
Stephanie Seul
University of Trento, Dipartimento di Filosofia, Storia e Beni culturali, Visiting Scholar March-June 2014
PLEASE EMAIL ME IF YOU WISH A COPY OF MY PAPERS! - I am a Lecturer in Media History in the Department of Cultural Studies (FB 9) at the University of Bremen (in Northern Germany). I was trained as a historian at the Universities of Munich/Germany and Cambridge/Great Britain (M.Phil in European Studies and earned a Ph.D. (2005) from the European University Institute in Florence/Italy with a thesis on Chamberlain’s appeasement policy and the British propaganda campaign directed at the German public 1938-1940.
My research focuses on Anglo-German diplomatic and media relations during the interwar period and the Second World War, on the history of the German and international press during the first half of the 20th century, and in particular on the representation of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust in the mass media (press and radio) at that time. Recently, I have also begun to study the German-Jewish press during the First World War.
I am currently engaged in a research project investigating, from a comparative and transnational perspective, the coverage of German anti-Semitism during the Weimar Republic in the international press, taking as examples Great Britain, France, Italy, Austria, and the United States.
In a second project I investigate the discourses in the German-Jewish press on the First World War, the rise of anti-Semitism, and German-Jewish identity.
My third project deals with female war correspondents during the First World War: So far, I have studied the Austrian travel writer and photographer Alice Schalek in more detail, but in the long run I am aiming at a more general and comparative study of female war correspondents in different war theatres during 1914-1918.
Professional Services:
Co-editor of the refereed journal "Media History" (Routledge, Taylor & Francis)
ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2616-1366
PUBLONS ID: publons.com/a/1265652/
My research focuses on Anglo-German diplomatic and media relations during the interwar period and the Second World War, on the history of the German and international press during the first half of the 20th century, and in particular on the representation of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust in the mass media (press and radio) at that time. Recently, I have also begun to study the German-Jewish press during the First World War.
I am currently engaged in a research project investigating, from a comparative and transnational perspective, the coverage of German anti-Semitism during the Weimar Republic in the international press, taking as examples Great Britain, France, Italy, Austria, and the United States.
In a second project I investigate the discourses in the German-Jewish press on the First World War, the rise of anti-Semitism, and German-Jewish identity.
My third project deals with female war correspondents during the First World War: So far, I have studied the Austrian travel writer and photographer Alice Schalek in more detail, but in the long run I am aiming at a more general and comparative study of female war correspondents in different war theatres during 1914-1918.
Professional Services:
Co-editor of the refereed journal "Media History" (Routledge, Taylor & Francis)
ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2616-1366
PUBLONS ID: publons.com/a/1265652/
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Edited Journal Issues by Stephanie Seul
Theses by Stephanie Seul
In the thesis a new methodological approach is adopted by integrating the study of high poli-tics at the diplomatic level with the study of the propaganda campaign towards a foreign pub-lic. Whereas conventional interpretations consider appeasement a foreign policy strategy con-ducted exclusively on the diplomatic stage between the two governments of Britain and Ger-many, the author maintains that appeasement has rather to be viewed as a policy consisting of two equal and complementary pillars. The first pillar was the well-known dual policy of deter-rence and conciliation directed towards the Nazi regime at a governmental level. The second pillar was the propaganda campaign directed towards the German public over the heads of the Nazi regime. The propaganda campaign, while on the whole reflecting Chamberlain’s foreign policy on the governmental level, seems to have been regarded by the British government as an additional deterrent element to the diplomatic pillar: Hitler was to be warned that he would risk serious opposition from his own people if he provoked war, and thus be induced to seek a peaceful solution to his territorial claims. In this sense, the propaganda campaign was a safe-guard for the conciliatory part of appeasement, namely, the readiness to consider favourably Germany’s legitimate territorial and economic claims.
The thesis identifies five phases during which Chamberlain attached varying degrees of im-portance to the propaganda instrument in his dealings with Germany. Thus, the significance of propaganda increased in direct relation to the deterioration of Anglo-German negotiations on the diplomatic level. The propaganda pillar even outlasted the outbreak of war and the col-lapse of the first pillar: After negotiations on an official diplomatic level had come to an end on 3rd September 1939, Chamberlain sought to continue his policy of goodwill towards the German people by means of propaganda in the hope to stir up a revolution against Hitler.
In the end, however, British propaganda proved to be a failure. The author identifies two rea-sons for this. The first was a lack of credibility, i.e. the discrepancy between the picture of events as presented in British propaganda, and the reality as experienced by the German pub-lic. The second, and even more important, reason was, however, a whole host of unrealistic British assumptions about the Nazi state and the character of the German people. In particular, the British political elite unconsciously transferred British democratic traditions onto Hitler’s totalitarian regime. Chamberlain’s propaganda was based on the premise that public opinion did carry some weight in the Third Reich and that the German people, even though living un-der a dictatorship, would cherish similar political ideals of democratic participation and a dis-like of Hitler as British subjects.
Full text available from Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository, DOI: https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.14329.
The thesis offers a unified synthesis of British radio propaganda against Nazi Germany during the Second World War both in regard to the organisation of the British propaganda apparatus and to its output.
Edited Volumes by Stephanie Seul
Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Stephanie Seul
In July 1915, Alice Schalek was accredited to the Austro-Hungarian Kriegspressequartier (War Press Office) as one of a small number of female war correspondents, publishing her war reports and photographs in the prestigious Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse and in the illustrated German magazine Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. Schalek’s writings and photographs were very popular, but also sharply criticized in some quarters for their alleged lack of objectivity and a tendency to glorify the war. Her most prominent critic was the Austrian writer and journalist Karl Kraus, whose negative judgment dominated Schalek’s historical reputation for many decades. Focusing on Schalek’s assignments to the Italian front during 1915–17, this article looks at the working conditions faced by Schalek as a female war reporter and reconstructs the war images she transmitted to the public through her writings, photographs, and lectures. Moreover, it asks in what ways Schalek’s work reflects a female perspective on the war.
Established during the Sudeten crisis in September 1938, the BBC German Service played an important role in Chamberlain’s appeasement policy and warfare towards Nazi Germany. Yet the BBC’s employment for official propaganda, especially in peacetime, raised delicate issues of its independence from government control and of the objectivity and credibility of its broadcasts. This paper discusses, first, the origins of the BBC German Service and its role within Chamberlain’s policy. Second, it analyses the relationship between the BBC and Whitehall. Third, it traces the evolution and development of the British propaganda strategy towards Germany and investigates how the concepts of ‘truthfulness’ and ‘objectivity’ were internally understood and employed by the BBC and Whitehall in their propaganda campaign. Finally, the paper argues that Chamberlain’s propaganda strategy towards Germany collapsed during the Allied campaign in Norway in April 1940 precisely because it no longer conformed to its self-proclaimed principles of ‘truth’ and ‘objectivity’. As a result, the credibility of the BBC German Service suffered a significant, if ultimately temporary, setback.
During the early Weimar Republic, a wave of anti-Semitism swept over Germany. The military defeat, the political upheaval, inflation and unemployment had created a general feeling of despair. In this atmosphere the anti-Semitic ideology disseminated by reactionary and völkisch groups fell on fertile soil. They accused the Jews of being responsible for the defeat and Germany’s economic plight and political upheaval. Because of the prominent role played by Jews in the revolution and foundation of the Weimar Republic, the reactionaries fanatically defamed the first German democracy as ‘Jewish republic’. Between 1919 and 1922 numerous Jewish politicians were murdered for political and anti-Semitic reasons.
The increase in German anti-Semitism was also commented on by the international press. Renowned papers such as the London Times and the New York Times reported regularly and in detail about the anti-Semitic agitation and riots in the Weimar Republic. An important source of information was the German daily press; German press reports on anti-Semitic incidents were not only reviewed, but also quoted verbally in the foreign press. However, although they used the same sources of information, the Times and the New York Times occasionally differed significantly in their coverage and interpretation of one and the same event.
Drawing on three examples from the early Weimar Republic, this essay explores the similarities and differences in the Times’ and the New York Times’ coverage of anti-Semitic incidents. Although both papers placed different emphasis on the various incidents, their discourses of German anti-Semitism were characterised by the same functionalist approach: They attributed the rise of anti-Semitism to disappointed sections of the German society in search of scapegoats for the military defeat and economic misery. Furthermore, they regarded anti-Semitism a propaganda instrument of the German reactionaries to incite the hate of the population against the Republican government. Neither the Times nor the New York Times understood the novel dimension of German anti-Semitism as a distinct political end in itself.""
Anti-Jewish propaganda, discrimination and violence were indeed an integral part of everyday life in the Weimar Republic. After the First World War, a wave of antisemitism swept through Germany. Reactionary and völkisch groups accused the Jews of being responsible for the military defeat, for Germany’s economic plight and for the revolution that brushed aside the monarchy. No doubt, uring the Weimar Republic antisemitism became firmly embedded in the political discourse as never before. It could be heard in political assemblies and read in the German daily press, either as expressions of editorial opinion or as reporting on antisemitic incidents.
This article argues that despite occasional differences along national and/or ideological dividing lines, the foreign press coverage of German antisemitism showed a remarkable similarity. Anglo-American papers reported extensively on the anti-Semitic movement in the Weimar Republic, which was perceived as a threat to German democracy. Yet at the same time, the nature of this antisemitism was not considered to be far different from that prevalent in other societies, for instance in Eastern Europe. Especially during the final years of the Weimar Republic, the Anglo-American press therefore failed to appreciate the central role of antisemitism in Nazi ideology. Hitler’s assault on the Jews in the spring of 1933 thus came as a shock to the Anglo-American press and public.