Exilpresse digital: Deutsche Exilzeitschriften, 1933-1945

Abstract

When we think of the German emigration during the 1930s and ’40s, a number of figures, places and events perhaps come to mind. Thomas Mann, the most prominent of the illustrious group of Californian exiles, addressing world affairs from his home in Pacific Palisades, might seem familiar; or Hannah Arendt and the New School intellectuals bringing critical philosophy to New York may ring bells. Maybe equally memorable is the strange prospect of Herbert Marcuse and his Frankfurt School colleagues as organisation men in the Office of Strategic Services (the CIA's predecessor). Compared with these literary and academic celebrities, the political emigration is less well remembered. Yet, as this collection of newspapers and journals testifies, the many leading inter-war politicians who fled Germany were fervently active, issuing political tracts and information bulletins designed to inform and inspire fellow exiles, influence the politics of host nations and to testify to the existence of ‘The Other Germany’. This digital resource focuses primarily on the political emigration, featuring some of the best-known political exile publications, including the Social Democrats’ main discussion forum of the 1930s, Neuer Vorwärts, the leading liberal Pariser Tageblatt/Tageszeitung and the Sozialistische Warte, the most important platform for socialist debate among exiles in pre-war London (this collection is available at http://deposit.d-nb.de/online/exil/exil.htm).