German Exile Literature 1933-1945

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah); Marc J. Schweissinger (Cardiff University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Domains

Literature Topic

Dates

Date of occurrence 1933-1945

Places

Germany (Location)

When the National Socialists usurped power in Germany in 1933 and rapidly dismantled the existing democratic system, they immediately persecuted and banned German-Jewish and all dissenting authors, many of whom stood on the political left. Already on 10 May 1933, books by more than 40 writers were publicly burned. The infamous Nürnberger Gesetze, “racial laws” issued in 1935, “legalized” the persecution of German Jews. Concentration camps existed from the start, and dissidents were brutalized, imprisoned, tortured, expropriated and murdered. After 1938, Nazi terror in Germany and in annexed Austria reached a first high point and had managed, to a large extent, to silence any opposition. Far more …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

3722 words

Citation: Knapp, Gerhard P., Marc J. Schweissinger. "German Exile Literature 1933-1945". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 September 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1595, accessed 23 April 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

German Exile Literature 1933-1945

Domains

Dates

Places

Save this article

Leave Feedback