How public diplomacy worked in practice.

• Author: Tuch, Hans N.

Editor's Note: How American public diplomacy was practiced in Germany over the course of three decades is the subject of this essay by a distinguished retired senior public diplomacy officer.

In Communicating with the World: US. Public Diplomacy Overseas (1) I included four case studies on the practice of public diplomacy--in the Soviet Union, Germany and Brazil. In this essay I explain how public diplomacy was actually planned and carried out in three cities in Germany--in Frankfurt in the early fifties, in Berlin in the late sixties and in Bonn in the early eighties.

I came into the Foreign Service--and to public diplomacy--in an odd way. In 1949, the State Department was replacing the U.S. Military Government in Germany and was hiring people locally. I took the oath in October 1949 in Frankfurt and was assigned initially to run the America House (U.S. Information Center) in Wiesbaden and then, after five months, in Frankfurt where I remained until 1955.

What was our mission? I was never told explicitly, but we understood that we were to function as an information and cultural center in our efforts to re-orient and re-educate the German public--and especially young people--into the Western democratic community of nations. (2)

The central element of the America House was its library with a collection of about 4500 American books (some in translation) and some 300 periodicals. The staff, among which I was the only American, consisted of some forty-five librarians, programmers, artists, English teachers and administrative personnel. In Frankfurt, where the entire cultural infrastructure had been devastated as a result of World War II, the America House served literally as a community center until the indigenous cultural and artistic entities was rebuilt. It was a busy and popular place. We were open seven days a week from 10 am until 10 pm.

Moreover, the America House library was "open-shelf" where people could select and check out books of their choice. We did not immediately realize the democratizing impact of our open-shelf library until a frequent visitor, the city librarian who was also the director of the University library, told us that in rebuilding both libraries, he would convert them to open-shelf institutions, the first in the Federal Republic. A German researcher later wrote that one could not underestimate the success of the America Houses in introducing Germans to a new open-shelf library system, which made libraries attractive institutions. The principal impact of the America Houses, she wrote, was in influencing and changing the view of America among the German people. Through the medium of the library it was possible, she concluded, to persuade many Germans to regard America positively and often admiringly. (3)

Frankfurt - 1950

The America House Frankfurt, the largest (together with Berlin and Munich) of some thirty similar institutions throughout the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), conducted extensive activities--English teaching, speaker programs, concerts, theater...