The Reich Chamber of Literature was responsible for the publishing, censorship, and promotion of all written work within Germany and its territories. According to Nazi cultural policy, this system was intended to prevent the circulation of ideologies deemed incompatible with National Socialism while promoting works aligned with state ideology. This made membership compulsory for anybody who wished to pursue a career in literature, meaning that they had to conform to find any success or spread their work. Membership was dictated through a careful screening process. Those of Jewish dissent or defined as undesirable through the
Nuremberg Laws were excluded from joining, as were any dissidents or people who had been deemed politically suspect or unreliable in their past. Moreover, those who were retroactively found to have written works that were unbefitting of the Nazi regime, or began to involve themselves in anti-German activities, were expelled and banned from the chamber and thus publishing any subsequent work. They were also oftentimes disgraced and had their works rescinded from circulation.
Process of censorship, supervision, and revisionism The powers of censorship, supervision, and revision were established in a decree on 4 February 1933 immediately after
Adolf Hitler became
Chancellor of Germany. It noted that police were afforded the right to seize any books that 'tended to endanger public security and order'. The
Reichstag Fire Decree also included similar provisions. The Chamber of Literature censored literature through a screening process dependent on
public denunciation. Essentially, books that were found to possess undesirable elements that interfered with
Nazi ideology or were critical of the regime were reported to the local authorities, like the police or a
Gestapo office. This would then be forwarded to the Gestapo headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8 in Berlin, and would then be sent to the Chamber of Literature. After reviewing said work, it would then be sent further to Department VIII of the Ministry of Propaganda for a final decision. If the book was ultimately found to be unattractive, the Chamber of Literature would enter it into a database and order the confiscation of all editions if possible, usually an action performed by local Gestapo offices, agents of the criminal police, or workers for the
Ministry of the Interior through raids in rapid succession. In 1934 alone, this process led to 4100 books being censored and confiscated. Goebbels and the Chamber did recognise and was careful to not carry out the 'cultural revolution' of Germany to such lengths that the popular demand for entertainment was stifled by ideological correctness. As such, books were cautiously confiscated and the Chamber actually preferred to alter editions rather than get rid of them altogether in many cases. This included but was not limited to rewriting passages, entire pages or chapters, changing titles or book covers, and even accrediting work to more desirable and reputable authors.
System of promotion and advertisement The Chamber acknowledged that literature was an extremely powerful medium in spreading their ideology. As a result, the body introduced various methods of advertisement, both for promotion and dissuasion. For example, the author
Heinrich Heine was used as a display of a futile Jewish attempt to imitate the glory of German literature, and the
German Book Week, held annually from 1934 onwards, assembled the nation's most acclaimed authors to display their newest works and encourage the consumption of ideologically responsible literature. Additionally, with more banned authors, the German population was forced to read books that were left with no competition, and so ones that obviously espoused Nazi ideals were inadvertently promoted because they were the only ones left on bookshelves and in stores. As such, the best selling books in Germany at this time aligned with the orders to 'capture the spirit of the new times' as set out by the chamber in its handbook. This is evident in
Kuni Tremel-Eggert's
Barb which sold 750,000 copies in just 10 years from 1933, despite doing 'little more than purveying in fictionalised form the key Nazi tenets of a woman's place in society.' Furthermore,
Coelestin Ettighofer's
Verdun, the Supreme Judgement sold 330,000 copies in 1936-40 precisely because it was one of the only books that remained that glorified the nation's battles on the Western Front of the First World War. == Structure and organization ==