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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   42410 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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To cut to a tl;dr: American propaganda during the wars created a general anti-German sentiment among Europeans,

I can accept a great deal of your premise, but given how much anti-German propaganda in both wars was used to get the Americans into the conflicts, years after the wars had started and many of the greatest battlefield calamities and sovereignty violations had already occurred (on all sides), I'd say it's a bit of a stretch to say it was the American propaganda specifically that shaped the anti-German sentiment among Europeans. Certainly the French and the Russians needed no American inspiration, and the German violent-left had its own interwar ascendance (that was crushed, but still a rising).

If the propaganda claim aperture were widened to the allies in general, fellow Europeans they might be, I'd have no objection. Or even the British in particular, given their anglosphere influence through the language of the Americans, that might work in a stretch. But American propaganda being the decisive influencer of European views of Germany?

Certainly the French and the Russians needed no American inspiration

You might be surprised. As an Easterner I grew up with a fair bit of "Germany bad" injected right into my veins, but then I met actual Germans and it turned out trotting up historical greviences isn't even that fun with them, bcause they've been self-flaggelating to the point that nothing you throw in their face can faze them. Then started hearing about "controversies" like "people are waving the German flag after winning the world football championship".

These were bizarre and unsettling experiences, even with all my historical biases in place. The French / Russian propaganda was a completely different thing from what was being pumped into Germany.

Then started hearing about "controversies" like "people are waving the German flag after winning the world football championship".

I couldn't believe it when I saw Angela Merkel's attitude to the German flag.

Fair criticism. You're right. American proapganda was not the driver of European anti-German sentiments, I conflated things there.

American propaganda did however drive American Anti-German sentiments (duh), which influenced American policy.

I edited the post above accordingly.

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