Outpost of Freedom: Remigrés’ Reappropriation of Berlin as a Cosmopolitan Metropolis and its Political Potency in the Early Cold War

Three years – from the Battle of Berlin in 1945 to the Berlin Airlift of 1948 – seemingly sufficed for Berliners to transmogrify from subjects of the Nazi capital to defenders of democracy. This was not a logical consequence of the Cold War, but result of a transatlantic network’s reappropriation of Berlin’s cosmopolitan reputation.

Berlin attracted a network of returned Social Democrats, or remigrés, and liberal American occupation officials. They shared Nazi-imposed exile in the past, determination against Communism in the present, and hopes for an electable Left in the future. To advance their agenda, they crafted the narrative of heroic West Berliners in the Cold War. Crucial remigrés included West Berlin Mayor Ernst Reuter, Marshall Plan funds distributor Paul Hertz, municipal public relations director Hans Hirschfield, and then journalist Willy Brandt. In scrutinizing the Outpost narrative and its boosters, this paper seeks to illuminate: first, the construction of West Berlin as heir to the city’s Weimar days at the expense of the immediate past; second, this narrative construction’s political potency in the Cold War engulfing the city; and third, this construction’s personal appeal to remigrés. The conception of West Berlin as the Outpost of Freedom gave returned Social Democrats a new political purpose and the opportunity to vindicate their return to their estranged compatriots.

Based on governmental records, personal papers, and contemporary visual culture, this paper reveals the network’s enlistment of Berlin’s cosmopolitan reputation in the Cold War. It thus sheds light on: first, how quickly Berliners could change their political identity; second, how German Social Democrats found inspiration to navigate the Cold War paradigm in one of the most unlikely places; and third, how they could enlist American propagandistic and financial support.