Exilliteratur

German Exilliteratur (German pronun­cia­tion: [ɛˈksiːl.lɪtəʁaˌtuːɐ̯], exile literature) is the name for a category of books in the German language written by writers of anti-Nazi attitude who fled from Nazi Germany and its occupied territories between 1933 and 1945. These dissident authors, many of whom were of Jewish origin or with communist sympathies, fled abroad in 1933 after the Nazi Party came to power in Germany and after Nazi Germany annexed Austria by the Anschluss in 1938, abolished the freedom of press and started to prosecute the authors whose books were banned.

The exodus included virtually all writers of prominence, and so the exiles soon began to conceive of themselves as representatives of the "other," better Germany whose traditions had been perverted by the Nazis.

Many of the European countries where they found refuge were later occupied by Nazi Germany as well, which caused them again to look for safety elsewhere, by emigrating to the United States or taking cover in the "underground".

Between 1933 and 1939, prolific centers of German exile writers and publishers emerged in several European cities, like Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Zürich, London, Prague, Moscow as well as across the Atlantic in New York, Los Angeles, and Mexico. Some exiled Germans were not completely pleased with their relocations. As Bertolt Brecht, another famous émigré who ended up in Los Angeles, noted in his famous poem “The Hollywood Elegies,” it was both heaven and hell. Well known for their publications were the publishers Querido Verlag and in Amsterdam and Oprecht in Zürich. They served the German community outside Germany with critical literature, and their books were also smuggled into Nazi Germany.

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