Abstract
Arkadij Maslow (1891-1941), a communist politician during the Weimar Republic and since 1933 in Paris exile, finished in 1935 an eye-witness novel about Hitler’s surge to power, the underlying causes for the switch in Germany to a totalitarian regime and its immediate evil effects. The plot focuses on a real case of espionage and its sensationalist outcome which kept the international press busy for several weeks. The text is a first-hand document whose premonitory nature, 75 years later, is still astonishing in its freshness and immediacy. Apart from a close account of these occurrences which were known mainly by hearsay, Maslow offers a political and cultural view of pre-war Berlin from 1928-1933, and afterwards, of the vicissitudes which German exiles underwent in Paris, an episode we shall dwell on especially.
Highlights
Arkadij Maslow (1891-1941), a communist politician during the Weimar Republic and since 1933 in Paris exile, finished in 1935 an eye-witness novel about Hitler’s surge to power, the underlying causes for the switch in Germany to a totalitarian regime and its immediate evil effects
The plot focuses on a real case of espionage and its sensationalist outcome which kept the international press busy for several weeks
Apart from a close account of these occurrences which were known mainly by hearsay, Maslow offers a political and cultural view of pre-war Berlin from 1928-1933, and afterwards, of the vicissitudes which German exiles underwent in Paris, an episode we shall dwell on especially
Summary
Arkadij Maslow (1891-1941), político comunista de la República de Weimar y exiliado desde 1933 en París, terminó en 1935 una novela testimonial sobre la llegada de Hitler al poder, sobre las causas que propiciaron en Alemania el cambio a un régimen totalitario y sobre los nefastos efectos inmediatos. Que al cabo de tres cuartos de siglo resulta turbador por su carácter premonitorio, documenta de primera mano los entresijos de unos hechos tan sólo someramente conocidos. Maslow ofrece una semblanza política y cultural de Berlín entre 1928 y 1933 así como de las andanzas de un variopinto grupo de alemanes en el exilio parisino, episodio en el que haremos especial hincapié, a la vez que explicaremos los vericuetos del manuscrito. Palabras clave: literatura testimonial, nazismo, espionaje, memoria histórica, exilio alemán
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