The first BRAVO
When the first, forty-page issue of BRAVO - The Magazine for Film and Television - was available at kiosks, Germany had still not recovered from the effects of the Second World War eleven years after the capitulation. In all the cities, next to hastily rebuilt houses, you can see rubble sites with bomb craters and random vegetation that children like to use as playgrounds. The scars of the great war can be seen everywhere: bullet holes, piles of rubble, ruins, gaping wounds in rows of houses, commandos are constantly being deployed to defuse unexploded bombs, and disabled veterans are a part of the street scene.
It was not until 1955 that a particularly moving chapter of post-war history came to a late end with the "Homecoming of the Ten Thousand". During a trip to Moscow, Chancellor Adenauer secured the release of the last 30,000 soldiers and civilians from Russian captivity. This grim past is contrasted by a bright future. Care packages, the Marshall Plan and currency reform were followed by the much-vaunted economic miracle. The Germans were only too happy to listen to the motto of their Minister of Economic Affairs, Ludwig Erhard, "Prosperity for all" and the first successes were soon visible. The federal government ordered a compulsory housing economy to defuse the dramatic situation in the cities and between 1949 and 1956 around two million social housing units were completed at a speed that no one had thought possible. The way was also paved for subsidies for the construction of private homes. On Christmas Day 1952, the first German television went on the air with two hours of programming in the evening. In 1955, the 1,000,000th Beetle rolled off the production line in Wolfsburg, and employees and dignitaries crowded into the factory hall to celebrate this success. While there were still over two million unemployed at the beginning of the 1950s, the first guest workers were already being recruited in 1955. Full employment was not wishful thinking, but reality - even on Saturdays, because that was still a normal working day. It was not until 1956 that the DGB launched its striking campaign for the 40-hour week: "Saturdays belong to me!"
In their limited free time, people drive out into the countryside. In the fifties, the streets were dominated by the famous Wolfsburg Beetle and the sleek Karmann-Ghia designed by the Italian designer Luigi Segre, as well as by often-ridiculed vehicles such as the Messerschmitt Kabinenroller, the Lloyd LP 300 - "If you don't fear death, you drive a Lloyd!", the BMW Isetta or the Goggomobil. Those who don't have to worry about money for love bought a Borgward Isabella for the proud price of 7,000 DM or even drove an Opel Rekord.
In BRAVO, the main focus was on mopeds, scooters and mokicks with a view to the younger target group. Heinkel, Vespa, Kreidler, Zündapp, Lambretta - there seem to be no limits to the manufacturers' imagination. This is also demonstrated by the numerous double pages in BRAVO that deal with the wide range of products on the market.
Mobility was one of the big themes of the 1950s. This affected both personal mobility in the form of a motorized two-wheeler or a car, and general mobility, i.e. the increasing travel activities of Germans. Lufthansa was founded in 1954. Just one year later, the crane airline set up a scheduled service to South America and the Far East and continually expanded its route network. The dream jobs of that time included - who would be surprised? - pilot and stewardess, even though the flight from Düsseldorf to New York still took 13 hours.
However, due to the astronomical prices, air travel is more of a business trip. The means of transport for the general public within Europe is the train, and for overseas travel, the ship. The first tourism companies, such as Touropa, advertised the "holiday express" with the slogan "The elegant holiday train with a reclining bed for every guest"; and "Neckermann makes it possible" became a popular saying at the time. But here too, travel was not something to be taken for granted as it is today, but an adventure. Most Germans at that time went on holiday in the surrounding area or on their balconies. Trips to the North Sea and Baltic Sea, excursions to the low mountain ranges - holidays far away were unaffordable for many. They were helped by organizations whose names were reminiscent of the state-organized holiday activities during the Nazi era. The children had left the house thanks to the rural evacuation program, and the mothers were travelling with the Mothers' Recovery Fund. Nevertheless, in 1956, around five million Germans were already registered as heading south. Whole columns of beetles roll over the Alps to Italy, which becomes the epitome of carefree sun holidays. The consequences are also unmistakable on a musical level: 'Capri Fischer', 'O Mia Bella Napoli' and 'Ciao Ciao Bambina' are the tunes that, together with the 'Salzwasser' songs of the singing sailor Freddy Quinn, reinforce the wanderlust.
After years of propaganda-based paternalism and war-related deprivation, the motto was: entertainment, preferably light fare. While Germany was toiling away, the radio was blaring incessantly, triumphing over the few television sets (only two percent of all households owned this technological achievement). And "the light breeze from the southwest," as one of the radio programs was called, was blowing mainly German-language songs and hits into the living room. The only foreign-language song to be included in the hits of 1956 was a 34-year-old American actress of German descent. Born on April 3, 1924 in Cincinnati, Ohio as Doris von Kappelhoff, she followed the advice of a nightclub owner in the late 1930s and took the surname "Day." With considerable success. One of her most popular songs was "Day after Day." But the most popular is "Qué sérà (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)", a hit from the legendary Hitchcock classic "The Man Who Knew Too Much".
Otherwise, a lot of German songs dominate the airwaves: songs by Freddy Quinn and Fred Bertelmann, Ralf Bendix, Rudi Schuricke, the Eilemann Trio or Caterina Valente, an exceptional phenomenon in German and international showbiz. The talented scion of an Italian family of artists (born on January 14, 1931 in Paris) not only excels in her career as an actress, but also as a singer and entertainer. She changes languages (she sings in twelve different languages in total) as often as she changes the name of her group: Club Indonesia, Club Italia, Club Argentina, Club Manhattan, Club Honolulu and Catrins Madions Club are just some of the compilations she is involved in. In the fifties she enchanted audiences with catchy tunes such as "Ganz Paris träumt von der Liebe", which sold a sensational 500,000 copies, and sang numerous duets with her brother Silvio Francesco and Peter Alexander.
In the 1950s, the Austrian singer and actor laid the foundations for his unique career, in which films, often with music and dance interludes, played a large part. In general, going to the cinema was one of the most popular pastimes of the reconstruction generation. And here too, light fare was preferred. The average consumer loves Heimat films in particular, which can probably be seen as the only genuine German film genre. The titles promise plenty of nature and emotion: "Where the wild stream rushes" and the heath is green, that's where the "Black Forest Girl" and "The Forester from the Silver Forest" are at home. The undisputed stars of this new genre are Sonja Ziemann and Rudolf Prack. The tearjerkers perfectly portray the perfect world that people longed for in the post-war years: "The Heimatfilm was a mirror of the social trends of the fifties. It contrasted the struggles and worries of everyday life with idyllic images of a different life. It showed a perfect, intact world of nature. No one wanted to see war ruins in the cinema either. The Heimatfilm was balm for the chafed souls," say Rüdiger Dingemann and Renate Lüdde in their book "Germany in the fifties. Those were the days!".
It is important to protect the wounded souls, and so it is not surprising that in 1952 a film like "The Sinner" caused a real scandal. The young Hildegard Knef was briefly seen naked in one scene. But it was not just the naked facts, but rather the topics of prostitution, euthanasia and suicide that aroused people's emotions. Knef plays Martina, who loves the elderly, seriously ill painter Alexander. In order to enable him to have an expensive operation, she goes to work as a prostitute for him. But there is no cure, and Martina, who cannot bear to see her lover suffer, kills him first and then herself. Strong stuff for a society that wants to distract itself. Apart from a few ambitious films such as Bernhard Wicki's "The Bridge", the Carl Zuckmayr adaptation "The Devil's General" (about the suicide of Air Force Colonel Udet) or the crime documentary drama "The Girl Rosemarie", which deals with the scandal surrounding the murder of the high-class prostitute Rosemarie Nitribitt, the German enjoys screen fairytales such as the "Sissi" trilogy, which helped the young Romy Schneider to world fame.
But in 1956, other tones mixed into this ideal world. Politically, the debate about militarism dominated the headlines: Adenauer pushed through the conscription law against the resistance of numerous interest groups, which was passed by the Bundestag on June 9. On April 1 of the following year, twelve years after the fall of the "Thousand Year Reich," the first conscripts returned to German barracks. And on October 25, Hitler was officially declared dead by the Berchtesgaden District Court. History had marched over the "greatest general of all time" with seven-league boots.
The German James Dean is called Horst Buchholz
In terms of film, radio and television, a wave from America swept over Germany at this time, and young people in particular succumbed to it: while the more mature people watched "Sissi", they stormed into "Giants", the last film with James Dean. The previous year, the Porsche fan had died in a car accident. German film reacted and, to the annoyance of the strict moral guardians, copied the American cinema rebels that young people emulated. The German James Dean was called Horst Buchholz: in 1956, Hotte played the 19-year-old youth gang boss Freddy in "Die Halbstarken" under the direction of Georg Tressler and alongside the young star Karin Baal. The film - the poster entices with the slogan "hard... realistic... current" - sparked discussions across the country and was of course also discussed intensively in BRAVO. The first issue also contains a curious report that is related to the controversial film: Under the headline "Revenge of the Teenagers," it is reported that such teenagers ambushed Will Tremper, the screenwriter of the "Teenager" film, first beat him up and then two days later sent him acetic acid clay.
In addition to Hotte Buchholz, it was mainly Hollywood stars who were honored in BRAVO at the time. The cover of the first issue was dominated by a smiling Marilyn Monroe and Richard Widmark. And that was no coincidence. The cultural researcher Kaspar Maase sees the image of the cool, laid-back American as the opposite of the still
Germans influenced by militarism. In his essay "Medium of youthful emancipation: BRAVO in the fifties" he comes to the conclusion that the teenager magazine had a decisive influence on the self-image of German youth and "certainly contributed to ending the heels-clicking veneration of German militarism". However, BRAVO was rather slow to spread the second wave that swept across the pond. At first, just like the parents' generation, people kept their distance from rock 'n' roll. It was not until its 15th issue that the magazine published the first two-page portrait of Elvis Aaron Presley . The "hip-wiggler" was also the first full-time non-actor to grace the cover of BRAVO: on December 30, 1956, his portrait beamed out to readers. However, the editors were not entirely comfortable with the new musical style. The rock 'n' rollers were described as "noisemakers" and equated with the teenagers who haunted the moral police's nightmares. But it soon became clear that the music style could no longer be stopped. This music, this type of film, the whole wave of this new youth culture that BRAVO served with its magazines would bury everything traditional, would break with old customs and traditions and thus threaten the adult world.
Rock 'n' roll was the soundtrack of a new attitude to life, freed from the rules of the old days: sensuality and sex instead of discipline and order, mobility instead of "standing still", wanderlust instead of "staying here", dancing the twist instead of push-ups according to Father of Gymnastics Jahn.
Elvis Presley - the ambassador of bad taste
The reaction was immediate: the new King of Rock 'n' Roll, who electrified his young fans with his hip swing ("The Pelvis"), was denigrated by frightened moral guardians as "musical scum" or "ambassador of bad taste". BRAVO, at least, has now recognized the importance of the man who - along with James Dean - was to become the outstanding youth idol. Long after his death, in fact, up to the present day, the magazine reports on the man from Tupelo, Mississippi, who ushered in a new era in pop music. In America, teenagers have long been crazy about Elvis items. The best seller is a lipstick with Elvis ' autograph on the tube. Color: "hound dog orange", of course.
What else happened in 1956: A big box office hit of the year was "The Upper 10,000" with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly. After that, the actress with Irish roots became part of the upper class herself, because in the same year she married Prince Rainier III of Monaco as Grace Patricia and secured Monaco's independence from France with the birth of the heir to the throne, Caroline. In Stockholm, a horse became a legend - the mare Halla carried Hans-Günther Winkler, who was handicapped by a torn muscle, to Olympic victory in show jumping.