedness in the past, and their inability to move 604 Cahan, “German Exports,” 173-174. 605 "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHSt, MK, Box 63234, File 686-728.   239  forward from the loss of their Heimat, the opposite was true of the Sudetens. Their aim was not merely to live in close proximity cocooned from outside influences in order to practice traditions of their past, but to use the communal aspect of the settlement to propel their industries forward globally. They accomplished this by reuniting former community members and training women and youth to do piece work in factories and at home as part of a cooperative manufacturing system. For societies accepting newcomers it may be easy to forget that migrants go through extraordinary adaptation processes and are demonstrating immense flexibility, moving into occupations previously unknown, negotiating with new political systems and struggling alongside locals to adapt to the constant evolution of the global economy. They do not have the option to resign themselves to complacency. Migrants must move forward in order to succeed in their new surroundings (at least in a political and economic sense) and, in the case of the Sudetens, to negotiate with American Occupation policies and to buy into global market capitalism and modernization. There was immense pressure on the expellees as they had only a small window of time to achieve success. They seemed to realize after having weathered the expulsion that no matter how old the tradition or settled the community they were not guaranteed a successful integration or a prosperous life. For many expellees holding onto their past required moving quickly into the future, applying for government funding to modernize their workshops and appealing to a rapidly rising market for luxury and leisure items such as musical instruments, fashion jewelry and home decor. In the end, these initiatives not only brought the expellees economic prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s, but saw them become leaders and innovators in their respective fields.   240  The musical instrument making settlement at Bubenreuth owed its success to Arnold Hoyer, Fred Wilfer, Josef and Karl Höfner and their employees and families. In the first years after expulsion, it was they who took the initiative to represent their industry in political correspondence with local and US authorities. Though Schönbachers did achieve the resettlement plan they desired, the story became much more complex thereafter. Schönbachers were distinguished by their unique circumstances at war’s end. Because the village of Schönbach fell under American occupation the majority of the population was spared the violent Czech retaliations experienced in other locales. In particular, violinmaker Fred Wilfer and his family had the added distinction of wearing red armbands designating them “anti-fascists.”606 Fred’s father Josef had been jailed during the war for making “derogatory remarks about the German victory,” for listening to enemy radio stations and failing to fulfill agricultural production quotas. His stint in protective custody under the Nazis later gained him and his family (including son Fred) anti-Fascist status.607 Violinmaker Arnold Hoyer also benefited from his status as an instrument maker after the war, as American GIs aided his transfer to Bavaria in a secret nighttime operation, sparing him the experience of mass forced expulsion. Hearing of the Americans’ partiality for skilled instrument makers and their relocation of Hoyer and his entire wood supply to Tennenlohe near Erlangen, Wilfer arranged for his own transfer from the military hospital in Asch to the University Clinic in Erlangen.608 In this way, both Hoyer and Wilfer arrived on Bavarian soil earlier than their compatriots, giving them a head start. They demonstrated a foresight that would later become characteristic of the community as a whole. 606 Hoyer, Framus, 19-20. “Most Sudeten-Germans had to wear white armbands with an ‘N’ (for ‘Nemec’—Czech for German) and were consequently subject to various reprisals.” 607 Ibid., 18-19. The Gestapo arrested Josef Wilfer in 1944 and subjected him to seven weeks of interrogation in the Carlsbad State Police Station prison. He stood trial before a special court and was jailed for an additional two months in Eger. He was released in June of 1944 due to insufficient evidence but still monitored by the Gestapo. 608 Hoyer, Framus, 20-21.   241  In the early twentieth century Schönbach farmers often spent the winter months in their homes doing piecework for the musical instrument manufacturers in town. Wilfer, the oldest son of a farmer had gained experience making various parts before being sent to the commercial academy in Carlsbad in September 1934. It was there that he impressed his teachers with his interest in business and his self-confidence as a worker. When Henlein came to power and the Sudetenland became part of “Greater Germany” Wilfer welcomed the change. He saw it as beneficial for the German population and spent the war fighting in Finland and Northern Russia in the Deutsche Wehrmacht until his injury in 1945.609 After the war, Wilfer quickly maneuvered his way into a job as a purchaser for the US Army with his English skills, anti-fascist credentials and business acumen. As part of his job he delivered supplies to US troops in Czechoslovakia and as a result visited Schönbach many times in late 1945. He used his time there to apprise his former neighbours in the violin making community of his plans for a new settlement in Bavaria. Also vital to the future of the industry were his early smuggling missions to Schönbach, from which he returned to Bavaria with loads of tone wood, machines, and finished instruments gathered from all makers in the village. When he returned to Bavaria, he stored his finds in Hoyer’s new place of residence. Such acts were risky, as much of the former Sudetenland was administered, policed and governed by Czechs at the time. The same was true of the musical instrument workshops, now owned—per the Beneš Decrees on German property—by Czechs. The Schönbachers had become mere managers within their own companies. Wilfer’s trips grew more risky over time until his last stint in January 1946 when he narrowly escaped imprisonment when the Czech militia learned of his smuggling operations. Luckily, an American officer vouched for Wilfer and he was able to return to Bavaria without consequence. By this time however, he had amassed enough machines and tone 609 Ibid., 16-19.   242  wood supplies to give the violinmakers a small foundation for their industry in Bavaria.610 In cooperation with Höfner, a new settlement was born. On January 1, 1946, Fred Wilfer founded FRAMUS (Fränkische Musikinstrumenten-Erzeugung Fred Wilfer K.G.) in Erlangen and was soon employing home workers who were illegally trickling in from Schönbach prior to the official expulsion. 611 The violinmakers had established their place among Erlangen’s other fine machine industries. Wilfer had acquired support from Erlangen’s Department of Education and Culture as early as October 1945, and later won the favour of local refugee commissioners who hoped to employ the expellees’ business and handcraft skills for Erlangen’s gain.612 The Wilfer family maintained the balance between honouring their past and embracing a new future complete with marketing campaigns geared specifically to American audiences. Fred Wilfer was far from a talentless hack, working impassively on an assembly line of cheap goods, as the Mittenwalders seemed to suggest. Rather, the author of Framus: Built in the Heart of Bavaria describes him as a bold entrepreneur who bravely faced hardships, advocated for change and adapted to a global marketplace that demanded new and increasingly modern technologies, including electric guitars. He did have the advantages of a raw material stockpile and a head start on production, making his story the exception to the rule. He was also an adept salesman and used that talent to sell government officials on his resettlement plans. Though U.S. and Bavarian government authorities recognized expellee skill and initiative, they did not fully understand the benefits of a settlement in the Erlangen district. 610 The first smuggling operation took place during the return trip from a delivery to US troops stationed in West Bohemia during which Fred Wilfer had salt loaded on a US Army truck. It was imperative that the Czechoslovak government, which had already established itself in Schönbach, learn nothing of these activities. State departments such as police, railroad, customs and the entire city administration had already been taken over by Czechoslovak civil servants. Hoyer, Framus, 20-23 611 Hoyer, Framus, 28. 612 "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHSt, MK, Box 63234, File 686-728. Hoyer, Framus, 26.   243  Government authorities in Munich were aware of Hoyer and Wilfer’s plan to attract Schönbach expellees to Erlangen and quickly worked to reverse the trend, allowing those already settled to remain, but encouraging any newcomers to settle in the Garmisch district instead (i.e. Mittenwald). By this time FRAMUS employed 140 home workers in 35 workshops, all of whom resisted the government’s Garmisch policy. While Wilfer was allowed to remain in Erlangen, it grew increasingly difficult to do so, with sanctions on raw materials and the ban on further migration of skilled former Schönbachers. Some of the expellees were relocated to Garmisch in April 1947 only to return to Erlangen months later after experiencing the inhospitable reproach of many Mittenwald residents.613 In fact, as late as the spring of 1949, there was still a push from the Ministry of the Economy to settle the violinmakers in the Garmisch area. Josef Höfner had received a phone call from State Secretary Müller in Munich on April 1, 1949 expressing the government’s “urgent wish that I settle into the area of Garmisch. For this, they offered me 100,000 marks or more at a very small percentage as a long-term loan.” In addition he was told that he “absolutely need[ed] to save the endangered plans of the Werdenfelser [Mittenwald] area settlement,” for which he was offered credit, barrack blocks for workshops and an administrative building in Garmisch.614 Though the state clearly wanted a quick and easy solution to the resettlement issue, the violinmakers had worked hard to secure a space large and hospitable enough to house their entire community and would not easily relinquish the opportunity. It was not until Höfner assured the Ministers that the district planning authority at Ansbach was already on board and a funding opportunity was in place for “Project Möhrendorf” (Erlangen/Bubenreuth) that the Ministers accepted the change of course. If it had not been for 613 Hoyer, Framus, 36. 614 Report on the meeting between Minister Seidel and Josef Höfner, 14 April 1949, BayHSt, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 458 -460.   244  Höfner’s determination to stand his ground as representative of the community, the Erlangen settlement plan may not have survived. In the end, the transaction between the Ministers and Höfner ended amicably with the following message to close the correspondence: “I hope I have made you all a little Easter joy with this final ruling on the so-darkly-fought affair. From my heart I wish all Schönbachers a Happy Easter and hope that the current crisis will soon be overcome and that it was the last serious crisis to beset your beautiful craft work industry.”615 The Ministers’ original plans were based on practical considerations, like readily available housing in Garmisch (former artillery barracks large enough for 70 families) as opposed to the prospect of building on vacant land near Erlangen. However, the expellees’ visions were more far-reaching, taking into account their hopes for a settlement similar to the one they had left behind and an expansion of production and export sales. A set of artillery barracks near an existing, inhospitable violin making community seemed like a far more temporary solution. Moreover, the Schönbachers were increasingly focused on the production of plucked instruments and Schlagguitarren (percussively played guitars) while the Mittenwalders held tight to exclusive violin production.616 A separate settlement seemed more appropriate to accommodate this distinction. Though Höfner and Wilfer were both integral agents in the success of the Erlangen settlement, they found a key political ally in Willi Hönekopp. After his election to county administration in May 1948, Hönekopp announced that he would devote his term to ensuring the development of the project. In particular he planned a construction site next to the existing 615 Ibid. 616 Excerpt from the audit report from 4 March 49, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 435-436.   245  barracks at Möhrendorf,617 and made an offer to Garmisch county officials to relocate Schönbach expellees without any “head exchange” payment. This act made him the only county administrator in Bavaria at the time willing to accept more refugees. In addition, he convinced the St. Joseph Foundation in Bamberg to come on board to fund the construction project.618 In the end, the Möhrendorf site plan failed and the generosity of the Bubenreuth community and their far-sighted mayor Hans Paul came through, presenting the Schönbach makers with a new construction site.619 Though the administrator’s help was invaluable, it was clear from their actions prior to and during the early days of their arrival on Bavarian soil that the violinmakers were determined to reach their end goal with or without assistance, and often thwarted official channels to do so. Although the majority of Schönbachers had left Mittenwald, the Einheimische violinmakers there still found ways to object to the Schönbach production method. In a letter from the German Association of Violin Makers in Stuttgart addressed to the Bavarian Minister of Education and Culture on October 19, 1953, members of the association expressed their distaste for the Schönbach industry and its plans for the new expellee violin-making settlement in Bubenreuth: “[The Association] has taken a position against cheap and therefore not playable instruments being put on the market. Such instruments completely miss their purpose and are the gravediggers of our handwork ideal...Through the settlement of the Schönbacher violin makers in Bavaria, now thousands of the cheapest violins go out all over the world under the label 617 Hoyer, Framus, 36. “The former State Labor Service camp in Mohrendorf, built in 1937, had already been promised to the violin makers some time ago for use as a dwelling and workspace as soon as the US Army vacated it.” 618 Ibid. In some cases a fee per person or “head exchange” was paid to districts who relieved other districts of over-population caused by refugee influx. 619 Violin Makers of Bubenreuth. Edited and compiled by J. Stoehr, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 63234, File 686-728. The failure of the Möhrendorf site was due to local resistance as well as difficulties with the site itself.   246  “Made in Germany.”620 It was not enough to drive expellee makers out of the Mittenwald area to avoid competition, the Einheimische now expected the expellees to conform to methods of production chosen by the German Association decades ago. Clearly the German makers were caught off guard by the Schönbachers’ ability to construct an entirely new community of workshops in Bubenreuth, and it seems that they might have even hoped for its failure. The Association’s letter went so far as to say that in mass-producing musical instruments, the Schönbachers would “destroy all the love for music among those who still muster much enthusiasm for it.”621 The established Germans feared not only the loss of handwork methods over time but also the wholesale erosion of classical music culture with the onset of jazz and rock and roll. Expellees mass producing guitars for youth and American markets therefore were a particular source of angst and target for attack: “These products have nothing in common with musical instruments, they belong to the category of toys.”622 The Association looked down on the Schönbach instruments and did not want—what they believed to be—their own superior products associated with those of the expellees. Mass production, the German Violin Makers Association believed, chipped away at the reputation of master violinmakers. Moreover they feared that the master, handmade violin would become obsolete: “the layman can not tell the difference between master or mass violins, so usually the cheap violin is sold en masse and because it is unusable, is resold again. It then happens that no one purchases a good instrument anymore because they are not in circulation.”623 In consulting export numbers from the early 1950s, one finds that the number of master violins made in workshops like those in Mittenwald was dwarfed in global sales by mass 620 Signed Hans Edler. Chairman of the German Association of Violin Makers, Stuttgart, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 63234, File 677-679. 621 Ibid. 622 Ibid. 623 Ibid.   247  produced counterparts. However, Mittenwald makers refused to reduce their prices to accommodate large buyers such as schools and orchestras, and as such could only expect a professional musician clientele.624 Therefore, it was a moot point whether the layman can discern between the two violin types, as they likely could not afford a Mittenwald-made instrument to begin with. Considering this, it seems the issue was less about innovating one’s methods to survive in the industry and compete, and more about pride in the “Made in Germany” label and a refusal to cheapen the identification. Claims to authenticity were at the root of the Mittenwald-Schönbach conflict. Neither community’s instruments were somehow rooted in ancient origin or practice, unaffected by history. As Judy Attfield reminds, “the gloss of familiarity gained from tracing the roots of a ‘tradition’ that confers it with a credible ‘history’ does not automatically render an accurate representation of the past.” Rather, these rhetorical devices confer a status of “authenticity” on the object that makes it knowable to a society, which gives it value.625 Mechanical reproduction made it possible to replicate objects, evoking fears of a future loss of human individuality.626 If objects were expendable, so too were their makers and consumers. The search for authenticity in maker processes and in the products one consumed or exhibited at home, stemmed from these fears. In a broader sense, if one could lose individual self expression, one’s larger community identity was also at risk. German emphasis on past modes of craft may have been part of a larger attempt to create difference between their culture and that of America, to carve out a distinct identity that Americans could not touch and the Nazi past could not tarnish. Clinging to the Mittenwald 624 Violin Makers of Bubenreuth. Edited and compiled by J. Stoehr, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 63234, File 686-728. 625 Judy Attfield, Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life (Oxford: Berg, 2000), 92. 626 Ibid.   248  master violin was meant to guard against general cultural erosion. In practical terms, it was the German makers’ desire that players worldwide should covet a master-made violin, believing that the extra expense for the instrument would be worth it in terms of playability and sound quality. Convincing the global consumer to choose quality over price was half the battle. The other half lay in diminishing the increasingly triumphant reputation of the Schönbach violinmakers and their newly constructed workshops. While the Einheimische violinmakers continued to rely on tourism, the expellees continued along their own path, using innovation and the “commodified authentic”627 to balance past and future. In taking this path, they avoided falling into obscurity. When Mittenwald held their Musical Instrument Messe and released the accompanying export catalogue in 1954, Schönbach masters were conspicuously absent from its pages. By this time, roughly nine years had passed since the expellees arrived in Bavaria. Their contributions to the industry were already noteworthy if not at least worthy of inclusion in a catalogue that claimed to represent “the West German musical instrument makers” by providing “an overview of the[ir] achievements.”628 The omission of the Sudeten community cut deeply considering all they had achieved in nine short years. The Mittenwalders’ intent could be discerned in the catalogue’s claim that the “global demand for high quality and tasteful musical instruments is understood to be constantly climbing.”629 The reference was in line with what the Mittenwalders had been arguing for years, namely that their products were superior in taste and quality to those of the Sudetens’. The Schönbachers exhibited pride in their accomplishments but also employed economic rebuttals when dealing with their detractors. Appealing to State Secretary for the Ministry of the 627 Outka, Consuming Tradition. 628 To the State Minister for the Economy, Dr. Hans Seidel, 15 April 1954, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 372-374. 629 Ibid.   249  Interior, Dr. Stein and Minister of the Economy Hans Seidel, they noted “we Sudeten Germans have fared better than other people in our situation.”630 Second, the catalogue claimed to represent independent makers to which they responded: “It is ironic that no Schönbachers are included in this catalog, especially since we have been operating here for years and our industry is independent and we are the ones that bring considerable sums of foreign exchange for the state.”631 Moreover, they noted that only three Mittenwald makers were listed in the catalogue, demonstrating a large discrepancy in export dollars generated by the two industry groups. The Schönbachers had the advantage of numbers, arguing that without their industry contributions the export sales of Mittenwald violins would scarcely be enough to merit government support or funding.632 In conclusion, the Bavarian government in Munich recognized that the Schönbachers were vital to their musical instrument export program, stating that their omission from the catalogue was “contrary to public interest in the promotion of export enterprises” and that they had a “legitimate complaint,” vowing to assert its influence to resolve the issue.633 As far as the Bavarian government was concerned, the Schönbach community’s economic value far outweighed any notions of a cultural threat, discrediting the Mittenwalders’ resistance. Yet, outside resistance was not the only obstacle the Schönbachers encountered in the early years of their resettlement, as they also had to contend with competition from Czech makers fraudulently selling their former wares. On October 24, 1945, the Czech government nationalized the instrument making industry, thereby confiscating all German property including tone wood, patterns, tools, varnishes, half-finished and finished instruments. Czech 630 To Mr. State Secretary Dr. Stein, Munich. Ministry of the Interior, 15 April, 1954, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 371. Letter dated 15.4.1954. 631 To the State Minister for the Economy, Dr. Hans Seidel, 15 April 1954, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 372-374. 632 Ibid. 633 State Secretary Willi Guthsmuths, 3 May 1954 on the subject of the katalog and Mr. Aschauer, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 375-379.   250  Commissioners were granted the right to enter houses and workshops and confiscate at will.634 Czech makers and apprentices were soon able to capitalize on the remains of Sudeten workshops, selling off finished pieces and using the remaining tools and patterns to develop new businesses under the old brand names.635 In one instance Czech makers renamed the company Cremona but continued to sell Sudeten-finished instruments, utilizing dried wood stocks and component parts left behind. However, despite the Czech makers’ head start on production, raw materials were soon depleted along with the quality of finished instruments, and by 1947 the company was unable to fill export orders. The charade was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. It was clear that the Czechs had not yet mastered what it had taken the Schönbachers generations to learn. As one report succinctly put it: “The industry of Schönbach stands and falls with its German skilled workers…The Czechs have taken all Sudeten Germans and drove us with a mere 70kg pack from our home. But some things they could not take from us.”636 What the Czechs could not commandeer were years of professional correspondence and relationships “often of a personal nature”637 worldwide. When the Sudeten craftspeople arrived on Bavarian soil, it was this reputation that provided a foundation to begin again. Their task was to reconnect and convince the world of their products’ merit, a task made more difficult as outside forces worked in tandem to derail their plans. Pressure and competition from outside soon boiled over inside the Bubenreuth settlement community, as old alliances began to fray. Though Fred Wilfer and Josef and Walter Höfner had 634 Violin Makers of Bubenreuth. Edited and compiled by J. Stoehr, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 63234, File 686-728. 635 Ibid. 636 Josef Höfner writing on the state of the instrument making industry, 22 May 1948, RG 260, NARA, Box 75, File 3. The report document reads: “P.S. The writer of this report was this year until his expulsion in mid-April in Schönbach technical director and head of the Export bureau.” Some sources site a 50kg bag limit while others claim 70kg. 637 Ibid.   251  worked cooperatively to bring the settlement to fruition, its completion saw the division of the community into two separate companies: Wilfer’s Framus and the Höfner brothers’ Karl Höfner company. Walter and Josef Höfner had been working for Framus since May 1, 1947 as production supervisor and export specialist respectively when they decided to disassociate in October 1948 and re-establish their family company. They would have made the decision to split from Wilfer’s company much earlier had it not been for the denazification proceedings. Unlike Wilfer, the Höfner family had not been granted anti-fascist status at war’s end and were thus subject to American occupation vetting. OMGUS officials found it difficult to trace the activities of Sudeten expellees prior to the war and thus found expellee denazification problematic.638 Once the amnesty legislation of August 1948 had passed, whether former members of the Nazi party or not, the Höfners were free to found their own company. In the years that followed, legal disputes over supply and technique ownership rights drove a wedge between the two families and the community as a whole.639 When the Höfner company received an ERP credit loan in 1950, Wilfer—whose grant application was denied—wrote letters of complaint to the State Commissioner protesting the choice. In his letter he referred specifically to the family’s former Nazi affiliation: “It strikes us as odd that this is precisely a company whose entire co-ownership were in the Nazi organization has obtained credit when other companies have not. Mr. Josef Höfner was in the SA, Walter Höfner was an SS Führer, and all the women were in the NS-Frauenschaft.”640 The credit of DM 638 Office of Military Government for Bavaria Report, 14 January 1946, RG 260, NARA, Box 289, File 13. “The presence of Nazis within the above named groups is also indicated by reports from the field. Because of the difficulty of checking the backgrounds of Sudeten expellees the thorough denazification of these persons becomes problematical.” 639 Hoyer, Framus, 40. 640 Letter from Fred Wilfer to Dr. Auerbach, State commissioner, 17 October 1950, BayHSt, LaFlue, Box 3009, File 189-191. The letter also mentions that Fred Wilfer’s father was imprisoned by the Gestapo during the Nazi period, and “we have received no loans so far, although we have applied the same number of times as the above mentioned company.”   252  100,000 was a substantial gain for the Höfner company, justifying Wilfer’s indignation to some extent. However, his bitterness at having lost the credit reveals his motives: “We cannot imagine that the ERP loans are preferably given to a Nazi company and would be very grateful to you, Mr. State Commissioner, to accept my application at once.”641 What is less understandable is the divisiveness among expellees, many of whom were driven from their homes for their Nazi affiliation whether or not they were in fact Nazi party members. The Wilfers though designated anti-fascist had in fact been Nazi party members themselves. To use the same experience against his rivals seems hypocritical. It is not clear whether the rivalry between the Höfner and Wilfer families dated back to the Nazi period, or how political affiliations may have affected the Schönbach cooperative of violin makers during the war. What is clear is that the pressure to compete in the postwar period drove Wilfer and Höfner apart, revealing fissures within a community of forced migrants that had been essentialized as one transferable unit. They were expelled, transferred, settled and resettled together as “German,” as “Sudeten,” and as “Schönbach violinmakers.” This story of conflict reveals the rupture and flux within those identities. Moeller writes that after the war “clear lines of demarcation between big and small Nazis, evil perpetrators and innocent fellow travelers,” emerged to challenge notions of collective guilt.642 Although Framus employed more than half of the skilled workers living in the Erlangen district and boasted an extensive product line by 1948, the split from the Höfner brothers (who owned a large percentage of Framus stock) in addition to the adverse effects of the Currency Reform left them on the edge of collapse. They soon became dependent on the government once again for grants and federal unemployment assistance. Once export orders started rolling in, local 641Ibid. 642 Moeller, War Stories, 78.   253  banks granted Framus loans to continue producing.643 Though rifts existed between producers, in the end they shared many postwar hardships, namely a widespread raw material shortage, a lack of workshop space and the financial strain wrought by the Currency Reform. In the competitive postwar export market, past Nazi affiliations and internal rivalries tended to take a backseat to pressing economic concerns. In the end, both external and internal obstacles to success only served to drive innovation and diversification in the industry. Framus was at the forefront of many progressive products in the postwar era of rock ‘n’ roll including electric instruments and music education. Though American demand for such products and American cultural influence on German youth played a key role in the company’s policies, it is important to note the ways in which internal competition between Sudeten and Czech makers, Sudetens and local Germans and among Sudetens themselves also drove adaptation and mutual success. One could argue that the nature of the postwar market for musical instruments and other luxury goods was a highly competitive one, and that it was the Sudetens’ circumstance as expellees that gave them the impetus to persevere. The hardships expellees faced helped grant them their status as exemplars of the entrepreneurial spirit, further defining and distinguishing their group identity. What many craftspeople had in common after the war was a desire to regain their status in the world, to build their reputation and sustain it long enough to leave a legacy for family and Heimat. Once settled in Bubenreuth in the district of Erlangen, the Schönbach violinmakers quickly expanded their industry and their reach abroad. Achieving this feat was easier with acceptance and support from surrounding communities. Journalist Kurt Lorz wrote on a visit to Bubenreuth in June 1950 that the Schönbachers seemed to fit into the Franconian landscape and community of Erlangen quite well. He noted that their Egerlandish dialect was similar to the 643 Hoyer, Framus, 40-41.   254  local Franconian dialect and that the locals stood to benefit from the settlement. As he put it, the Erlangen locals hoped to enjoy the possible advantages of having 3,000 inhabitant violinmakers in their town, namely to “boost numbers of churchgoers and school children” in addition to the obvious economic benefits.644 In sum, expellee industries provided an influx of job opportunities for long-time residents and newcomers alike, transforming dormant regions into export meccas. The de-provincializing of rural villages like Bubenreuth was perhaps the expellee craftsperson’s most tangible contribution to West Germany. Though some level of development was inevitable a great deal of funding and political wrangling were required to make the transition from a refugee camp system to permanent town or settlement sites. In 1950 after the closure of many refugee camps, over 100 expellee families in the Erlangen district still lived in barracks. The community launched a large scale press campaign on March 15, 1950 alerting the Bavarian government to the “devastating psychological consequences” and possible loss of the “full utilization of economic power” should the living situation continue.645 The Schönbachers had managed to build 25 duplex homes, housing 50 families which government supporters saw as “remarkable” proof of their “energy and indomitable will” and as such deserving of “the fullest extent of state government support.”646 Support came in the form of a community-planning meeting with the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the spring of 1951, to discuss credit issues and the actual construction of the settlement. Also in attendance were State Ministers for Refugee Affairs, Landrat Hönekopp, and representatives of the craft community like Höfner. The discussion focused on the types of homes they would construct, regulatory measures for construction of homes and workshops as 644 “In Franconia, a Luthier City Emerges: Visit to the Schönbachers in Bubenreuth”- by Kurt Lorz. 24 June 1950, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 568. 645 To the state secretary for refugee affairs, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 548-571. 646 Correspondence with Minister president Hans Ehard, 15 February 1950, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 544-546.   255  well as laws governing homeworker labour hours. Although export sales and marketing were included in the discussion, the government’s greatest concern at this time was still in managing refugee living conditions and finding permanent settlement solutions.647 Community planning was a complicated task, comprising much more than the construction of family homes. Because the settlement was located one km outside of Bubenreuth, the plan involved breaking new ground, developing entirely new sewer and water systems and roads. The cost of such plans required the financial aid of not only the St. Joseph’s Foundation, but also ERP credit, private bank loans and the Adenauer Sofort-Programme (emergency programs) for some companies.648 The Bavarian government estimated the total cost of the resettlement to be approximately 350,000 DM.649 In order to secure their own 45 square meter apartment complete with two bedrooms, a kitchen and a basement, each settler would need a 100 DM down payment and pay 30-35 DM rent for 36 years. Because this financial outlook was restrictive for many, 170 families lived inside the Bubenreuth settlement while 182 lived in other areas of the Erlangen district, yet still contributed to the instrument making industry through home work or by commuting. 650 Thus the Schönbach resettlement affected many surrounding 647 Meeting to discuss community planning of Bubenreuth on 4 July 1951 in Bubenreuth. BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 356-363. “Secretary of State Guthsmuths points out that the home worker should be ensured also for his age and the entrepreneur would have to meet its social obligations in the allocation of homework. When it comes to a reorganization, a trustee would also have to be set up which has the right to supervise the sector working from home. It will also not do that the home workers have to work 70-75 hours weekly to earn only the essentials.” 648 Correspondence between the Bubenreuth instrument makers and district office of Dr. Ziegler regarding credit, 17 April 1950, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 552-556. The loans granted to the Schönbachers are shown in the attached list. 649 Correspondence with Minister president Hans Ehard, 15 February 1950, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 544-546. For these purposes, a further 100,000 DM is deemed necessary. The shape of the total of the height of DM 350,000 necessary expenses to save the home marketed Schönbacher musical instrument producers in the counties of Erlangen can only exist through subsidies from the Bavarian State. The necessary investment of DM 350.000 would achieve sweeping success when compared with other production sectors...The distribution of funds would be most appropriately distributed according to the proposals of a committee, consisting of the district of Erlangen, a representative of the Chamber of Crafts, the upper Master of the musical instrument makers’ guild, the chairman of the Guild of Erlangen, and some delegates of Schonbacher musical instrument makers. 650 13 October 1951, Neuer Deutscher Kurier, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 364-365. “Die Egerlaender Geigenmacher. “Families are settled elsewhere in the district- before the settlement at Bubenreuth was   256  communities in the Erlangen district, facilitating a sense of solidarity among locals and newcomers. Politicians argued that the key to Erlangen’s export success hinged on the community’s ability to come together to work towards common aims. Landrat Hönekopp for instance was quoted in a 1951 newspaper article saying that Heimatvertriebene and Einheimische should work together as a whole to “bring prosperity to the table” and that the Bubenreuth settlement would serve as a “prime example for the way to re-integrate unproductive forces into a work-flow.” In fact, he argued the social security contributions already calculated “prove locals and expellees can live together in friendship and harmony.” He finished by stating that a happy resolution to local-newcomer integration “would be my most ardent wish.”651 This is not surprising considering Hönekopp’s optimistic outlook and dedication to the project from its earliest inception. Other politicians were more concerned with outside competition and saw cooperation as a means to an economic end. Secretary of State Guthsmuths called for a “concentration of forces” in order to beat the Czech competition, which meant gathering instrument makers from surrounding areas and relocating them to Erlangen.652 Kurt Lorz’ newspaper article, “In Franconia, a Luthier City Emerges: Visit to the Schönbachers in Bubenreuth,” described the vision many had for the settlement: See the green hilly landscape of the the Regnitzgaues with all its spaciousness and attractive loveliness, compared to the barracks the Schönbach violin makers are involuntarily settled in. This scene is more like their old Bohemian homeland. The choice built, they had already established substantial numbers of Schönbach violin makers in Baiersdorf, Eltersdorf, and Tennenlohe, and fewer in Kalchreuth, Heroldsberg and Möhrendorf.” 651 Ibid. 652 Meeting to discuss community planning of Bubenreuth on 4 July 1951 in Bubenreuth. BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 356-363. “Dr. Kotrba stressed that one would necessarily have to try to get the groups of Hesse and Garmisch to Bubenreuth, because all the efforts here would be for naught if these groups continue to work separately without supervision. He points out that Saxony applications were received from the Accordion company to be located here and rejected. We have to make sure these companies do not go to Hesse, where the financial support is bigger.”   257  of this serene stretch of land is of some consolation for sure and a lighter fate than the alternative... In this surrounding realm of art and craft work in solidarity with the spirit of their talented ancestors, romantic moods emerge.653 The vision of a romantic new Heimat in which all residents worked cooperatively to achieve economic prosperity was certainly an enticing one. And indeed the Schönbachers’ fate was a “lighter one” compared to many other refugee groups after the war. They had received land to build an enclave community in the image of their former Heimat. Drawing the focus away from the errors of the past and shining a light on present and future triumphs was beneficial to politicians in power and journalists charged with the task of selling the story. Without visions of greener pastures, people could easily revert back to demands for better housing, the lifting of export restrictions and a better raw material supply chain, shifting focus and responsibility back to those in power. In a larger sense, future-oriented hopes and dreams distracted from the crimes of Nazis and Germans’ failure to stem fascist tides. Moreover, cooperation and integration on a local level would contribute to export achievements, granting Germany a more competitive edge in global trade. The romantic ideal of integration was in some cases soured by the real resentments of local residents. When expellees began building their new settlements complete with modern sanitary facilities, new workshops and in time even new cars, it “aroused envy and resentment in the neighbourhood” as the gap seemed to be widening between locals and newcomers. As one expellee remembered, locals had spent many generations building their homes and communities only to witness the fast-paced construction of modern pre-fab housing rise up around them, 653 "In Franken entsteht eine Geigenbauerstaat," (newspaper article), 29 June 1950, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 568. This document also includes photos of the area.   258  naturally fostering jealousy.654 It seemed that in many instances the point of contention was not the expellees’ origins in Eastern Europe or their cultural mores, but their ability to quickly adapt to rapid modernizing trends, a product of their circumstances. They were confronted time and again with a clean slate on which to build new lives—first with the expulsion, then temporary camp settlements without raw materials, next failed resettlement schemes and finally the Currency Reform—and at every turn adapted to the circumstances to prove their economic worth. Opportunities for success and industrial expansion came not only to the instrument makers of Schönbach but also to the glass blowers of Neugablonz and the toy makers of Waldkraiburg. While Wilfer and Höfner built export empires in Bubenreuth, fellow expellees were accomplishing similarly lofty goals. The glass jewelry makers of Neugablonz boasted 6.5 million DM in export sales in 1950, 33 million DM in 1952 and 62 million DM at its peak in 1955, employing 9000 expellee and non-expellee workers.655 Though all expellee industries experienced a downturn in the 1960s, their rapid rise in the 1950s helped stabilize the West German economy and reinforce the country’s global reputation as craft industry leader. With the consolidation of Gablonz glass blowers in the areas around Kaufbeuren into the cooperative “Novex,” they found success for themselves while also attracting another 21 expellee craft industries to the area.656 By the 1970s key expellee settlements had made a name for themselves as uniquely successful enclaves. A government-issued recommendation for the Bavarian tourist industry in 1973, suggested encouraging tourists to visit settlements that were 654 Kossert, Kalte Heimat, 117. “Soll Espelkamp gespalten werden.” voting card-referendum on splitting the town between Vertriebenen und Einheimischen between Stadt und Land between alt und neu... of the 3756 who voted in the referendum, only 234 were against the separation of the town.” 655 Wondrak and Lang, Kaufbeuren. 656 "Die Industrie-Siedlungen der Flüchtlinge in Bayern," Neue Zeitung, 4 January 1951, No. 308, BayHStA, 63241, File 630.   259  larger in population, well known “so that a satisfactory journalistic response can be expected” and carefully planned to “emphasize the achievements of the Bavarian state government and in particular the Ministers of State in place.” After an audit they named Waldkraiburg, Geretsried and Kaufbeuren-Neugablonz as the top settlements for tourist visits. Waldkraiburg was chosen for its status as the “industrial city in the country” (Industriestadt im Grünen) and Neugablonz for the scope of its success (the export of jewelry to over 100 countries worldwide in the 1950s).657 In this way, expellee settlements became more than just showcases for their craft industries. They became showcases for the Bavarian government, for expellee resettlement and West German revival. By promoting tours of skilled expellee settlements, the Bavarian government was in effect elevating the expellees’ status to that of exemplar for the postwar reconstruction project. 5.2 Modernizing Production The 1950s saw a rise in the production of guitars, both acoustic and electric, plastics for jewelry and toy making and increased mechanization across all craft industries. These changes were necessary to the growth of these industries as export demand far outweighed production capacity. In order to meet it, companies fully utilized the small skilled workforce available to them, extending labour hours by combining factory and homework. The craft experience became one in which families worked together across generations in their homes and in conjunction with newly trained workers on the centralized factory floor, much as they had in their former homeland. In this way, their local cultural practices were reborn simultaneous to the growth of their global market reach thanks to innovative new products. 657 Correspondence with the Minister Director. BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 2659, File 593-595.   260   In Neugablonz expellee glass factories opened their doors and began producing as early as 1946. However, they did not begin exporting their glass costume jewelry until June 1947 as they spent the first year building their raw material supply and mechanizing their new workshops. It was imperative to reduce production costs while maintaining quality standards.658 Demand came primarily from the US and Canadian markets in the form of crystal glass. Though German quality was still world renowned, many of the postwar glass producers had fallen out of touch with contemporary North American design style. International trade fairs gave makers the opportunity to research new styles and return home with fresh ideas to update their designs.659 Thus the process of catching up with the world was not only confined to machines and methods but required new creative design. With stability came leisure time and the pursuit of artistic inspiration, practices that were difficult or even impossible during the years of war and expulsion. Creative and technological changes came to the glass industry in the form of plastics. Rather than kill the glass-based jewelry industry, however, the new material intermingled with glass and metal offering customers more variety while remaining true to the industry’s roots. Further innovation came in the form of a rainbow of plastic colours and new finishing techniques. Women working in the factories offered creative design ideas and kept the companies relevant to consumer demand. The Gablonz industry reached its export peak in 1961 when design and raw material innovation aligned, earning them export sales of 81 million DM.660 658 "Gablonzer erlangen wieder Weltgeltung," (newspaper article), 25 October 1950, BayHStA, MK, Box 63241, File 629. 659 Ibid. 660 Wondrak and Lang, Kaufbeuren. "Hundreds of domestic and foreign buyers come here every year and maintain the personal contact with the Gablonzer companies. There have been official visits over the years from the Federal president to provincial ministers and parliamentarians, foreign diplomats, which demonstrates the unique structure and power of the industry. Signed Dr. Fritz Enz."   261  In musical instrument making, innovation came less from the materials used and more from the design and function of the finished products. When it came to violins, the Schönbach makers maintained their division of labour with separate workers crafting each piece. The master makers assembled the pieces into a “white” or unvarnished violin, delivered it to the factory, lacquered and “finished” it (a process that included stringing, tuning and listening to the sound of each violin).661 This division of labour ensured that export orders could be met without compromising quality. It required many hands, including tone wood dealers, cutters, parts producers, string spinners or lacquer producers.662 The industry employed many in the surrounding area around Bubenreuth, prompting one local commentator to remark, “the Schönbachers were like a ripe fruit that fell into our lap.”663 While the Mittenwald makers still found this process and the Schönbachers offensive to the violin making “tradition” as they saw it, changes to the musical instrument making industry in general were about to take a far more drastic turn. With the 1950s came rock ‘n’ roll and the electrification of musical instruments. In the United States the trend was associated with new teenage cultures, resulting from youth remaining in school longer and developing increased purchasing power.664 Though in Germany the cultural shift has been linked to a larger youthful population with more leisure time and less parental supervision once referred to as “the wanderlust of youth,”665 one must also consider that musical innovations evolved in tandem with other cultural trends and from practical necessity. As modern dance halls incorporated brass and percussive instruments, the traditional acoustic contrabass and guitar were easily overpowered. Instruments which could be volume adjusted 661 Hoyer, Framus, 119. 662 Ibid., 14. 663 "Bei Den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 63234, File 686-728. 664 Poiger, Jazz, 83. 665 "Bei Den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 63234, File 686-728.   262  through amplification became a necessity.666 In order to amplify an acoustic guitar, one had to reinvent its shape entirely and separate its amplification from the body of the instrument itself, thus opening the design of the guitar to a more streamlined look.667 For Wilfer and Framus the electric era “unleashed a veritable guitar production boom.” Though other companies eventually followed his lead, it was Wilfer’s foresight that put him ahead of his peers in West Germany. He set up a new program to develop guitar production early on and even began producing amplifiers to accompany them.668 This quickly gave way to new product lines and spin-off products like the Triumph electric bass, the Billy Lorento electric guitar and Hawaiian ukuleles. Lorento, a jazz guitarist from California had met and advised Wilfer as to the future of guitar sound. Known as the “Pickup King” he was a reputable source from which to glean information.669 To fill demand in the niche market of Hawaiian-style instruments, Wilfer developed an entire line of tropical weather-proof instruments. They unveiled these instruments at the Hanover Trade Fair in April 1949, impressing buyers with their ability to anticipate market trends in spectacular fashion.670 In short, Wilfer staked his company on the rise and fall of musical trends emanating from across the Atlantic. Unlike the violin which was learned through years of practice, learning to pluck and sing along to a guitar required considerably less time, matching perfectly the so-called “wanderlust” of 1950s youth. This was just one possible explanation for the increased demand for guitars, musicology and popular culture being the more obvious explanation.671 Another might be the rebelliousness it came to embody, as musicians began to electrify and manipulate sounds to 666 Hoyer, Framus, 67. 667 Jacob Ostberg and Benjamin J. Hartmann, “The electric guitar—marketplace icon,” Consumption Markets & Culture, Vol. 18, No. 5. (2015): 402-410. 668 Ibid., 67. 669 Ibid., 79. 670 Hoyer, Framus, 43. 671 Poiger, Jazz; Hoyer, Framus.   263  achieve a more raw, raucous sound.672 Whatever the catalyst for the guitar’s rise in popularity, what was indisputable was that fewer violins were being sold than ever before and the demand for electric instruments only seemed to rise with each passing year. This trend further tightened the belt around Mittenwald makers who focused exclusively on one-of-a-kind handmade acoustic stringed instruments, adding to the community’s duress.673 In terms of production, the Schönbachers continued their time-honoured method of dividing labour among hand workers. Their use of factory machines did increase with electric guitar production, however. In July 1957, Wilfer applied to the Bavarian Ministry for Work and Social Affairs for an ERP loan in the amount of 100,000 DM to finance new machines and to subsidize increased wages, in order to stay competitive with producers in Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Italy.674 While production methods changed at a fast pace, the task of choosing the tone wood for each instrument and listening for the tonal qualities of the instrument in various production stages required the professional skills of an experienced maker.675 Inside the three-story Framus factory, mechanization was delineated by floor, with heavy machinery installed on the ground floor, light machinery on the third and string and electric pickup production in the attic.676 Though integral to the process, mechanization had its limits. Economic theorists conclude that regional economies engaged in mass production often relied on skilled workers to make component parts and specialized tools. Moreover, skilled workers were often required on the factory floor to diagnose problems with the machinery and oversee the quality of the final 672 For more on the electric guitar’s evolution see Ostberg. According to these authors, the arrival of the Fender guitar in 1950 and the Gibson in 1952. Soon “space age” guitars came on the market. Shaped in a V or like a lightning bolt, these guitars fit in with modern design trends in space age fashion, plastics, etc. For a global, anthropological look at the guitar. See also Kevin Dawe, “Guitar Ethnographies: Performance, Technology and Material Culture,” Ethnomusicology Forum, Vol. 22, No. 1. (2013): 1-25. 673 "Bei Den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 63234, File 686-728. 674 Correspondence between Fred Wilfer and the Bavarian Ministry for Work, 27 July 1957, Subject: ERP Program, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 3008, File 153. 675 Ibid. 676 Hoyer, Framus, 59.   264  product, proving that Taylorist methods and mechanization did not necessarily create a homogeneous mass of deskilled labourers.677 The skilled craftsperson was far from obsolete in the 1950s. In the 1950s Framus produced a wide range of instruments including guitars, banjos, cellos, bass, strings, and of course violins. Electric guitars and bass guitars took on the hollow-body shape reminiscent of Gibson guitars in the United States, yet still featured large f-holes and a unique headstock (neck) to distinguish their brand.678 Innovation also touched Waldkraiburg’s brass instrument industry. Expellees there had—thanks to the refugee productive credit—returned to production in 1948. Marketing their horns under the trademark “Miraphone,” the Graslitz expellees had won over a global customer base by 1951. Like the stringed instrument industry, they needed to purchase the latest factory machines on the market to stem the tides of cheaper East German products flooding the market. And like the Framus company Miraphone soon had to expand their workspace to accommodate 150 employees and varied product lines. Homeworkers and expert makers played a vital role in production. Unlike Framus, however, they avoided unnecessary experimentation in the development of the instruments themselves and instead kept their innovations strictly to their factory machines and tools.679 Like the bodies of Framus’ stringed instruments, the faces of the craftspeople engaged in factory and homework shifted in the 1950s. There was an ever growing number of women and youth trainees on the shop floor after the war. In some cases, industries chose to employ women 677 John Tomanev, “A New Paradigm of Work Organization and Technology?” and Charles F. Sabel, “Flexible Specialisation and the Re-emergence of Regional Economies.” in Ash Amin, ed. Post-Fordism: A Reader (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 1994), 178. Tomanev argues that Taylorist mechanization created “a complex, internally differentiated apparatus of collective labour which contained an uneven variety of narrow skills and specific dexterities.” 678 Hoyer, Framus. 679 Waldkraiburg Cooperative report, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 3020, File 80-89. BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 505. “Innovation in engineering for brass instruments’- The Music House Wohlraub, Heidelberg, has a machine for brass instruments constructed and logged at home and abroad for a patent, which represents a substantial innovation for the entire brass instrument industry.   265  exclusively. In this way industries broadened their scope from a generational, familial base to encompass all apprentices willing and able to train. As factories became mechanized, division of labour became the rule of the day, which meant companies required more employees to do specific, finite tasks. These tasks could be repetitive and tedious and thus well suited to the less skilled, and in the 1950s this meant those who had not received years of formal craft training prior to the war, namely women and youth. There was a disproportionate ratio of women to men in Germany after the war, and they were paid less for equal work. Though each company’s motivations for hiring women varied, the trend of female employment was soon associated with modernization and larger societal shifts in which the lines between public and private spheres became permanently blurred.680 When marketing craft industries, men were often the focal point of advertising campaigns, newspaper articles and brochures. Yet, in photos of the shop floor collected in company papers and in OMGUS reports, women always appear as active workers in many stages of the factory process. Thus, while advertised as a masculine pursuit steeped in tradition, craft became more standardized and thus practiced by women rather than exclusively male guild members or craft masters. Without the formalities of the guild system, women and youth could be “trained” rather than “apprenticed” into the craft. In the following photo, an image of a male master violinmaker accompanies an article on Mittenwald. It is typical in that the figure is earnestly intent on his task, stressing the seriousness or significance of it. He is wearing white against a dark background, seemingly emphasizing the 680 Jennifer L. Barker and Kristin Ellsworth, “Introduction: Women Inventing the 1950s,” Women’s Studies: An inter-disciplinary journal, Vol. 40, No. 8. (2011): 969-973; Elizabeth Heineman, “The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germany's "Crisis Years and West German National Identity,” American Historical Review, Vol. 101, No. 2. (April, 1996): 354-395; Maria Höhn, “Frau im Haus und Girl im Spiegel: Discourse on Women in the Interregnum Period of 1945-1949 and the Question of German Identity,” Central European History, Vol. 26, No. 1. (1993): 57-90 .   266  purity of his pursuit, and thus the purity of the violin making tradition that the Mittenwalders clung to. It presents an image of strength and stability, things the German government wished to align with postwar representations of the nation. In official German media and promotional materials, the choice is almost always masculine, the image of a determined protector of the traditions of pre-war German life. 13.  Newspaper article on the Musical Instrument Making Fair in Mittenwald.    681   Women appeared more readily in photos of the actual factory floor, shedding light on the difference between reality and representation in the craft industry. Gender demographics and the variety of tasks assigned to both female and male workers were not reflected in official documents such as export catalogues, press releases or government documents. In the photos below, two women work in a toy factory, though we cannot be sure if it is two different women or the same as we are not privy to a view of her face. In contrast to official photographs, these are anonymous, candidly depicting the daily tasks of the skilled factory worker. This creates a hierarchy between the male master artisan depicted above and the female worker below. It is as 681 Image from an Oberbayern newspaper, dated 18 August 1949, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 483.   267  if the view of the woman’s face is not relevant to our understanding of what her work and contributions to the economy mean in the larger schema of postwar Germany, at least not to the extent of her male counterpart. Unlike the photo above she is slumped in her chair, though no less intent on her task, and she is not posed or set against a background. These photos were not serving the same political purpose. They demonstrated the contribution of women to the task of reconstruction and the changing demographics of the industrial workplace. Yet, it seems that she was still a mere cog in the wheel of reconstruction. These photos did not place her on a pedastal as protector of German national identity and tradition, and yet in actual terms her industriousness accomplished just that. She was a contributor to the reality of German postwar prosperity, though not featured prominently in its representation. 14. Women working in an unidentified toy workshop  682 In the 1950s there was still a division between what was construed as “men’s work” and “women’s work.” Though in reality the increasing use of heavy machinery and the growing number of women in the workplace expanded women’s industrial repertoire, little had changed in the way of societal perceptions of female propriety. In the photo below, a Framus brochure 682 Photography, RG 260, NARA, Box 76, File 2.   268  outlines the production of component parts of a violin, depicting a man completing all but one task, that of string spinning. 15.  Framus Promotional Brochure  683   Documents from 1965 relay that the ratio of men to women working in the Framus factory was 155:81, and that plans for expansion detailed a future hire of 100 women and only 20 men,684 proving that women were engaged in a wider variety of tasks than string spinning. Yet in the official publication, they were photographed spinning, a task easily associated with wool spinning or other textile arts long viewed as “women’s work.” As Diane Elson notes, women “are considered not only to have naturally nimble fingers, but also to be naturally more docile 683 Photograph from "Bei den Geigenbauern in Bubenreuth," 20 October 1949, BayHStA, MK, Box 63234, File 712. 684 Credit Correspondence, 3 December 1965, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 3008, File 136-141.   269  and willing to accept tough work discipline, and naturally less inclined to join trade unions, than men; and to be naturally more suited to tedious, repetitious, monotonous work.”685 She argues that women’s “nimble fingers” however, are the result of the training they often received from their mothers “since early infancy in the tasks socially appropriate to woman’s role,” rather than a biological inheritance. Moreover it is her assertion that because women were trained in skills (such as sewing) privately in the home in an arena that was “socially invisible”, the skills it produced were “attributable to nature, and the jobs that make use of it are classified as ‘unskilled’ or ‘semi-skilled.’”686 Thus the gender hierarchy remains entrenched in language and representation, even when not reflected in actual experience or skill. Gender hierarchies were also reinforced in publications lauding female expellee craftspeople. The article, “Child’s Play Becomes Woman’s Work,” was written August, 1951and published for American military personnel in the Weekly Information Bulletin described women happily working at home on tasks that made them smile “as if remembering their own happier childhoods.” As one photo caption read, “[b]raiding blonde tresses, making doll clothes are most welcome work for these mothers.”687 Though the article acknowledged that their joy might have been the result of having found employment as refugees in a new home, it did not associate their joy with the act of handwork or with their accomplishments as craftspeople. Rather, it linked their love of the task to motherhood, even “child’s play.” When discussing men’s contributions to craft, authors often emphasized entrepreneurial industriousness and the pride each man took in the quality of his work for the sake of craft tradition. “Women’s work” was viewed much more 685 Diane Elson and Ruth Pearson, “’Nimble Fingers Make Cheap Workers’: An Analysis of Women’s Employment in Third World Export Manufacturing,” Feminist Review, Vol. 7. (1981): 93. 686 Ibid., 93-94. 687 "Child's Play Becomes Women's Work," OMGUS WIB, No. 194, August 1951, 14.   270  narrowly, as a way to bring extra money and added joy to their daily tasks as mothers and homemakers. Indeed, home work in craft industries did benefit many women, giving them an opportunity to participate in the workforce while raising children. What was missing however in much of the literature, were examples of women who, like their male counterparts, saw craft as their career and chosen way of life. In Germany and American, the focus in the 1950s was on women as consumers, as heads of household efficiency and organization. Exporters and importers worked to buy products that would be valuable to the global female consumer, without spending much time narrating women’s localized role in production processes.688 688 Carter, How German Is She; Höhn, “Frau im Haus,” 83-89.   271  16. Female craftspeople at work making toys for export 689 Though the article was written to boast OMGUS’ successful refugee integration policies, its language revealed that in the 1950s, entrepreneurial status was reserved for men. Women were featured prominently in the photographs and yet simply as workers, not leaders in the company. The narrative followed the life and struggles of the company’s founder Mr. Zenker, listing employee statistics without reference to gender. At the end of the article, one female worker gave her testimony: “Oh yes I know all about this Marshall Plan and the ERP counterpart loans! But this was the first time I saw a practical and personal result. Before, I had heard wonderful statistics and high-sounding words but now I have a job myself!”690 Written for a US Military audience, the article necessarily focused on promoting OMGUS’ efforts, and the female worker provided a testimonial enthusiasm for that cause. She praised the ERP loans while also expressing gratitude for her own employment. Her specific contributions to the enterprise, however, seem to be irrelevant and we the readers are not privy to an understanding of what her experiences in the workplace entailed. She was a cog in the wheel, or at best a shining example of OMGUS’ success in supporting expellee industry while employing those in need of work. 689 "Child's Play Becomes Women's Work," OMGUS WIB, No. 194, August 1951, 14. 690 "Refugee Enterprise," by Herman Frankel, OMGUS WIB, No. 198, December 1951, 16.   272   17. A look inside an expellee workshop 691 Entrepreneur Käthe Kruse stands as the exception to the rule, as the founder of the world-renowned Käthe Kruse doll company. Born in 1883, she was in her 60s at war’s end. At this time, she acted as company head, dealing directly with export customers and overseeing sales and advertising while still designing many of the dolls. Her sons, Max and Dr. Michael Kruse managed technical and commercial issues and operations. Production resumed after the war in 1946, boasting 120 employees by 1950. As demand for dolls was very high, Michael Kruse turned increasingly to rationalized production methods.692 Founded in 1920 in Bad Kösen, 691 Ibid. 692 Correspondence between Käthe Kruse and the Finance Minister, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 3124, File 765-774. The wage is relatively high because the whole production of puppets and dolls is placed on manual labour. The wage and salary expenses for 1950 amounted to 217000 DM or 42% of total expenditures. Demand for dolls was very high. .Dr. Kruse has rationalized the doll production and been able to reduce prices by 25-30%. It is clear from correspondence submitted, that with these changes major contracts with the US can be achieved. An increase in   273  Thuringia, the company was forced to move to Donauwörth, Bavaria after the company was placed under state trusteeship in 1950 due to its location in the GDR.693 The company was noteworthy not only for its female founder, however, but for its employment of female displaced persons. Kruse applied to the Bavarian Ministry of Work and Social Welfare for loans based on her employment of refugees from the Eastern zone and expellees from the Sudetenland. The arrangement was mutually beneficial and created a workplace in which by 1957, the ratio of displaced to local workers in the company was 85:47.694 Her choice to employ women exclusively speaks to her recognition of the equal merits of female workers in relation to their male counterparts. In the first decade of the twentieth century Kruse participated in a movement to change societal perceptions of masculinity and advocated encouraging boys to play less with mechanical toys and more with dolls and other toys that inspired creativity. The Kind und Kunst movement sought to provide children with toys that promoted a more humane masculinity, based on art rather than engineering. Within this rubric, boys were given figurines or dolls of animals, people in traditional costumes and village scenes.695 Kruse sought to change the meaning of the exports of dolls is expected in the near future with orders from England, Holland, sold for exhibition and advertising purposes in those countries.” Käthe Kruse passed away in 1968, leaving the company to her sons who continued her legacy. 693 Credit correspondence, 20 June 1955, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 3124, File 762-765. 694 “6 Sept.1955. From the government of Schwaben to the Bavarian State Ministry for the Work and Sozial Welfare.Kathe Kruse. Donauworth. Subject: State guaranteed loans. In order to maintain the prescribed loan from the government, employment must remain at 70% displaced persons....and not all are required to be skilled workers. BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 3124, File 753-755. “Landratsamt Donauworth, 9.10.1957 to the government of Schwaben in Augsburg. Monitoring of refugee industries. Employment list includes 124 people, 81 of them are expellees and Soviet zone refugees. The Kruse company was encouraged to submit documents on remaining expellees, so that the work of expellees can be refunded/subsidized. BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 3124, File 749-752. 695 Bryan Ganaway, “Consuming Masculinity: Toys and Boys in Wilhelmine Germany” In Sarah Colvin and Peter Davies, Masculinity in German Culture (Camden House, 2008), 103. Artists, pedagogues and intellectuals influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and the Seccession all suggested that traditional, handmade toys taught more humane notions of masculinity. They did not see engineers as the ideal modern citizen; their alternative vision of technology redefined masculinity as artistic creativity, and accepted women’s input in the public sphere. In 1904, various supporters of the Werkbund movement led by Alexander Koch founded Kind und Kunst, a journal devoted to placing art ahead of technology in children’s lives...numerous artistic luminaries weighed in on the unsuitability of mechanical toys for boys…Organizers deliberately chose the spectacle of the mass exhibition to articulate their   274  entrepreneurial title, as well as the meaning of the objects she produced and their impact on society. As Sarah Colvin argues, in 1890s Germany the entrepreneur was thought to be an honourable, “virile man, a master of technology, dedicated to the betterment of his society.” One faction of toy manufacturers “articulated [a vision] of stereotypical masculinity for consumers [that] envisioned the entrepreneur/engineer as the ideal, middle-class male.”696 Kruse used gender stereotypes to her advantage, arguing that if women were experts of the private sphere, they were then also experts on children and as such had a greater right to design toys than men. She designed dolls that “cast women and girls as artistic creators, not passive consumers or male-produced commodities…she maintained that dolls represent an acceptable plaything for boys as well.”697 Kruse’s goals were ambitious and wide reaching. She was someone who sought to challenge societal regulations on gendered play. Kruse did not allow her life to be dictated by pre-existing notions of what it meant to be a German entrepreneur at the turn of the century. In the founding years of her company she struggled against a societal vision of the ideal man as engineer and defender of the nation. However, by the 1950s, her vision and her dolls became increasingly aligned with society’s vision of a more varied definition of masculinity, one that grew further away from military heroics and towards domesticity, fatherhood and bettering one’s community.698 The continued success of the Kruse doll as widely popular 1950s export and twenty-first century collector’s item is suggestive of her contributions to the “Made in Germany” label and to German postwar new vision of masculinity so as to reach as broad an audience as possible; far from rejecting the market, they embraced it as the logical means to persuade the populace. Specifically, they called for simple, sturdy, true-to-nature toys created using traditional technologies that would teach boys a nurturing masculinity in part by giving them dolls.” 696 Ibid., 97-98. 697 Ibid., 104. 698 Colvin and Davies, "Masculinity in German Culture," 108; Moeller, “The ‘Remasculinization.”; Poiger, “A New, ‘Western’ Hero?”   275  recovery. The struggle Kruse fought over societal definitions of entrepreneurship reveal that although many female expellees engaged in craft enterprises and even innovated within industries, the legacy of the expellee entrepreneur exemplar is male. In recognizing this oversight, the constructed nature of identity is revealed. The peaceful, domestic craftsman was a more powerful and marketable ideal in the postwar era, as it directly contrasted with the militant, violent fascist male image. To disassociate from Nazi imagery and replace it with the male entrepreneur was to cleanse the nation of collective guilt and begin building a bridge between the past and future. Though expellee women found employment as skilled and unskilled workers in their new environment, acting as homeworkers and in factories like that of Käthe Kruse, there were also notable entrepreneurs among them. Many worked alongside their husbands, such as Fred Wilfer’s wife Wanda at Framus. Of particular note was one expellee entrepreneur, referred to in documents only as Mrs. Friedel. Makers of “fine, delicate lace,” she and her husband had employed more than 200 people in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia before the war. After their expulsion they were settled in Garmisch with several lace patterns hidden in their briefcase. Mrs. Friedel, “set up shop” in their one allotted room and soon received more orders than they were capable of handling. Rather than employ local unskilled labour, however, she travelled alone to Hof, near the German border and spent three weeks “searching the faces of the long line of refugees as they streamed in, looking for former employees.”699 Reassembling her staff, she had rebuilt the company’s roster of skilled personnel and the Friedels began exporting once again. Clearly she understood that fostering a sense of community and loyalty to one’s employees were 699 "Refugee Handicraft," by John A. Biggs, OMGUS WIB, No. 157, March 1949, 6. “When she found one she gave him a note with her Garmisch address on it, intimating there was work waiting there for all who cared to come. They in turn told other old employees that the Friedels were again in business.”   276  vital elements in any successful business. She was determined to stay true to those principles despite the dire circumstances the company faced. Many craft industries depended on female workers in the postwar era, often employing far more women than men. Yet figures from November 1948 show that among musical instrument and toy makers the average wages were: “male: skilled .97 [cents per hour], .71 unskilled [cents per hour], female: trained .50 [cents per hours], helpers, .45 [cents per hour].”700 Not only did women receive a lower wage than men, but they were not designated “skilled or unskilled” but simply “trained” or as “helpers,” demeaning their contributions to these particular craft industries and to postwar recovery. These designations seem to be left over from the guild systems of apprenticeship from which women were largely excluded. Certain groups did take notice of the imbalance. In particular U.S. women’s groups and labour-management experts assessed the situation, pointing out that the “domestic life-children, church and kitchen [Kinder, Küche, Kirche]—may be sufficient to keep German women happy, but it will not, in years to come, be enough to make the German economy self-sufficient…[as] women, without asking it, have become the pivot around which revolve the most crucial issues of the renascent German nation.”701 After conducting a survey, the American experts found that though German tradition favoured the apprenticeship system, few women were being given access to apprenticeship training and many jobs were still reserved for men, jobs that women in the United States had held for years. German women in industry, it seemed, were still intimidated by the presence of men in council meetings and were reluctant to demand legislative changes out of fear of losing their 700 JEIA Newsletter, RG 260, NARA, Box 282, File 3. 701 "Women in Industry," June 1949, OMGUS WIB, No. 177, March 1950, 17.   277  jobs.702 Though OMGUS had put equal pay for equal work policies in place after the war, because women were not hired to do equal work, the policy was rendered ineffective.703 The language used to designate the work as “skilled” or “trained” kept the two tasks distinct and thus unequally paid. Though women continued to face adversity in global systems of production, their labour was integral to modernization as companies moved increasingly to mechanization and as such required a larger, cooperative workforce than men alone could provide. Like women’s movements elsewhere, German women relied heavily on grassroots organizations, government programs and both American and German advocates. A special division of Military Government labelled GYA or the German Youth Activities Section took it upon themselves to teach young girls handcraft skills through workshops and contests. Directors of GYA met in Heidelberg to plan their programming and concluded that young girls may have been more susceptible to Nazi propaganda than boys and were even more vulnerable in the postwar era, as their futures as mothers and homeworkers were now in question.704 The concern here of course was not just with women’s welfare but also with re-education in the mores of a democracy. Of even greater import than the GYA were the various exchange programs offering German women an opportunity to experience America firsthand. Sponsored by OMGUS, the Carrie Chapman Catt Memorial Fund, the America-German Women’s Club, the Women’s Bureau of the US Department of Labour and various grassroots community and religious 702 Ibid. 703 OMGUS WIB, No. 64, October 1946, 6. “Wage Policy Clarified. German women are to receive the same wages as men if they are doing identical work and if their productivity is equal, according to a recent statement issued by OMGUS clarifying its wage policy in Germany…The new policy, effective at once, is an expansion of action taken by the Allied Coordinating Committee in September when the Committee amended Directive No. 14 which sets forth the Allied wage policy in Germany." 704 OMGUS WIB, No. 159, April 1949, 11. One contest challenged young girls to create new designs out of old scrap materials.   278  organizations,705 these exchanges worked to acquaint German women with American style education systems, politics, community organizing and homemaking practices. The Bavarian Consumers’ Cooperative public relations “scientific assistant” Lilli Rieger visited the United States on one such exchange, to learn new marketing trends over the course of a six month stay. She returned to Germany, determined to break barriers for women in the public sphere, arguing that, “to take an active part in civic affairs and to serve a community properly, women must be well informed. They should also be trained in public speaking so they can express their ideas before a group. Along this same line is the increased need for training in progressive household methods as it is directed by home economists in the United States.”706 Though the perception was still that women belonged primarily in the home, it was becoming glaringly obvious the strong impact women were having and would continue to have on their wider communities should they be granted the tools and opportunities to enact change. While expellee industries were not the only ones to employ women and women did not force a change from guild-style craftsmanship to piecwork, their presence in the workplace did have an impact on societal norms, particularly the gendered division of public and private spheres. Craft industries were forced to adapt and modernize to meet consumer demand, and would have likely trained men to do the same tasks had it not been for the abundance of women in postwar Germany. Over time, women proved themselves valuable in the workplace through their own Selbsthilfe initiatives, their innovation and creativity. Moreover, as women they 705 OMGUS WIB, No. 203, May 1952, 12. “America-German Women’s Club’- German-American exchange to bring democratic values back into the home. OMGUS WIB, NO. 100, July 1947, 5. OMGUS WIB, No. 158, April 1949, 17. 706 OMGUS WIB, No. 203, May 1952, 12. Miss Lilli Rieger of Munich, the 6,000th exchange to go to the United States under the HICOG-sponsored program designed to acquaint Germans with the American way of doing things, visited 33 states and studied the way American women’s organizations help women to become effective in the economic life of their country. Her six-months stay was sponsored by the Women’s Bureau of the US Department of Labor in conjunction with 10 national and religious women’s organizations and their local branches.   279  understood many of the consumer demands of women in the countries they were exporting to, helping their local firms to design and market new products.707 5.3 Educating the Next Generation Postwar societal shifts in Germany were not only presumed to be associated with the changing roles of women, but also with American GIs and their cultural imports. However, there was a competition prior to this within West Germany itself for who and what would define culture in the 1950s. Germans continued to struggle with self-definition as they rebuilt national identity around past traditions and future ambitions. Meanwhile, American-sponsored exchange trips, export dollars spent on German goods and American imports were all part of a larger struggle for the hearts and minds of the occupied. Ultimately capitalism and democracy were products that the Americans sold. The ways in which those systems were packaged were vital to the occupation’s success. Historians of occupied Germany have long since debated the extent of American re-education policies and the meaning of the term Americanization in the postwar context.708 The American way of life was packaged in product marketing, in popular culture such as music and film and in school curricula and Amerikahaus libraries. America’s “Market Empire” advanced in postwar contexts by researching the desires and needs of consumers in war-torn markets and adapting their own export products to satisfy those demands.709 However in what follows I demonstrate that the import of American cultural products was of perhaps less importance than the ways in which Germans negotiated those cultural influences with their own methods and 707 Lees, “Fractured Lives." 708 De Grazia, Irresistible Empire; Junker, The United States and Germany. 709 Ibid.   280  value systems. Through market research, American exporters knew not only what consumer products postwar Germans would accept, but what objects they lacked and desired to possess. In the early twentieth century, Germans perpetuated notions of American culture as one of uniformity characterized by mass consumption and lacking Kultur. As Mary Nolan argues, however, this was simply part of a European-wide critique of America as superficial and inadequate. Many Europeans viewed America as a mass consumer-driven society that forced immigrants to conform to the “melting pot” ideal. According to Nolan the point is overblown as American mass consumption was far from uniform and conformist, but rather one of wide variety amidst standardization. Moreover, she asserts, the focus on American mass production and consumption tended to overshadow the extent to which German production was also rapidly standardizing in the early twentieth century.710 Though there were notable differences between German and American economic processes, the German emphasis on European quality over American quantity was more about maintaining self-image than economic differentiation. The German reputation for Qualitätsarbeit (quality work) was constructed over time. Germany’s image was as finely crafted as their export products. In 1907 the German Werkbund, an association of designers, architects, politicians and industrialists was founded in Munich, and by 1910 they had set standards of taste. Their mandate was to industrialize craft production without losing sight of form, function and style, by setting design norms.711 The “Made in Germany” label carried a long history in which guilds, associations and cooperatives had acted 710 Nolan, Visions of Modernity, 112-117. When Germans anguished over whether America had or would develop Kultur, they employed a term laden with meanings to express multiple concerns. Both their general argument and the specific tropes they employed borrowed heavily from German critiques of modernity, couched in terms of culture versus civilization, Gemeinschaft versus Gesellschaft, and also from a Europe-wide discourse on America’s mediocrity, superficiality, and inadequacy. 711 Jenkins, “Domesticity,” 466-469.   281  as gatekeepers for quality craftsmanship. When standardized American products arrived en masse they threatened not just current domestic sales but also generations of image building. While American products invoked competition, German products still had their own niche in luxury and tourist markets. As Rudy Koshar notes, artisanal traditions came to represent German industriousness and a “ ‘third way’ between the alternatives of full-scale capitalism and socialist industrialization,” one that was appealing to postwar American tourists and occupation personnel who became collectors of German handcrafts.712 Jonathan Wiesen adds that in all “matters of image making” West German businessmen prided themselves on the quality of their products as ethical examples of creativity and productivity imbued with the “power to deflect all attackers, primarily of the socialist and communist ilk.”713 Quality artisanal or manufactured objects took on a political meaning in West Germany, symbols of the country’s role on the front lines of the larger Cold War struggle between capitalist and communist systems of production and consumption. Because Bavaria was known as West Germany’s workshop and was situated in the U.S. occupation zone, its craft businesses were uniquely positioned to take advantage of American markets, to act as representatives of a traditional, entrepreneurial, and capitalist way of life. In the earlier postwar years, however, maintaining a balance between reconstructing Germany’s image and moving forward along a capitalist, consumer-drive path was a delicate process. Reading George Mikes’ Fodor travel guide from the era, Koshar concludes that German industriousness and reconstructed consumer culture “were not equivocally regarded as positive characteristics.”714 In the guide, Mikes explored Munich and found “shop windows furnished with exquisite taste and packed with alluring treasures [that] delight your eyes…but you know 712 Koshar, in Trommler and Shore, German-American Encounter, 166. 713 Wiesen, West German Industry, 100. 714 Koshar In Trommler and Shore, German-American Encounter, 166-167.   282  that a few corpses must be still buried under the ruins, just a few yards from the handbags, jewelry and toys.”715 Even after Germans cleared the rubble and ruins away, the corpses of the Nazi era and its destructiveness lingered in memory. More than a glittering Schaufenster display was required to convince global consumers of the country’s return to peaceful co-existence. German and expellee businessmen alike sought to build a bridge linking the present to the past to give consumers and their employees hope for the future. Wiesen argues that German fears about the “encroachments of mass democracy and mass tastes” were tied to a “deeper struggle between Germany’s traditions, its recent compromised past, and its imagined future.”716 The bridge was built on the trope of the German entrepreneurial spirit, quality production methods and stories of generations of families working together in times of hardship, all characteristics expellee craftspeople embodied. In order to benefit from the capitalist consumer culture of the 1950s, craftspeople told the story of their respective companies through tourism, participating in trade fairs at home and abroad and by remaining loyal to local particularities and traditions. In his study on architectural preservation in Germany’s tourist towns, Joshua Hagen found that Germans aimed to recoup their status as “a cultured people of European and international importance” by capturing each town’s individuality through traditional craftsmanship.717 Craft workshops were on display in towns across Bavaria as first American military personnel and later international tourists saw Germany for the first time or from a new perspective. Tourism shaped the economy, resettlement schemes and the livelihood of groups like the Sudeten expellees. As visitors heard their stories 715 Ibid., 166-167 716 Wiesen, “Miracles for Sale,” 159-160. 717 Hagen, Preservation, Tourism, and Nationalism, 206-229. “Lill emphasized “above all proportion, use of appropriate materials, and solidarity of traditional skilled labor.’...Lill explained that ‘through the strength of the citizenry, one believes to be able to allow the destroyed to rise again in its old beauty, without fear of imitation, but with characteristics rooted in the soil and craftsmen-like ability.’”   283  and experienced their way of life, individual histories flowed back into a larger national and international narrative that conveyed the positive aspects of German culture to consumers. Consumers played an important role in the process, creating demand and driving the market. Daniel Miller, a prolific material culture scholar focuses extensively on the ways in which consumers create meanings from objects during and after their purchase. With modern standardized processes, the quantity and variety of goods increased. However, he would argue that once the consumer chooses a particular item, it is then set apart from all the other objects and thus becomes specific.718 The object takes on the status of the individual at the point of purchase, and is thereafter conferred with various meanings, perhaps placed on display in the home, gifted or passed down within the family. As Ian Woodward explains, “objects sometimes have a public role in the home as a signifier of status, style or taste, and other times do very private psychological work for the viewer which revolves around the object serving as a focus for managing self-identity, family relations or self-esteem.”719 For postwar Germans the purchase of a locally made craft item may have done the private psychological work of healing the ills of the past or reigniting memories of peacetime. For American military personnel, purchasing a similar item would have granted them a certain level of status once they returned home and placed the item on display for their neighbours to admire. Alternatively, for German youth growing up among ruins, purchasing an American mass-produced item may have done similar healing work, inspiring feelings of hope and perhaps allowing them to enjoy a light-hearted sense of fun without the weighty responsibilities of tradition. For the expellee, the sale of each crafted object gave them an opportunity to tell their story to the world, whether or not the buyer took the opportunity to learn and understand the 718 Daniel Miller as quoted in Ian Woodward, “Domestic Objects and the Taste Epiphany,” Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 6. (July 2001): 120. 719Ibid., 121.   284  object’s origins. Expellees themselves had lost many of the objects they had purchased and collected as consumers during the expulsion, inspiring them to build touches of the past into much that they made. When Framus and other Schönbach makers marketed their instruments in America, they named the higher-end instruments in their product line after historical Schönbach makers. Franz Joseph Klier, a master violinmaker working for Framus in the 1950s and 60s, was the only living maker to see his name grace the company’s best violins.720 One Mittenwald maker was disappointed to find a cheaper model Schönbach violin labeled “Crafted from Mittenwald, Made in Germany,” on his travels to the US, referring to them as “toy goods.”721 In the initial postwar years, inexpensive musical instruments were lumped together and shipped without any distinguishing manufacturer’s label. By the late 1950s, the Philadelphia Music Company became chief distributor of German-made instruments in the United States and ensured that each instrument carried the manufacturer’s brand.722 Not only did labelling give craftspeople a sense of distinction from their competitor neighbours, but a reason to create truly unique products and flourishes in their designs. In effect, by taking their products global, expellee craft remained local. Global markets and trade sustained local expellee enclaves economically but also culturally, allowing makers to 720 Hoyer, Framus, 231-235. In the case of the handmade basses, there were models named after the paragons of the violin makers of Prague in the 18th century: ‘Johannes Eberle.’ 721 Letter written by Aschauer, director of the Mittenwald school, BayHSt, MK, Box 63273, File 662-664. “The representative of a Bubenreuth company replied to my reproaches that these cheap violins are required by the American buyers. First of these concoctions are not to be described as ‘musical instruments’ but as ‘toy goods’. By exporting this commodity, the good name of ‘German quality work’ Mittenwald and Markneukirchen is shaken the hardest. The result of this drastic price cutting is that Schoenbacher violin makers in Bubenreuth /Erlangen have to work up to 90 hours to arrive at a net weekly wage of 50 DM. They were of cheaper quality and have not the slightest in common with Mittenwalder manual labour. This nonsense can only be remedied if one relocates all Schoenbachers still in Mittenwald to Bubenreuth and thus the desire of the Landrat of Erlangen will be met. The necessary steps will of course have to be taken immediately to stop this unfair competition. I have found that the dealers of these violins have requested that they be removed from the list, because they know that they are not the original Mittenwald violins and because they themselves do not want to cheat their customers. In conclusion it can be stated that the trip to the USA and the Fair in Chicago mediated a valuable experience and had a successful impact that will increase exports. This should justify the financial expenses.” (A report from a Mittenwald maker after returning from the United States). 722 Hoyer, Framus, 234.   285  continue their craft practice and way of life. Export demand in the 1950s justified the existence of expellee enclaves such as Neugablonz, Waldkraiburg, Bubenreuth and many others, as centralization went hand in hand with efficient production. Global trade sustained the resettlement of entire expellee communities, and thus the culture of each former Sudeten town (Gablonz, Graslitz, Schönbach, etc), as former neighbours and co-workers came together in the name of craft production. Building a brand required layers of marketing, from tourism to export sales catalogues and trade fair booths. Export catalogues often contained photos of famous celebrities or young models playing the instruments, accompanied by brief product descriptions as well as a foreword from the company owner and images of the factory itself. In the case of Framus catalogues, images tended to focus on the future of the company, emphasizing innovative new products like the Hawaiian ukulele or the electric bass. A.R. Hüttl, an expellee company settled in Baiersdorf, also chose to highlight innovations for American markets, like their “Miami,” “Camping” and “Hawaii” guitar models.723 Yet, they also chose to tell a piece of their history by including a drawing of their former factory in Graslitz. While hinting at their eagerness to go global with their product line, they maintained a firm hold on their local roots both in Graslitz and Baiersdorf. 723 Correspondence between instrument makers and the State Ministry of the Interior, 20 January 1956, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 3016, File 37-74.   286   18.  Catalogue for A. R. Hüttl 724 The Hüttl brand was likely strengthened as consumers were invited to buy into the story from the first moment they saw the cover. The drawing makes the factory appear limitless as it continues into the vanishing point, and the smokestacks appear active in the distance, as if driving industrial output forward. The drawing denotes an imposing level of success, and brands Hüttl as an industry that sustained an entire community, and will continue to do so should consumers invest in it. Marketing such as this had the effect of establishing a connection between the consumer and the object, while also bolstering the expellees’ reputation for industriousness 724 Ibid.   287  and perseverance. It further solidified their role as prototypes of the entrepreneurial spirit, directly contributing to the newly crafted West German image. German-American cultural exchange gathered pace in 1949 with large trade fairs like those in New York in 1949 and Chicago in 1950. Visitors included export buyers as well as public onlookers, interested in innovation and modern design. Here, they were invited to enter into a booth-sized world representing expellee brands, complete with floor models of their latest innovations and brochures detailing their production methods. Framus was famous for their booths in the 1950s, staging elaborate displays and handing out beautifully bound print materials, often attracting celebrities and politicians.725 The “Germany 1949 Industry Show” held at New York’s Museum of Science and Industry, Rockefeller Center fin April, 1949, drew an estimated crowd of 135,000 visitors, procuring over $5,000,000 in export contracts, and selling $1,000,000 in samples. Seventy-five West German firms exhibited at the show, an event sponsored by the Bizonal Foreign Trade Administration and the JEIA. A committee of German businessmen led by Alexander Kegel of the association of exporters and importers in the Frankfurt area, dealt with the logistics of such a large-scale undertaking.726 The show inspired breakthroughs in export sales but also within firms. One expellee glass firm developed a new line of chinaware in preparation for the exhibition. Using a glass cutting technique and a new grinding material, they successfully cut patterns into china rather than 725 Hoyer, Framus, 43, 145. “The company’s booths at the Frankfurt Musikmesse were always something special, always attracting prominent political personalities like in the 50s. Marketing material depicting the product range was also always classier and more professionally prepared than that of the competition...two main catalogs: one for bowed instruments with a black cover, the other, in red, for plucked instruments...also illustrations depicting the individual steps of making the instruments…The Framus booth was chosen for the front cover of the Instrumentenbauzeitung (Instrument Makers Magazine) after impressing people with their booth at the Mittenwald Messe in 1949. “bowed basses in a blonde finish and ‘Gibson guitars in bird’s eye maple.” 726 JEIA Newsletter, May 1949, Issue No. 9, RG 260, NARA, Box 74, File 4. Officials anticipate that as a direct result of the exhibition there will be over $30,000,000 worth of orders taken for German products. The Germans consider that one the best results of the fair is the reestablishment of old business contacts by several of the German exhibitors. "New York Display: MG German Industrial Exhibition '49," OMGUS WIB, No. 156, March 1949, 6.   288  painting directly on the material, once thought too brittle to cut. Another firm invented and unveiled a new electric pipe-less organ at the show.727 The Chicago International Trade Fair soon followed in 1950, with West Germany acting as the second-largest foreign exhibitor, occupying 19,000 square feet of floor space. The intent of American organizers was to show the benefits of Marshall Plan funding, to impress upon American taxpayers the merit in aiding German entrepreneurs.728 These shows were vital for expellee firms looking to reconnect with foreign buyers from their pre-war past and prove that with adequate raw material supplies, they could lead the industry field in innovation and efficiency. For Germans in general, these shows proved that they could still innovate while maintaining quality, and that postwar German culture was not simply at the mercies of new American products, production methods or market demands. Rather, Germans were equally capable of contributing progressive ideas, regardless of material setbacks. Of course there were American wholesalers and tourists who could afford to visit Bavarian workshops in person, benefiting from an experience that more powerfully linked marketing with the expellee story. Participation in trade fairs, press coverage of instrument making innovations and marketing made Framus-Werke Bubenreuth headquarters a tourist destination and effectively put the industry enclave of Bubenreuth on the map. In addition, visitors usually made other craft communities part of their travel itinerary creating a trickle down effect from Framus to its expellee counterparts in other settlements.729 Germans were no strangers to the Trade Fair concept. In 1948 the Hannover Fair attracted 16,000 foreign visitors 727 JEIA Newsletter, May 1949, Issue No. 9, RG 260, NARA, Box 74, File 4. 728 "Occupation Log: Germans Show Wares in Chicago," OMGUS WIB, No. 179, May 1950, 22. Space allotments to individual German exhibitors are made on the basis of applications to the ‘German Committee for the Marshall Plan Fair in the United States’ located in Frankfurt. By the end of March, 150 firms had been allocated space, among them 10 from Berlin. 729 Hoyer, Framus, 127.   289  and resulted in $15 million in contracts.730 By 1949, Landrat offices were working together in Bavaria to host one large, combined exhibition to attract foreign buyers. As part of their planning, organizers called in an advisor from JEIA to obtain American catalogues in order to study American market demand.731 Trade Fairs were an excellent example of American and German influences coming together for one common goal, the revitalization of the German economy through global trade. American-German cooperation was essential for a well-functioning supply chain. German producers first reconnected with their pre-war wholesalers. Framus worked with exporters Buegeleisen & Jacobson in New York and the St. Louis Music Supply Company in New Jersey, formed by Jewish families who had immigrated to the United States in the late nineteenth century.732 German firms depended on American wholesalers to give them an understanding of which products were in demand in the United States. The National Retail Dry Goods Association and the Association of Buying Offices in New York City conducted a study at Washington’s behest titled “Consumer Goods Import Market in the United States.” The study revealed a gap between what European firms were producing after the war and U.S. market demand. The publication was meant to acquaint West German firms with the type of merchandise that department stores in the United States would be willing to buy and sell.733 The German-American Trade Promotion Company took the effort one step further, opening offices in New York, Chicago, New Orleans and San Francisco to supply data to German exporters on suitable packaging, styling, and design for American consumers. In addition, they supplied data 730 JEIA Newsletter, May 1949, Issue No. 9, RG 260, NARA, Box 74, File 4. In total 500,000 people visited the fair. 731 Correspondence to OMGUS Area Commander, Rosenheim, 24 January 1949, RG 260, NARA, Box 366, File 2. 732 Hoyer, Framus, 219. 733 OMGUS WIB, No. 177, March 1950, 27.   290  to American importers, apprising them of upcoming products and innovations in Germany. They achieved these aims by publishing a bulletin and counseling individual firms.734 Both countries stood to gain from a healthy trade relationship and both seemed to respect one another’s industrial and craft achievements. In earlier chapters I discussed the ways in which artisans were confined by expectations to uphold a moral ideal and a cultural tradition. These strictures were in place particularly to strengthen the community around them and to guard against external forces of change and the erosion of practices over time. What makes the expellee case so interesting in this regard is that in the 1950s they leaned on the external aid of the United States and in fact welcomed change. Perhaps having experienced upheaval in its starkest form, the expellees were simply better equipped to weather subsequent change. Fred Wilfer for example admired the American way of life and sought to bring those principles to bear in a German context.735 In the final days of the war he learned he would have to fend for himself, sparking an “American dream-like” scenario in which he took advantage of every opportunity afforded him. Instead of holding fast to the ways of the past, expellee craft firms embraced American markets and in doing so became leaders in their industries and upheld elements of their local pre-expulsion culture. The global was not a threat to the local but rather sustained it and all its cultural particularities. Because American consumers and buyers respected the unique expellee contributions to luxury craft industries, expellee firms simply had to continue to innovate and 734 OMGUS WIB, No. 186, December 1950, 10. A non-profit organization founded in 1950, with offices in the US and in Germany. The organization came together after extensive planning. The overall mission of the company is to advise and assist German industries and exporters to market their goods in the United States and Canada and to keep interested US importers and distributors informed of goods available in Germany. Five trade associations which represent every important export industry in western Germany, established the company in Frankfurt. The associations are the Federal Association of German Industry; the Council of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce; Association of German Hotels and Restaurants; the Association of Hamburg Exporters; and the German Central Handicrafts Association. 735 Hoyer, Framus, 234-235.   291  provide excellent quality to survive in the global marketplace. Once the entrepreneur had achieved success, as Wilfer had with Framus, they were much freer to create new product lines and experiment with designs, stepping out of past constraints. They were no longer indebted to past traditions and moral responsibilities. As the 1950s came to an end, expellee craftspeople could increasingly step out of the identity constructed for them after the war, if they chose to do so. They could become the cosmopolitan, jet-setting West German entrepreneurs who happened to be expellee, rather than exemplars of victimhood, of tradition or the entrepreneurial spirit narratives crucial to the reconstruction project. In order to maintain local individuality and company trademark status in the marketplace, craft entrepreneurs urgently needed to educate the next generation of producers, merchants and consumers. Training workshops and vocational schools were at the forefront of this vital education. Through education, companies found a way to reach out to young consumers and impart a sense of pride in all things “Made in Germany.” Uta Poiger notes that many German musicians and fans missed the latest U.S. trends due to their “relative isolation” during the war and immediate postwar years.736 Firms would need to educate future domestic consumers as to the ways of American trends, to ensure a lasting demand for guitars beyond the American export market. Fred Wilfer was convinced that producing innovative products also meant producing new amateur musicians. In this spirit, he created the Framus Kindergarten: “Europe’s first successful music preschool.” Initially founded to educate the children of Framus employees, and ensure that both husband and wife could work in the factory, the school soon attracted local Bubenreuth 736 Poiger, Jazz, 42. “Picking up where they left off, they listened mostly to music inspired by the swing bands of the 1930s.”   292  residents. The school thus became a forum for improving Einheimische-expellee relations.737 Wilfer’s gift of childcare to his employees soon stood as a symbol of his integration in the community and his modern, progressive ideals. Not only did the school allow young mothers to work in the factory but also gave one of its female teachers a platform for innovation. Gertrud Fischer, affectionately known as “Aunt Gertrud,” created a musical notation system for children under the age of five, preparing them for future musical education and instrument consumption. By using colour-coded “note men,” she was able to reach an entirely new audience for sheet music. Soon her notation systems were published and distributed under the Framus brand, under the title “Mein erstes Notenbuechlein” (My First Music Note Book).738 Her legacy was one of innovation in musical education, perfectly fitting with the adventurous vision of her employer Fred Wilfer. He soon graduated Gertrud’s young students into guitar instruction,739 increasing his domestic market. Education became an arena in which women proved just as innovative as the men who designed new electric guitar models. Though investment in education was initially a strategy designed to shape the buying practices of future generations, it re-instilled a love for music in a youth population hungry for new experiences. 737 Hoyer, Framus, 86-89. 738 Ibid., 86-88. Her invention of the colorful little ‘note men’ assisted in that process, for they made playing music child’s play...Aunt Gertrud’s little note men stand on regular staffs but are known by their colors instead of, for example, c or d. Every note has a different color: yellow stands for A, red stands for B and so on...Mrs. Fischer had a clever and playful answer for the challenge of rhythm as well: a half note is pretty long...so it sits down on a chair...in the rare case that a whole note should appear, which takes an especially long time, the little guy is simply tucked into bed. 739 Ibid., 89. “Guitar instruction was especially important to Fred Wilfer. It was his idea that recorder students should smoothly transition to the plucked instrument. He constantly supported guitar instruction at public schools and donated countless student guitars.”   293   19.  Framus Promotional Brochure describing Note men method  740   After the war the German domestic market consisted of a disproportionate number of women as well as a growing number of refugees still living in camps. In addition, many homeless youth roamed the streets, living in ruined buildings and railroad stations. In 1945 in Munich US military personnel picked up 800 orphaned boys and girls from the ages of 10-12. This wayward population sparked the Youth Settlement Plan, an initiative to build youth centres throughout the US Zone, which would house and train young apprentices in various trades.741 740 Photograph, BayHSt, MK, Box 63234, File 722. 741 Military Governor’s Report, No. 23. OMGUS WIB, No. 104, August 1947, 4. “Late in 1946 and early in 1947 approximately 1500 boys, 17 to 18 years of age, sought care at the Dachau Prisoner of War Reception and Discharge Center claiming to be ex-Wehrmacht. These were turned over to Bavarian officials who have reported   294  In one instance a boys’ tent settlement was built near Frankfurt on a former German army training ground, near an existing expellee camp. Working alongside 160 expellee and bomb evacuee men, these boys laboured as construction workers, eventually transitioning into apprenticeship in nearby firms.742 Thus as expellee firms developed and found a need for skilled labour, youth were often close at hand to fill trainee positions. Expellee youth often fell years behind in school, as their camps were not always located in the vicinity of schools and as such depended on their elders within the camp for their education.743 Refugee camp life was notoriously reported as confining their residents “to a life of idleness and boredom,” in which they “gradually lose their skills to inactivity” over time. These reports often recommended that handicraft programs should be established in each camp, though often funding was not readily available for such initiatives.744 Individual firms, reliant on loans and export sales were often charged with the task of training their own skilled workforce, drawing on youth from surrounding areas and neighbouring camps. The upcoming generation of youth not only had the power to determine the future modernizing course of industry and the demands of the market for musical instruments, but also that ‘thousands of boys have been apprehended six times.’ In Regensburg, in an informal check of the railroad station in February 1947 at 8 p.m. 89 boys under 18 were found- and only seven had a legitimate reason for being there. [centers of youth] Financial support has been promised and RM 500,000 already granted by the government as well as priority on existing resources. To date, three estates to be set up as youth settlement houses are available: Schildschweig near Steingaden; Ascherleschwaig near Garmisch; and Seeon on the Chiemsee. Marquartstein already is in operation. 742 "Hand- Built City," OMGUS WIB, No. 117, November 1947, 4. "During the three months which a boy generally spends at the Vilbel camp, he starts to learn a trade by working in a nearby firm, or he assists in growing Germany’s food by helping out on a Hessian farm. In addition to job training, participation in an evening re-education program is compulsory. Emphasis is placed in indoctrination in Christian principles.” 743 Discussion on building a schoolhouse in Waldkraiburg, 20 Sept. 1949, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1454, File 581-584. 744McLaren, “Out of the Huts,” 36. “A report by the Technical Assistance Commission of the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) on the integration of the refugees in the German Republic made explicit the problem of refugee camp residence and unemployment…In his 1953 study of expellee youth, the sociologist Karl Valentin Müller described the ‘human situation’ in refugee camps in 1951 as increasingly worsening, and counted himself among those who saw the main mood in the camps as apathy. His theory to explain this was that the independent, quiet, capable refugees were more likely to move out of the camp sooner, leaving the unindustrious, indecisive, resigned, less positive elements. He also acknowledged that there were ‘oases of positivity’ in the camps—if increasingly rare—where orderly, capable families and clean children were to be found.”   295  the survival of craft workshops and the legacy of expellee craft culture. Their role and their impact were not to be taken lightly. The German Youth Activities division held a handicraft contest in 1949, starting with girls making new clothes from old scrap fabrics and later branching out into wood, leather and metal work as well as doll making.745 At the Neugablonz trade school for jewelry making, emphasis was also on hands-on training with a wide variety of raw materials. With its origins in 1948 in a barrack, the trade school began as a small space offering craft lessons. Upon receiving national support in 1949 the Allgäu Glass & Jewelry cooperative trade school sought to foster design innovation and artistic originality in future product lines. They decided on a curriculum ratio of ten hours of general education to six hours of technical expertise in the hopes that working with the materials would give students an understanding of the functionality of their art. Design innovation was tantamount to survival in the glass jewelry industry, as expellee products were in constant competition with cheaper Czech and Asian products. Also important to the cooperative was the retention of the past through education, developing workshops for custom work in which elder masters worked alongside youth to create one of a kind pieces, as they had in the past.746 One of the concerns in developing the school was to find a suitable 745 “EUCOM Handicraft Contest" OMGUS WIB, No. 193, July 1951, 33; OMGUS WIB, No. 174, January 1950, 11. More than 500 exhibits of handmade items produced by German youth were displayed at the EUCOM Special Services center in Heidelberg, May 23 to 27, as part of the German Youth Activities’ (GYA) Handicraft Contest. The exhibits were winning entries in a contest in which all Army and Twelfth Air Force posts in the US Zone participated. 746 Glass maker curriculum, BayHStA, MK, Box 63241, File 633-636. "There were 3 glass huts and a cardboard factory built...Upon notification by the mayor the present value of production amounted to about 2.5 million in monthly average Reichsmarks. This contemporary form of teaching requires the acquisition of a suitable teacher. Industry representatives, probably the cooperative seem to be averse, even though they themselves point out that the future of the industry, particularly their resilience will depend on to what extent the design work imaginatively raises the artistic quality of the products developed. BayHSt, MK, Box 63241, File 616-620. “Lesson plan for glass jewelry making [trade school] 1. Getting to know the materials and auxiliary materials as well as get to know their properties. Adjust the flame to know the various materials, tools, and the incorporation of glass [drueckzangen] and its care. 2. Teaching the pressure of tongs, the wrapping of pearls, the production of blooms and leafs in the simplest forms and colours. 3. Pressing from simple Muggle stones. Glass colours: black, clear, rich colours. 4. Winding of simple pearls. 5. Making quite simple blossoms and leaves. 6. Cooling: the slow cool off of   296  teacher for both general and technical instruction. One report suggested hiring the “excellent goldsmith Hilde Vollers,” a jewelry workshop owner with “taste and imagination, energy and talent for teaching.” The report also suggested that a woman should manage the school, “because of their sympathetic responsiveness to important fashion trends.”747 Through vocational schools expellee and German youth acted as a link between elder local masters and the global clientele they wished to attract. Recognizing the global fashion market as increasingly female, teenage-driven, male entrepreneurs depended on their youthful and female counterparts in order to move beyond the domestic market. Though seemingly positive and benign, vocational schools quickly became a new battleground in the ongoing struggle between the Mittenwald and Schönbach musical instrument makers. Resettlement in Bubenreuth had not managed to quell the lingering dispute, as the Mittenwalders viewed their state-sponsored vocational school as the one true school of stringed instrument making. Its director, Leo Aschauer was a particularly prominent figure in the violin making community and was firmly against the construction of a second state vocational school in Bubenreuth. The root of the dispute lay once again in the struggle over production methods and the reputation of the “Made in Germany” label. The Geigenbauschule Mittenwald (Mittenwald vocational school for violin makers) was founded in 1858, and became a Bavarian funded state school in 1910. By 1958 it was reconstructed in modern form, housing a library, research lab and concert space. Under the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Cultural Affairs and the tutelage of eleven craft the stones, pearls, and blossoms must be learned by students accurately, to avoid bursting. 7. About removing the edge with scissors. Check work for errors and accuracy- fire cracked, warped, etc. 8. Engraved stones and individual pressure. 9. Winding of simple pearls. 10. Manufacture of multicoloured blossoms and leaves. 11. Layers of glass grains, in different colours, making simple imitations of semi-precious stomes, pearls and blossoms, etc.” 747 Gablonz Jewelry industry in Kaufbeuren, Report, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 63241, File 615; Wondrak and Lang, Kaufbeuren.   297  specialist teachers, students were expected to reach heights in technical training as well as musicianship.748 Mittenwald masters viewed the three-year apprenticeship training as necessary to practice the craft and did not see the need for an equivalent school in Bubenreuth. In the early days of the Bubenreuth settlement, expellee firms developed training workshops for their youth. They tailored courses to commercial work, producing both component parts and complete instruments. Students could choose to focus on violins, plucked instruments or bows. Thirty trainees attended these workshops in 1953 but the community wanted to expand and sought Bavarian government funding for a state school that would attract students from further afield.749 The Bavarian government, however, believed that in order to finance the project the expellee firms of Bubenreuth would have to demonstrate a “real national economic and social policy need.”750 This phase of indecision left the door open to doubt and resistance. The Mittenwald makers soon took advantage, lobbying the government to reject the proposal. Director Aschauer led the charge, along with Hans Edler, the Chairman of the German Association of Violin Makers, Stuttgart. Edler argued that Schönbach makers laboured in “Wohnküchen” 60 hours a week to produce “shoddy goods” that did not “stand up to serious scrutiny of the lead master violin makers.” Moreover, that when consumers purchase said violin, they are then forced to have it adjusted or fixed by a master as the instrument becomes less 748 Vocational School brochure for Mittenwald violin making school, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 395-406. 749 Bavarian State Minister in correspondence with Erlangen music instrument makers, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 63234, File 669-670. The period of training is three years with 44 hours per week. With the assumption of having 50 students the following staff would be needed. 1 teacher as head of training workshop, acoustics of musical instruments, music theory, lessons for string and plucked wind instruments. 1 specialist teacher and 2 forement for the technical training (violins, plucked instruments, bows, materials science, technical drawing and instrument building theory). 1 Teaching assistant for the business management training (technical calculations, calculation, accounting registration and business customers) 1 Schulwart. Once the school is established, school fees can pay for staff as was the case in the two state schools in Graslitz and Schoenbach. From Hilda Roth. 750 Schönbach Violin makers in Bubenreuth, Correspondence, 9 April, 1953, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 367-370.   298  “playable” over time. Edler’s letter claimed that should trainees obtain their schooling at a Bubenreuth technical school, their futures will consist of nothing more than parts labour on the factory floor as “cutters of F holes, painters of gloss, sanders and polishers.” He concluded by asserting that Mittenwald is a short enough distance for Bubenreuth students to travel to receive training that will give students the requirements to be master makers: “Since 1858 the state vocational school for violin making in Mittenwald exists to educate luthiers who later are considered specialists.”751 Schönbach makers were pleased to work 60 hours a week if it meant they could meet the growing demand for export products. Their products were not limited to master violins, but encompassed a rich array of products, requiring various types of training to produce. By comparing violin making methods and techniques, Mittenwald makers proved short-sighted, missing the fact that many Bubenreuth companies were already diversifying into electric and electro-acoustic instruments and component parts. As expellee firms innovated and diversified their product range to meet demand, they sought to innovate their training curricula as well. Aschauer, writing a letter on behalf of the Association of German violinmakers and the Bavarian State Vocational School for Violin making, Mittenwald, revealed the underlying motives of the community. He first argued that it was the task of the association to ensure that “tradition is maintained” and “that journeyman and master courses were carried out.”752 He understood the nature of 1950s US market demand, but thought it was “madness” to begin 751 German Association of violin makers in correspondence with the Bavarian Ministry of Education, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 63234, File 677-679. “It is so obvious that it is absurd to make such a cheap mass-produced product at all. Outside maintenance will be required to obtain good sound, no question. The young generation of Schoenbachers in Bubenreuth despite having the necessary training facilities, do not feel like working under the same conditions as their fathers. I think it is quite impossible, for allegedly the young people come to Bubenreuth to attend a technical school, working under the assumption that after completion there will be a prospect for apprenticeship as home workers. Inasmuch a state college would be useless.” 752 Mittenwald State School for violin making in correspondence with the Bavarian Minister of Education, 28 September 1953, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 63234, File 671-676.   299  “flooding the market with cheap shoddy goods.” He suggested that all violins hosting the “Made in Germany” label should be priced to represent their reputation and inherent value.753 Aschauer and his cohort were concerned about Mittenwald’s image and its possible deterioration over time. In fact, he feared the eventual end to Germany’s division into East and West and the possible rise of Markneukirchen, Saxony, again as an instrument-making powerhouse. He believed that the youth had little interest in becoming master violin makers and that “the old will die and there will be no boys to replace them.”754 Like the Schönbachers, it was his belief that their apprentices would follow the money, joining the ranks of export producers, rather than assigning their loyalties to tradition. He argued that graduates of the Mittenwald school had difficulty finding work already, and a glut of graduates from Bubenreuth would only “promote a violin making proletariat.”755 West German fears of proletarianization were magnified by the realities of their neighbours to the East and the intensifying Cold War. Aschauer admitted that the foundation of the Bubenreuth settlement and the grouping of Schönbacher’s together “from scattered locales is itself right and meritorious, [v]ery unfortunate however, is that the Schönbachers have not departed from their principle of mass production.”756 And with that remark the Mittenwalder’s motives were revealed to be the very same as those which pushed the Schönbachers out of their district—exclusion out of fear of competition and the loss of a distinct craft culture. 753 Ibid. “My foreign business friends repeatedly emphasize that the legitimate trade does not want this trashy product, but because importers throw these cheap instruments on the market, they are obliged to price them. One could say then, that there were enough customers for better goods. The indication that the foreign buyers will then turn to the remaining Schoenbachers in the CSR is not valid. First the production there is not so great and second the Western world generally do not buy from there and third, with propaganda adversiting the value of the instrument it will be easy to beat the competition. We have found through experience that in Europe and overseas people still like to buy the good solid Mittenwald violin.” 754Ibid. “Of course the Schoenbachers in Bubenreuth have no sympathy for these things, the main thing of importance to them is to set up their own shops and to sell at any price and find export success.” 755 Ibid. 756 Ibid.   300   In response, Schönbach makers chose to target Aschauer, emphasizing his exclusionary policies and his penchant for self-promotion. In a letter to the State Minister for the Economy Hans Seidel dated April 15, 1954, Karl Sadner wrote on behalf of all Schönbach violin makers. He spoke of Aschauer’s “Schmutz-propaganda” state-funded promotional brochure that deliberately excluded Schönbach makers and privileged Mittenwald locals. Next, he quoted Aschauer as saying “I will not rest until the last Schönbacher has left Mittenwald.” Sadner reminded the government that they had funded Aschauer’s trip to the Chicago Trade Fair as well as the publication of an export catalogue of Bavarian violin making that omitted Schönbach makers. Thus, Sadner forcefully argued that it was up to the government to discipline Aschauer, demanding that he be forced to resign as director of the Geigenbauschule. After all, he concluded, Schönbach makers earned foreign exchange dollars for the state and any harm Aschauer inflicted would reflect poorly on the economy as a whole. The letter closed with a threat: “If not corrected based on our current protest, and no justice is proven, out of our self-preservation instinct we will be compelled to point out and publicize this incident in the foreign press.”757 While the response may have seemed overwrought, the Schönbachers had already endured expulsion from their home country and a second resettlement from Mittenwald to Bubenreuth, to rebuild successful export industries. They had proven their patience and their worth as entrepreneurs, with the Bavarian government reaping part of the spoils. It was within their rights to demand respect and freedom from any further harassment or exclusionary policies. 757 Schönbach violin makers in Mittenwald in correspondence with the Bavarian Minister of the Economy, 15 April 1954, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 372-374.   301   The Bavarian government decided to support the Bubenreuth vocational school through a state subsidy without taking it on as a state-run institution.758 They recognized that each school played a distinct role in the industry and that there was a place for both. Moreover, it was their wish that the two communities should visit one another, view their production methods in person and finally come to an acceptance of their differences. The Landrat invited Aschauer to inaugurate the vocational school at Bubenreuth and give a speech, believing that such a gesture could “possibly eliminate the constructed contrast between Mittenwald and Bubenreuth definitively.”759 Clearly government officials were also losing patience with the power struggle between the two communities, having at this point spent years carving out separate settlements and helping fund trade fairs for the promotion of both industries. In the end, Bubenreuth’s vocational school proved successful, boasting 100 graduates in seven years, all of whom found work in both wholesale and retail instrument firms. When compared with Mittenwald’s record of 500 graduates in 100 years, the Bubenreuth school was actually quite prolific in the 1950s, contrary to Aschauer’s predictions.760 Education was a vital investment for the American military government, the Bavarian government and the expellee craft firms, all of which wished to see the economy thrive and the German youth (and especially the expellee youth) steered away from idle apathy or worse, extremism. Expellee entrepreneurs demonstrated a flexibility forged by their experiences as forced migrants. And yet, they also clung to one another, uncompromising in their plan to settle in enclaves modeled after their respective Heimats. Both characteristics served them well as they 758 Correspondence with the State Ministry, subject: musical instrument makers in Bubenreuth, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 390-391. 759 Report from the community planning meeting in Bubenreuth, 4 July 1951, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 356-363; Report on the State school for musical instrument making in Bubenreuth, 13 November 1957, BayHSt, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 386-389. 760 Report of the state minister on a vocational musical instrument school in Bubenreuth, 24 July 1959, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1677, File 393-394.   302  made their way from transit camps to building export businesses with global reach. With each object the expellees crafted and sold abroad, they created an opportunity for global recognition of their local identity. The expellee firms of Neugablonz, Waldkraiburg and Bubenreuth, by resettling in enclaves, maintained their way of life and offered the world a window into that culture via marketing and trade. Many expellee firms employed women and trained youth, in order to maximize production and export sales. By offering home work and factory daycare, companies like Framus helped blur the once rigid lines between public and private spheres. They stood up to the Einheimische’s often exclusionary tactics and influenced policy in the process. When cultural shifts occurred, they adapted their product lines and designs to suit market demand. They did not have the option to resign themselves to complacency. Rather, many expellee craftspeople quickly realized they had a role to play in Germany’s reconstruction, simply by doing what they did best. In a larger sense, what the expellees, Germans and Americans all wished to avoid were the painful memories of the Nazi years and the devastation wrought by war. Klaus-Jürgen Sembach believed that “the presence of modern design objects helped both to offset the material losses of the war and to presage the coming of a brighter world…emissaries of change and redemption…tangible and visible expressions of Wiedergutmachung (making good again) to all of the world.”761 It was important for Germany to create a bridge in people’s minds from past to future, to encourage consumption of German goods and diplomatic goodwill. If indeed a bridge was built, craft objects were its bricks and expellee craftspeople were its bricklayers. 761 Ibid.   303   Conclusion Stepping into the workshops of the expellee violin makers of Schönbach in their new Bavarian settlement of Bubenreuth in 1950, Kurt Lorz transported his reader. He wrote of “rooms where it smells of wood, reddish brown and golden yellow paint and varnish,” of a well-oiled system working “intrinsically as large and small forces united.” He noted the movements of the carving knives, gouges and wood planer, the efforts that “give the work soul!” Emphatically, he wrote of the luck that had returned to the Schönbachers, much to his relief.762 Handmade instruments, much like handmade jewelry or toys held great significance to the postwar world as objects that had the potential to bring great joy to their consumers. They were marketed as allowing people to own a piece of a prewar time in which luxury was attainable, peace was enjoyed, and “traditions” upheld. Many officials, buyers and tourists who witnessed the expellee craftspeople at work in their shops understood the power that resided in each community of makers. They witnessed individuals diligently making separate pieces or fulfilling steps in a process that would later come together as a whole. For many expellees this may have been simply practiced routine or a learned skill set, to the outside observer the expellee craftsperson’s story was one of resilience. A great deal of power lay in that designation. Resilience as character trait served many expellees well as the American Military and German governments sought the commodification of a new national ideal. Government officials, marketers and journalists could sell the expellees’ story as one of prewar global trade glory, wartime loss and displacement, postwar exclusion and eventual entrepreneurial triumph. While the expellees relied on these officials for aid, networking and export sales, and understood that a 762 “In Franconia, a Luthier City Emerges: Visit to the Schoenbachers in Bubenreuth” by Kurt Lorz. 24.6.1950, BayHStA, LaFlue, Box 1676, File 568. He mentions the Placht, Sandner, Wilfer, Hoyer, Schnable and Siebenhuehner in particular.   304  certain power lay in their objectification, they also garnered attention simply by taking the initiative to help themselves early on in their resettlement. Some expellee lobbyists took the story one step further, drawing attention to their plight and to the larger German victimhood narrative in order to demand a return to their original Heimat. Although demands for return could not be satisfied, many expellees made their presence known, becoming politically active in their communities and negotiating rights equal to those of their Einheimische neighbours.763 Though at times overblown, the conflicts between Einheimische and expellee craft producers did indicate engagement rather than apathy. The expellees defended their own craft legacy, despite local scrutiny. In the end both communities shared the same goal. They sought the survival of their trade, culture and lifestyle. War and postwar upheavals had placed the future of craft in question and each community found ways to defend against further loss, often moralizing or romanticizing their own respective history, production method or way of life. Throughout processes of postwar identity construction, German and expellee communities both invoked Heimat and tradition. The Nazis had also employed Heimat, appealing to people’s desire to belong to something greater than themselves, to a community. However, the concept of home pre-dated Nazi ideology and was a concept that could be adapted across time and space. Though uses changed, the concept of Heimat itself remained widely applicable to hometown, community of makers, or nation. It was a concept that carried great power in that it could evoke emotional responses, thus why politicians chose to employ it in speeches to promote export trade fairs. Images of landscape, handcraft and family could all be tied into the concept of Heimat. Without much effort craft firms could link their trade and their 763 Melendy, “Expellees on Strike,” 110-116.   305  community’s livelihood into the greater economic prosperity and identity of the country simply by evoking Heimat. In addition to claiming ties to an idyllic, nostalgic, prewar German Heimat, craftspeople employed claims on “tradition,” in order to market and sell their wares. These “traditions” of handcraft became powerful rhetorical devices in a competition for global market share and survival. Yet the varied and often contradictory uses of tradition also reveal the malleability of the concept. Much like Heimat, tradition as concept became part of a larger German rebranding process, and a “commodified authentic” designed to sell handmade goods. There were no rules as to what constituted an “authentic” craft object, as processes and designs were ever evolving, as were the demographics of the makers themselves. By the 1950s an “authentic” handcrafted violin might have been made by several hands, made in a larger factory setting, or by female non-guild members. Moreover, to experience an “authentic” craftsperson at work might have included a visit to the maker’s home workshop, or a flashy trade show booth in New York City. To make matters even more complex, the “authentic” was often commodified to the point at which the original object or experience was no longer traceable or tangible. Though postwar identity constructions proved Heimat and tradition to be slippery concepts, they were instrumental concepts for addressing collective guilt and selling a new German ideal. Selling the German ideal was crucial to rebuilding the West German economy. US Military Government and the German government alike employed the expellee craftsperson to fulfill this task. Americans needed to stimulate trade, to generate export dollars and repay American taxpayers. German governments needed to reconstruct national unity, prevent   306  opportunities for unrest and win over millions of expellee voters.764 One could argue that politics were in fact the driving force behind many expellee aid policies, as peace and democracy in many ways depended on refugee resettlement and economic revival. At the very least, the expellee integration provided a good story, which was “well suited to deflect attention from the crimes of the Nazi regime and to promote the creation of a new, forward-looking identity for the new republic, [to] ease its acceptance into the Western Alliance as a remilitarized, anti-communist bulwark.”765 Expellees were swept up in processes of combatting collective guilt as German victims, in the Wirtschaftswunder as entrepreneurial exemplars, and in the beginnings of the Cold War as producers of “Made in Germany” products sold in global capitalist marketplaces. Just as expellees could be transferred and resettled, bureaucratically controlled and monitored, they too could manipulate the system, emphasizing their own goals within it. I have attempted to show, as David Crew has written, "how ‘ordinary people’ refused to accept their assigned roles as the passive ‘objects’ of impersonal historical developments and attempted, instead, to become active historical ‘subjects.’”766 Expellees used the Selbsthilfe narrative that OMGUS and Bavarian regional officials built around them, to their advantage. In a way, they collaboratively entered into a relationship in which they helped to promote a greater “Made in Germany” label on a global stage by participating in trade fairs and buyer tours, in order to obtain enclave settlements and funding for their workshops. In addition, these marketing events led to greater recognition for their local craft firms and individual brands. Approaching the 764 Pertti Ahonen, “Domestic Constraints on West German Ostpolitik: The Role of the Expellee Organizations in the Adenauer Era,” Central European History, Vol. 31, No. ½. (1998): 6. The threat presumably posed by the expellees was also a useful tool with which the government could extract concessions from the Allies and bolster its own standing as an irreplaceable pillar of stability. 765 Ibid. 766 Crew, “Alltagsgeschichte,” 396.   307  expellee story in this way serves to highlight expellee agency within larger processes of forced migration, global trade, and national identity construction. The war and the displacement that followed had forced many to readdress their identity in relation to their past and in relation to the other groups they encountered on a daily basis in the days of postwar occupation and resettlement. Maria Höhn argues that what distinguished the postwar period, was a shift in identification as “old classifications such as class, occupation, education, and religion [were] for a time overshadowed by categories of fate.”767 In the immediate postwar years, fate made Sudetens into expellees, Germans fell under a shadow of collective guilt, and categorizations like victim, perpetrator, enemy, liberator, local and newcomer proliferated. After the dust of transfers and military movements had settled, the complexities of these categories emerged. There were unskilled and skilled expellees who were anti-fascist and those who were former Nazi party members, Germans who excluded newcomers and those who helped them rebuild their lives, and American occupation officials who sought to punish Germany and those who saw West Germany’s potential. It was a time of new beginnings, in which individuals and communities could reframe their past and shape their identity to fit with the future they wanted for themselves and their descendants. By the 1950s all parties concerned had played a decisive role in rebranding West Germany as peaceful, innovative, industrious and prosperous country. Though a peaceful and prosperous existence was achieved for most, it is important to remember the histories and past shames that were often swept under the rug in this process and to understand how concepts like Heimat were dusted off and repurposed. In addition, it is necessary to view American trade and occupation policies within the context of wartime experience, and rising Cold War antagonisms between East and West. Through this lens, one can 767 Höhn, “Frau im Haus,” 62.   308  view expellee production as a means to establishing capitalist ends, a promotional tool for the American and West German cause. However, that is not to say that German producers were at the mercy of American policies. As historian Volker Berghahn reminds us, “cultures will only accept influences that are compatible with their own way of life.”768 However, in the early 1950s, the Cold War actually benefitted German producers via the Korean War boom. As demand increased all craft firms with the capacity for export experienced higher than normal demand for luxury goods.769 The expellees had experienced dramatic highs and lows in the five years following war’s end. In many cases, they had seized the key moments of change and capitalized on them, leaving a legacy of business success for their families and communities. By 1959, expellees owned sixty-two thousand workshops in West Germany, one-third of which were located in Bavaria.770 However, during the 1960s and 1970s West Germany saw a gradual decline in craft workshops. In the following decades, West German industries relied increasingly on state assistance and intervention.771 As the sons and daughters of the expellee generation came of age, they did not identify themselves with the Sudeten Heimat as much as with West Germany. Having never seen or experienced the original craft villages of the Sudetenland, it is possible that they did not link craft as readily with Heimat. Moreover, they did not identify themselves as forced migrants and had not experienced the expulsion firsthand. I argue that the expulsion experience heightened the older generation’s sense of urgency and their desire to retain their way of life as craftspeople. For the younger generation, the enterprising spirit was still alive and well, but they now had a plethora of career options in front of them and 768 Berghahn, Americanization, 10. 769 Allen, “From Social Market to Meso-Corporatism: The Politics of West German Economic Policy.” German Studies Review, Vol. 13. (1990): 20-21. 770 Joanne E. Holler, The German Expellees: A Problem of Integration (Washington, D.C.: Population Research Project/ George Washington University, 1963), 17. 771 Richard J. Overy, “State and Industry in Germany in the Twentieth Century,” German History, Vol. 12, No. 2. (April, 1994): 4.   309  they began branching out into a wider variety of occupations and industries.772 The intense fall of the 1940s and rise of the1950s was replaced with a calmer, more gradual economic decline in the 1970s and 1980s. The expellee story lay dormant at this time as well. In the 1990s, after the Cold War had ended, a new era in expellee research emerged. Museum curators placed postwar craft objects on display in glass cases and politicians and scholars pulled expellee histories from the archives. With the polishing of dust from these histories comes a greater understanding of postwar German identity construction and a more complex forced migration story that questions the simplicity of the successful integration and Wirtschaftswunder narratives. In this dissertation I reconstructed a world of small interactions to reveal the complex objectification of both people and things via the shifting meanings and identities they carried. In the process I came to understand the power behind those shifting symbols of identity (Heimat, “tradition,” handcraft) and the agency of the historical actors who employed them. Postwar Germany proved through this study to be far from a desolate, defeated land of rubble, but rather it was a land teeming with life, and a sense of aspiration. 772 Gatz, East Prussian and Sudeten German Expellees, 315.   310  Bibliography Secondary Sources Abzug, Robert. Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps. 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