At the beginning of the 1900s, all of European society felt to be old and decadent. They felt that the long, peaceful XIX century, rather than bring prosperity, had brought about staleness. They identified their culture with a stuffy image of old times and longed for something new. For youthfulness and revival.
In spite of the initial enthusiasm, what WWI brought about was anything but, although the war did show to people that a huge change had occurred while they were not looking. Handling that change -which brought with it enthusiasm, but also harsh debate – became the mission of the postwar societies.

The American culture made its appearance in Europe during the war, when it came with its army and its people – and never left. After the war, America kept going back to Europe in many guises, be it its music, its films, its literature, its fads and probably no nation was affected by this phenomenon more than Germany. In her aspiration to become a Welstadt, Berlin often looked at America as an inspiration, a source of youthfulness and future – though it has been speculated that what Germans (along with other Europeans) perceived as American was more an image they created themselves than the actually of a nation’s life.

For Germans, America was the land of youthfulness, and not just because the nation was historically younger than any other in Europe. Many Germans identified America with industry, technological progress and efficiency, which were all concepts very close to the German’s heart. There was great appreciation for Ford’s industrial intuitions and innovation, for example, but also for the way Americans were integrating new technologies into their everyday life (be that the car or new appliances). But America was also the land of jazz, that energetic music that had its origin in the exotic Africa and kept in itself the primitive force of life.
In short, America represented for Germans the super modern and the super primitive and youthful at the same time. What better there could be? But on a deeper level, it can be argued that Germans saw in the American technology what they were themselves seeking, and in jazz and the American Blacks their own desire for a more authentic experience of life. America and American life became a myth, an aspiration that spoke more of European desires than of what America actually offered to that desire. All that came from America (like jazz, but also the ideal of the New Women) was metabolised and reinterpreted by Europeans’ own sensitivity and experience.

Most of this was absorbed, digested and then expressed by culture, particularly the popular culture of theatre, music and cinema. No surprise then that a strong reaction soon came. Traditionalists objected to American ‘anything’ (whether it was indeed American or not) because it ate away at traditional German culture and values. ‘Amercianism’ became the evil of evils, one of the many ‘foreign’ influences that needed to be fought.

RESOURCES

Thomas J. Saunders – How american Was It? Popular Cultur from Weimar to Hitler (pdf)

Peter Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret. Harvard University Press, Harvard, 1993