I'm writing a research paper about American influence on German culture, specifically writing, in the aftermath of WWII. I'm trying to prove that American writing had a direct impact on German writing and how it evolved in the 20th century. It would be nice to reference a specific example to help make my point. Any ideas?
A bit late to the party but Stefan Zweig makes multiple references to Walt Whitman in his memoir 'The World of Yesterday' (superb book by the way).
Example (p.210): "To me, America meant Walt Whitman, the land of new rhytm, the coming brotherhood of the whole world. Before making the crossing I reread the wild, long lines of the great Camerado, a flowing torrent like a cataract, and so I entered Manhattan with an open-minded sense of fraternity instead of the European's usual arrogance."
However I'm not sure if it meets the criterium of after WWII because the book was already finished in 1942.
If you'd like to widen out to include film, Wim Wenders was (in some ways) citing American influences nearly constantly within his work - one of his first celebrated films was Paris, Texas; another was The American Friend.
He's been held up as an exemplar of Americanization, but as his career progresses, it seems like what he's really getting at is a vision of globalization that also pulls aesthetic tips or cues from all kinds of other national sources - French moments, Japanese structure, American noir plot twists.
Most of his films, if you're unfamiliar, tend to be multilingual, and are often set in several different countries. (I think it's Wings of Desire that was a really good example of this, as well as having some of the first vaguely accurate science-fiction-ish depictions of an "Internet" and a "search engine" in film - although I might be crossing wires with Until the End of the World.)
Before he developed that global style, though, one of his first films was an [adaptation of The Scarlet Letter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter_(1973_film)). Hard to imagine a more thoroughly American source for a European to choose to make a historical film out of.
As for playwriting, I can only think of reverse examples - German playwrights Bertolt Brecht and (to a lesser extent) Heiner Müller were both influential in the U.S. I can't speak to that field, but I wouldn't be surprised if your hypothesis was better supported by looking at writing for television or popular film.