Eda Sagarra (Dublin) p.32-46
2000 Issue 1
Abstract
In his reminiscences of his imprisonment in France on a charge of espionage, Kriegsfgefangen. Erlebtes 1870 (1871), Theodor Fontane submitted his own hitherto unreflected perceptions of the French to a critical examination. In doing so, he aimed to sensitize his readers to the need to examine their own political prejudices towards their neighbours. It was not always as Fontane described it. Early nineteenth perceptions of other nations were driven more by curiosity than by prejudice, although much of curiosity was naive. By the 1840s, thanks to developments in the print media, the depiction of national stereotypes became increasingly politicized, particularly in Germany. Der deutsche Michel, the oldest of such allegorical figures, was represented in a wide variety of genres, including cartoon, lyric verse, comic sketch and feuilleton. Yet, while other nations embodied in their allegories of the national self positive qualities, in Germany the reverse was the case. The masochistic figure of Michel seemed designed to challenge the young German nation’s sense of itself. This remained a feature of Michel cartoons and texts throughout the nineteenth century, apart from the Wilhelmine period and the Third Reich. Michel cartoons enjoyed an immense vogue in the Weimar Republic, in the Adenauer years and again at the time of the fall of the Wall and its aftermath. The present article argues that these cartoons and texts provide unique insights into modern German political history and Landeskunde, particularly in the context of an intercultural approach to GFL.