Controversial representation - The German contribution to the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels

In 1958, the first World's Fair since the end of the Second World War took place in Brussels. There, on a stage whereon it competed with other countries, the Federal Republic of Germany had for the first time a broad opportunity to show what it was doing in social, technical and cultural areas. Since the GDR did not take part, the Federal Republic's exhibits alone called attention to the unsettled question of the unity of the divided land. This being so, the Federal Republic of Germany tried to present itself as sensitively as it could, particularly because of the heavy burden of its past. What Germany displayed was exclusively determined by a group of designers, architects and artists who had organized themselves in the Deutsche Werkbund. Striving for modernisation in art, industry and society, and using its broadly based contacts in politics and industry, the Werkbund concentrated intently on making Germany's contribution to the exhibit representative of aesthetics in postwar German society-without regard to conflicting political interests. The modernity of the German pavillion, its aesthetics shaped by humanistic and democratic principles underlined the transformation in the business community and in popular culture-a transformation which clearly ought to make Germany's integration into the international community easier.