Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- 1 Historical Overview
- 2 The Ideological Context
- 3 Literature and Cultural Policies in the Third Reich
- 4 The National Socialist Novel
- 5 The National Socialist Drama
- 6 National Socialist Poetry
- 7 Film in the Third Reich
- 8 Non-National Socialist and Anti-National Socialist Literature
- 9 Closing Comments
- Biographical and Bibliographical List of Authors
- Selected Bibliography
- Translator’s Note
- Index
8 - Non-National Socialist and Anti-National Socialist Literature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- 1 Historical Overview
- 2 The Ideological Context
- 3 Literature and Cultural Policies in the Third Reich
- 4 The National Socialist Novel
- 5 The National Socialist Drama
- 6 National Socialist Poetry
- 7 Film in the Third Reich
- 8 Non-National Socialist and Anti-National Socialist Literature
- 9 Closing Comments
- Biographical and Bibliographical List of Authors
- Selected Bibliography
- Translator’s Note
- Index
Summary
THIS CHAPTER WILL introduce the literature that did not serve the goals and the propaganda of the National Socialists and was not expressly recommended by the Rosenberg Office or the Reich Chamber of Writers. Most of the works treated in this chapter belong to the categories of “undesirable” or even “prohibited” literature. That includes the literature of the Inner Emigration and the literature of open and hidden resistance.
Inner Emigration
The literature of the Inner Emigration is the most extensive. The concept of Inner Emigration is controversial and has not been clearly defined. The dispute between the “outer emigrant” Thomas Mann and “inner emigrants” such as Otto Flake, Walter von Molo, and especially Frank Thiess on the question of who had the worst lot to contend with will not be discussed here, as it contributes little to elucidation of the facts. It is certain that there were severe communication problems between the two groups of emigrants, as neither would or could understand the problems of the other. Thus, Ernst Wiechert wrote in his memoirs Jahre und Zeiten (Years and Times), which he composed immediately after the war:
I understand that it is hard for the victors to imagine the life of the outcasts in those years and to make a fair judgment. Erika Mann said in a disparaging manner in the New York Herald Tribune that after my release from the camp I had become an “obedient boy.” But I do not know whether Erika Mann, if she had just been released from a German camp, would not have become an “obedient girl.” And if she knows anything about what it is like to have listened every night long for seven years to every car that drove down the street, and to reach for the pistol to see if it is cocked. I do not know if she learned that in Switzerland or in California, and I would not wish that on her, either. I only wish that she would realize that the life in the column of the newspaper is very different from what we led every night for seven years.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Literature and Film in the Third Reich , pp. 227 - 288Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2010