German (, ''exile literature'') is the name for works of
German literature
German literature () comprises those literature, literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy ...
written in the
German diaspora by
refugee
A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...
authors who fled from
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
,
Nazi Austria, and the occupied territories between 1933 and 1945. These
dissident
A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 2 ...
writers, poets and artists, many of whom were of
Jewish ancestry or held
anti-Nazi beliefs, fled into exile in 1933 after the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
came to power in Germany and after Nazi Germany
annexed
Annexation, in international law, is the forcible acquisition and assertion of legal title over one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. In current international law, it is generally held to ...
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
by the in 1938, abolished the
freedom of press, and started to prosecute authors and
ban works.
Writers of prominence
The exodus included most writers of prominence.
Many of the European countries, where they first found refuge, were later invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany, which caused the refugees to look for safety elsewhere again, for example by fleeing occupied Europe, taking cover in the "
Resistance", or within
Inner emigration.
History and readership
Between 1933 and 1939, prolific centers of anti-Nazi German writers and publishers emerged in several European cities, including
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
,
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
, Stockholm, Zürich,
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, Prague,
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
as well as across the Atlantic in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
,
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, and
Mexico City
Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...
. Well known for their publications were the publishers
Querido Verlag
Emanuel Querido (6 August 1871 – 23 July 1943) was a successful Netherlands, Dutch publisher as the founder and owner of N.V. Em. Querido Uitgeversmaatschappij, which published Dutch titles, and of , which published titles of German writers in ...
and
Verlag Allert de Lange in Amsterdam,
Berman-Fischer Verlag in
Stockholm
Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...
, and Oprecht in Zürich.
Like
anti-communist Russian writers and publishing houses in Berlin, Paris, London, and New York after the
October Revolution
The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...
, some anti-Nazi German writers and intellectuals saw themselves as the continuation of an older and better Germany, which had been perverted by the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
.
With this in mind, they supplied the
German diaspora with both literary works and with
Alternative media
Alternative media are media sources that differ from established forms of media, such as mainstream media or mass media, in terms of their content, production, or distribution.Downing, John (2001). ''Radical Media''. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publica ...
critical of the regime, and, in defiance of
censorship in Nazi Germany, their books, newspapers, and magazines were smuggled into the homeland and both read and distributed in secret by the
German people
Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...
.
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...
, a
refugee
A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...
member of the
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (, ; KPD ) was a major Far-left politics, far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, German resistance to Nazism, underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and minor party ...
, ended up in Los Angeles and noted in his poem "The Hollywood Elegies", that the city was both heaven and hell.
Other exiled German writers often had difficulty expressing what they were truly feeling. In his political thriller ''The Blond Spider'' (1939),
Hans Flesch-Brunningen, writing under the
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...
Vincent Burn, wrote a story involving two Germans.
lesch-Brunningen createdan older, wiser, and somewhat mysterious German in the character of Martino. He is the archetypical, valiant antifascist and spared any of the ambiguities of Borneman's ultimately vanquished Müller. Yet, as committed and exemplary as Martino may be, he occupies a limited role, overshadowed by the brutal antics of the central German character, the Nazi spy Hesmert. As much as the simple fact of Martino's existence in the novel is indicative of the author's desire to raise British awareness of a "good" Germany, his marginality in the plot may well be equally suggestive of Flesch-Brunningen's sense of caution in dwelling upon a nonpopularist view of German culture.
Among German personnel
As a highly effective tool of reeducation after
American entry into World War II, the libraries of the camps used to intern
German prisoners of war in the United States very often included Berman-Fischer's paperback editions of
German literature
German literature () comprises those literature, literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy ...
banned under
censorship in Nazi Germany. Particularly in demand among POWs were banned novels by refugee writers such as
Erich Maria Remarque's ''
All Quiet on the Western Front'',
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
's ''
Zauberberg'', and
Franz Werfel
Franz Viktor Werfel (; 10 September 1890 – 26 August 1945) was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet whose career spanned World War I, the Interwar period, and World War II. He is primarily known as the author of '' The Forty ...
's ''
The Song of Bernadette''. In an article for inter-camp journal ''
Der Ruf'', German POW Curt Vinz opined, "Had we only had the opportunity to read these books before, our introduction to life, to war, and the expanse of politics would have been different."
Feuchtwanger affair
Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger (; 7 July 1884 – 21 December 1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Republic, Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht.
...
, a prominent author in exile in the United States, purchased a mansion in
Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles
Pacific Palisades is a neighborhood in the Westside region of the city of Los Angeles, California, situated about west of downtown Los Angeles. Throughout January 2025, the majority of Pacific Palisades was severely affected and destroyed by ...
, called
Villa Aurora, and used it as a meeting place for exiled German-speaking poets, writers, and intellectuals. Not everything was easy for Feuchtwanger while in exile.
In his book ''
Moskau 1937'', Feuchtwanger had lavishly praised life in the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
under the
dictatorship
A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no Limited government, limitations. Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by a dictator, ...
of
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
. Feuchtwanger also defended the
Great Purge
The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...
and the
Moscow show trials which were then taking place against both real and imagined members of the
anti-Stalinist Left
The anti-Stalinist left encompasses various kinds of Left-wing politics, left-wing political movements that oppose Joseph Stalin, Stalinism, neo-Stalinism and the History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953), system of governance that Stalin impleme ...
and other alleged enemies of the state. Feuchtwanger's enthusiastic praise of
Stalinism
Stalinism (, ) is the Totalitarianism, totalitarian means of governing and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953), 1927 to 1953 by dictator Jose ...
triggered outrage from fellow anti-Nazi exiles
Arnold Zweig,
Franz Werfel
Franz Viktor Werfel (; 10 September 1890 – 26 August 1945) was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet whose career spanned World War I, the Interwar period, and World War II. He is primarily known as the author of '' The Forty ...
, and, over the years since, from
Trotskyists
Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as a ...
, who have called Feuchtwanger naive at best.
During the
McCarthy era, Feuchtwanger was investigated as an alleged
Stalinist
Stalinism (, ) is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalinism in ...
propagandist by the
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative United States Congressional committee, committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 19 ...
of the
U.S. Congress
The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both ...
. Fearing that he would not be readmitted if he travelled abroad, Feuchtwanger never left the United States again. After years of immigration hearings, Feuchtwanger's application for naturalization as an American citizen was finally granted. Ironically, the letter informing Feuchtwanger of the fact only arrived on the day after his death in 1958.
Exile writers
The best known exile writers include
Theodor Adorno
Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor.
List of people with the given name Theodor
* Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher
* Theodor Aman, Romanian painter
* Theodor Blue ...
,
Günther Anders
Günther Anders (; born Günther Siegmund Stern, 12 July 1902 – 17 December 1992) was a German-born philosopher, journalist and critical theorist.
Trained as a philosopher in the phenomenological tradition, he obtained his doctorate under ...
,
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (born Johanna Arendt; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German and American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theory, political theorists of the twentieth century.
Her work ...
,
Johannes R. Becher,
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...
,
Hermann Broch,
Ernst Bloch
Ernst Simon Bloch (; ; July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977; pseudonyms: Karl Jahraus, Jakob Knerz) was a German Marxist philosopher. Bloch was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, as well as by apocalyptic and religious thinker ...
,
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti (; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994; ; ) was a German-language writer, known as a Literary modernism, modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and nonfiction writer. Born in Ruse, Bulgaria, to a Sephardi Jews, Sephardic Jewish fam ...
,
Veza Canetti,
Alfred Döblin
Bruno Alfred Döblin (; 10 August 1878 – 26 June 1957) was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel '' Berlin Alexanderplatz'' (1929). A prolific writer whose œuvre spans more than half a century and a wide variety of ...
,
Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger (; 7 July 1884 – 21 December 1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Republic, Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht.
...
,
Bruno Frank,
Oskar Maria Graf
Oskar Maria Graf (22 July 1894 – 28 June 1967) was a German-American writer who wrote several narratives about life in Bavaria, mostly autobiographical. In the beginning, Graf wrote under his real name Oskar Graf. After 1918, his works for ne ...
,
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer ( ; ; 14 February 1895 – 7 July 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist best known for his role in developing critical theory as director of the Institute for Social Research, commonly associated with the Frankfurt Schoo ...
,
Heinrich Eduard Jacob,
Hermann Kesten,
Annette Kolb,
Siegfried Kracauer,
Else Lasker-Schüler,
Emil Ludwig,
Heinrich Mann
Luiz Heinrich Mann (; March 27, 1871 – March 11, 1950), best known as simply Heinrich Mann, was a German writer known for his sociopolitical novels. From 1930 until 1933, he was president of the fine poetry division of the Prussian Academy ...
,
Klaus Mann,
Erika Mann,
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
,
Ludwig Marcuse,
Robert Musil
Robert Musil (; 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, ''The Man Without Qualities'' (), is generally considered to be one of the most important and influential modernist novels.
Family
M ...
,
Robert Neumann,
Erich Maria Remarque,
Ludwig Renn,
Joseph Roth,
Alice Rühle-Gerstel and
Otto Rühle
Karl Heinrich Otto Rühle (; 23 October 1874 – 24 June 1943) was a German Marxist active in opposition to both the First World War, First and Second World Wars as well as a Council communism, council communist theorist.
Early years
Otto was ...
,
Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs (; 10 December 1891 – 12 May 1970) was a German–Swedish poet and playwright. Her experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazism, Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearn ...
,
Felix Salten
Felix Salten (; 6 September 1869 – 8 October 1945) was an Austrian author and Literary criticism, literary critic. His most famous work is ''Bambi, a Life in the Woods'', which was adapted into an animated feature film, ''Bambi'', by Walt Disne ...
,
Anna Sebastian,
Anna Seghers,
Peter Weiss,
Franz Werfel
Franz Viktor Werfel (; 10 September 1890 – 26 August 1945) was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet whose career spanned World War I, the Interwar period, and World War II. He is primarily known as the author of '' The Forty ...
,
Bodo Uhse
Bodo Uhse (12 March 1904 – 2 July 1963) was a German writer, journalist and political activist. He was recognised as one of the most prominent authors in East Germany.
Early years
Uhse came from a Prussian Junker family with a long tradition ...
,
Max Brod
Max Brod (; 27 May 1884 – 20 December 1968) was a Bohemian-born Israeli author, composer, and journalist. He is notable for promoting the work of writer Franz Kafka and composer Leoš Janáček.
Although he was a prolific writer in his ow ...
,
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig ( ; ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian writer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular writers in the world.
Zweig was raised in V ...
, and
Arnold Zweig.
See also
*''
Die Zeitung'', a German-language newspaper published in London during World War II
*
Dissident
A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 2 ...
*
Nazi book burnings
The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the German Student Union (, ''DSt'') to ceremonially Book burning, burn books in Nazi Germany and First Austrian Republic, Austria in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed ...
*
White émigré
White Russian émigrés were Russians who emigrated from the territory of the former Russian Empire in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (1917–1923), and who were in opposition to the revolutionary Bolshevik com ...
References
Further reading
*Martin Mauthner: ''German Writers in French Exile, 1933-1940'',
Vallentine Mitchell
Vallentine Mitchell is a publishing company based in Elstree, Hertfordshire, England.
The company publishes books on Jewish-related topics. One of its earliest books was the first English-language edition of '' The Diary of Anne Frank''. Fr ...
, London 2007,
*Roy, Pinaki. “''Patriots in Fremden Landern'': 1939-45 German Émigré Literature”. ''Writing Difference: Nationalism, Identity, and Literature''. Eds. Ray, G.N., J. Sarkar, and A. Bhattacharyya.
New Delhi
New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...
: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors Pvt. Ltd., 2014 (). pp. 367–90.
* Augustinus P. Dierick: “German Authors in Exile in the Netherlands 1933-1940.” Carleton Germanic Papers 21 (1993) 129-144.
{{German literature, state=collapsed
Dissent
German literary movements
Political activism
20th-century German literature
Works about exile
German diaspora
Literature of the late modern period