Image of America  I Hear America Singing

For Germans, America was one thing above all from the very beginning: a screen onto which they projected their longings and fears. There was factual knowledge, too, but it hardly ever had a noteworthy effect on the—depending on the situation—pleasurable or terrifying fantasies. It is the conditions in Germany, not those in the USA, that primarily shape our image of America.

The first documented name for the newly discovered continent was German: the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller called it "America" in 1507. Six years later, he renamed it "terra incognita." And this is what the USA remained for Germans to this day. They possess such a concrete idea of the USA that it matters little whether they might have once barreled down Route 66, gone shopping on New York’s 5th Avenue, lived there for a short time, or simply watched a lot of television. Even one’s own observation rarely leads to the questioning of old, deep-seated prejudices. After all, one only sees what one believes they already know.

Since Friedrich Hegel, educated Germans have looked down on America with arrogant condescension. His characterization of America as a still-immature land, yet one with a great future ahead of it, has shaped the German view across the Atlantic ever since. Ever since? Perhaps only until the End of the American Century [1]...

The founding myth of the unyielding, noble Pilgrim Fathers—still nurtured in the USA today—never seemed quite plausible in Europe. What are a few religious sectarians compared to the millions of huddled masses who were washed up at the feet of the Statue of Liberty[2] on Ellis Island for material reasons, often out of sheer economic necessity? The Pursuit of Happiness was, from the beginning, primarily a Pursuit of Enterprise, and America a playing field without rules—perfectly suited for adventurers, disinherited sons of the lower nobility, soldiers of fortune, criminals, and vagabonds. My American Studies professor, Berndt Ostendorf, told us that in the parish register of the small North German community his family comes from, he found the entry: "XY Ostendorf split his neighbor's head open and went to America." Ostendorf added that he particularly liked the laconic "and" in that sentence.

However, no community of values grows out of the pursuit of wealth. Certainly not with other countries. And even the American Dream is not legally enforceable. I started out with nothin’. And I’ve still got most of it left.[3]

Turning up one's nose and raising an eyebrow at the uncultivated "hicks" across the pond is a ritual act in Germany. While tales of endless adventure and noble savages—such as those by Friedrich Gerstäcker, Karl May, or Charles Sealsfield—were popular since the 19th century, the narrative of the primitive, uncultured materialist over there nevertheless dominated. I found the most beautiful key scene in Ferdinand Kürnberger's novel Der Amerikamüde (The Man Weary of America): the new arrival from Europe finds himself, to his horror, caught between two orchestras playing simultaneously:
Both orchestras heard each other perfectly well, but that seemed to impair the well-being of neither them nor their spectators in the least. Some children, recognizable as pure natives by their Anglo-American dialect, even ran up eagerly and positioned themselves with the most intelligent spatial measurement in the exact middle between the playing orchestras in order to have, as they cheered to one another, "two music." The European took wild flight.[4]

Of course, the situation kept changing slightly. The failed revolutionaries of 1848 found not only refuge in the USA, but also a new purpose in the fight against slavery.
As soon as the Frontier closed, however, one could no longer simply move on. One was now forced to deal with one's fellow citizens. But since violence had been considered the preferred means of conflict resolution until then, the country repeatedly stood on the brink of civil war, violence, or sedition. It was as torn as its perception in Central Europe. The contrasts sharpened further: plantation economy, slavery, and tariffs vs. industrialization; the big city vs. rural life; Red Scare vs. Counter Culture; Beatniks and hippies vs. Rednecks; world police vs. isolationism; elite coasts vs. left-behind Fly-Over States. A great Wisconsin Death Trip [5] extends the Trail of Tears directly into the brutality of segregation and into the napalm mists of Vietnam.

The City on a Hill lost its balance early on. It crumbled into the gilded towers of arrogance and the shotgun shacks of the deplorables in their shadow. Every dwelling in the USA is ideologically charged with metaphorical meaning, from the Home on the Range to the Mansion on the Hill. The cabin doors of Stephen Foster[6] or Henry David Thoreau[7] from 1854 bear a fatal resemblance to those photographed by Walker Evans in Alabama in 1936[8].

My personal America, however, only truly begins after World War II. Growing up in Munich, I was surrounded from childhood by GIs, AFN, US tourists, Rock ’n’ Roll, and Hollywood; by jazz, blues, and the freedom of vast Cinemascope landscapes. McCarthyism, Watergate, Jim Crow, the KKK, and the murders of King and the Kennedys are the dark contrast against which this shines all the more brightly.[9]

In our American Studies, we wondered whether West Germany had been Americanized or modernized after the Nazis and the war. I can quote from almost every Dylan song, but I don’t know any German folk songs.

Today, the USA remembers something that never existed. I read that Wim Wenders is completely disappointed by America. I am not. For I was never intoxicated by it to begin with. The ambivalence was always there. For 250 years, it has shaped our view of this seemingly familiar, yet alien land. My America, however, remains the overwhelming landscapes and the handmade music they inspired—music that would not exist without those places.


Editors Note: This article inspired a Spotify Playlist of 250 musical pieces celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the USA. Listen in.