Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer/Autumn 2018 | Page 12

ARTS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS • VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2 • SUMMER/AUTUMN 2018
MUSIC EDUCATION AND THE PRODUCTION OF
PRESTIGE: WEST GERMAN MUSIC DIPLOMACY IN
SOUTH VIETNAM (1960–1968)
MARIO DUNKEL
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
In 1967, the then West German foreign minister Willy Brandt called cultural diplomacy
the third pillar of West Germany’s foreign policy (Markovits and Höfig 1997).
This embrace of cultural diplomacy, which for a long time had been treated as marginal
and comparatively insignificant to West German foreign policy, came at a time of
heated debate on the nature and purpose of cultural diplomacy (Dunkel 2017). On the
one hand, the 1960s saw unprecedented changes in the West German understanding of
German identity that played out in cultural diplomacy programs long before the Foreign
Office published the guidelines (Leitsätze) on West German cultural diplomacy in 1970.
Conceived by Ralf Dahrendorf, this redefinition of cultural diplomacy would for the
first time officially describe German culture as a dynamic process rather than a national,
autochthonous product (Auswärtiges Amt Bonn, 1970; Hampel 2015). On the other
hand, strategies based on a traditional understanding of culture and cultural diplomacy
continued during this time period. They included a strong concentration on the German
canon, the mediation of prestige, the reaffirmation of seemingly autochthonous national
traditions, and elite audiences (Dunkel 2017).
The debates surrounding West German cultural diplomacy played out in the intersecting
initiatives by various actors and institutions involved in German cultural diplomacy
programs. In the aftermath of World War II, West German cultural diplomacy developed
slowly. It took shape during the early 1950s, when the first intermediary organizations
were founded: the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer
Austauschdienst, DAAD) in 1950, the Goethe-Institute in 1951, the information service
Inter Nationes in 1952, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 1953 (Paulmann
2005:3). For the development of West German music diplomacy in particular, the
foundation of the German Music Council (Deutscher Musikrat) in 1953 is likewise significant.
In the late 1950s, the Music Council’s so-called Liaison Department for International
Relations (Verbindungsstelle für Internationale Beziehungen) would become both
an independent agent responsible for a small section of the cultural diplomacy programs
as well as an official advisor to the Foreign Office in all matters musical.
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This plurality of governmental and nongovernmental organizations in West German
cultural diplomacy led to the comparatively decentralized structure that characterizes
German cultural diplomacy until today (Markovits and Höfig 1997:183–189). It was
additionally propelled in the late 1950s when the Foreign Office decided to incorporate
the cultural institutes that had formerly been assigned to the West German embasdoi:
10.18278/aia.3.2.2