Between 1933 and 1939, prolific centers of anti-Nazi German writers and publishers emerged in several European cities, including
Paris,
Amsterdam, Stockholm, Zürich,
London, Prague,
Moscow as well as across the Atlantic in
New York City,
Los Angeles, and
Mexico City. Well known for their publications were the publishers
Querido Verlag and
Verlag Allert de Lange in Amsterdam,
Berman-Fischer Verlag in
Stockholm, and Oprecht in Zürich. Like
anti-communist Russian writers and publishing houses in Berlin, Paris, London, and New York after the
October Revolution, 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. With this in mind, they supplied the
German diaspora with both literary works and with
Alternative media 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.
Bertolt Brecht, a
refugee member of the
Communist Party of Germany, 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 Vincent Burn, wrote a story involving two Germans. [Flesch-Brunningen created] an 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 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's
Zauberberg, and
Franz Werfel'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, a prominent author in exile in the United States, purchased a mansion in
Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, 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 under the
dictatorship of
Joseph Stalin. Feuchtwanger also defended the
Great Purge and the
Moscow show trials which were then taking place against both real and imagined members of the
anti-Stalinist Left and other alleged enemies of the state. Feuchtwanger's enthusiastic praise of
Stalinism triggered outrage from fellow anti-Nazi exiles
Arnold Zweig,
Franz Werfel, and, over the years since, from
Trotskyists, who have called Feuchtwanger naive at best. During the
McCarthy era, Feuchtwanger was investigated as an alleged
Stalinist propagandist by the
House Un-American Activities Committee of the
U.S. Congress. 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==