Alfred Doblin Research Articles

German Literature in Exile: Alfred Doblin

THE HISTORY of Europe is replete with instances in which public figures, particularly writers, were forced to flee from their native countries. Diverse reasons were responsible for compulsory migrations in which Frenchmen have fled to Germany, Italians to France, Germans to England, Russians to Switzerland, all of them to America, and so on ad infinitum. The story of such peregrinations strikes a peculiarly tragic note for the writer, who, above all people, derives his spiritual sustenance, the raw material for his work, so to speak, from his own lingual group. When he is compelled to live in a land speaking a tongue foreign to him, the flow of language stimuli ceases. He must draw upon whatever he has stored up within. Examples of men and women who have achieved mastery of another language to such an extent that they were able to write creatively in the new medium are conspicuous by their rarity. In the course of the last ten years emigration of writers has taken place once more on a vast scale. The route has been largely from Germany to the United States, often by way of England or France. Intercession of the film industry on the one hand and favorable climate on the other have caused the settling of a large part of this gifted group in Los Angeles. Quite aside from the nonliterary professions, a list of those associated with German literature constitutes a distinguished roster. The best known among those now living in Los Angeles are: Vicki Baum, Bert Brecht, Alfred Diblin, Lion Feuchtwanger, Bruno Frank, Leonhard Frank, Emil Ludwig, Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann, Ludwig Marcuse, Alfred Polgar, Erich Maria Remarque, Wilhelm Speyer, Berthold Viertel, and Franz Werfel.