Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer/Autumn 2018 | Page 22

MUSIC EDUCATION AND THE PRODUCTION OF PRESTIGE
German cultural diplomacy demonstrates that notions of Western cultural superiority
were not marginal in West German cultural diplomacy programs. An embodiment of
West German cultural capital, West German conductors such as Söllner emblematized
this sense of superiority.
The practice of cultural diplomacy in the developing world has seen large transformations
since the late 1960s. Not only has the Goethe-Institute grown significantly, but
contracts between the Goethe-Institute and the Foreign Office have made the institute�albeit
still an officially private organization�the main actor in German cultural
diplomacy, spanning a network of 159 branch offices in 98 countries (Deutsche Presse-Agentur
2018). In addition to sustaining this large network of offices, the institute
now manages smaller initiatives in order to respond to sudden challenges around the
world. In Turkey, for instance, the institute recently launched so-called spaces of culture�short-term
programs offering local audiences opportunities for educational and
cultural activities (Goethe-Institut München 2018). According to the institute’s current
president, Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, “The Goethe Institute has often been regarded as a
tanker, but now we are an association of speed boats” (Deutsche Presse-Agentur 2018). 7
Recent studies on processes of transformation in (West) German cultural diplomacy
likewise suggest that much has changed since the 1960s (Schneider and Kaitinnis 2016;
Hampel 2015). As the German Foreign Office adopted a more expansive concept of culture
as a dynamic process in 1970, dominant notions and practices of cultural diplomacy
changed within (West) German cultural diplomacy programs. In addition, neo-colonial
attempts to export European high culture to developing countries were officially revised
in the early 1980s as the Foreign Office adopted the guideline that local communities
should have more control over the cultural, social, and economic support they received
(Schneider and Kaitinnis 2016:10). 8 A recent study by Annika Hampel on German cultural
programs in India, however, suggests that there is a discrepancy between theory
and practice. Hampel concludes, in a somewhat diplomatic language, that “fair cooperational
work [between Germany and India] is capable of further development” (Hampel
2015:329). 9 Research on the specific effects of German cultural diplomacy, however,
remains extremely difficult. Since the German Political Archives in Berlin grant access to
internal documents only after a time period of 30 years, a final assessment of contemporary
German cultural diplomacy is hardly possible.
The example of Söllner, however, also raises questions regarding the contemporary historicization
of (West) German cultural diplomacy. As the lack of discourse on cultural
ambassadors such as Söllner demonstrates, contemporary cultural diplomacy programs
7 “Das Goethe-Institut wurde ja oft als großer Tanker gesehen, aber inzwischen sind wir ein Verband
von Schnellbooten.”
8 For an overview of changing concepts in West German cultural diplomacy since the 1950s, see Hampel
(2015:51–65).
9 “dass faire Kooperationsarbeit ausbaufähig ist.”
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