German-speaking Refugees Research Articles

RAF planes that won the Battle of Britain were built on German machinery: How Jewish refugee engineer, Ludwig Loewy, was crucial to the war effort

Ludwig Loewy was a Jewish engineer who left Nazi Germany in 1936 to set up an engineering firm in London as a refugee. Britain was rearming, and a new generation of aircraft was being developed based on light alloy construction. The new Loewy Engineering Company had the expertise to supply presses and rolling mills required for alloy fabrication, which were otherwise supplied from Germany at a time of growing tension. The new firm also built a giant tube press for steel for the Admiralty. Loewy’s new company grew rapidly in London, helped by a workforce of refugee engineers and managers and ‘many thousands’ of machinery drawings from Germany. Loewy became a technical advisor to the British Government’s production programme for aircraft until his death in 1942. Back in Germany, Loewy’s former firm, Schloemann in Düsseldorf, was Aryanised after his departure. Schloemann continued to supply equipment into the UK until the outbreak of war and went on to help the German and Italian war effort. Ludwig was dispossessed of his major share in the Company, and the history of Schloemann was rewritten. Ludwig Loewy’s rapid assimilation owed much to earlier contacts with the UK engineering and metals establishment, his expertise in a sector that was growing rapidly and short of skills, customers who needed his technology, and his own personal energy and drive. The Government welcomed his contribution to aircraft and warship production at a time of break-neck rearmament. Ludwig Loewy’s experience supports the view that German-speaking refugee engineers were readily accepted in the UK from 1933 to 1945.

‘Hospitality to this German stranger’

Abstract The article examines religious translations associated with communities of German-speaking refugees in mid-seventeenth-century Britain, namely: a mystical treatise circulating among the non-conformist Family of Love, and the writings of Jacob Böhme, which enjoyed a surprisingly wide reception in English print. The discussion focuses on the textual-material features of these texts, as they represent tangible traces of the activities of seventeenth-century networks connecting German-speaking exiles, English translators, and their many intermediaries. The printed books record the circulation of those texts across dissident communities, but also their passage from clandestine manuscripts to widely-distributed printed texts, and the transformations that accompany their dissemination on the English book market. By examining together the discursive, textual, and material features of these translations, this essay foregrounds the importance of combining descriptive translation studies and book studies as complementary approaches when documenting early modern histories of cultural transfer, displacement and exile.

Working for the War Effort: German-Speaking Refugees in British Propaganda during the Second World War by Charmian Brinson and Richard Dove

Working for the War Effort: German-Speaking Refugees in British Propaganda during the Second World War by Charmian Brinson and Richard Dove

Book Review: Working for the War Effort: German-Speaking Refugees in British Propaganda during the Second World War by Charmian Brinson and Richard Dove

Book Review: <i>Working for the War Effort: German-Speaking Refugees in British Propaganda during the Second World War</i> by Charmian Brinson and Richard Dove

Between resentment and aid: German and Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist refugees in Great Britain since 1933

ABSTRACTThis article is a historiographical exploration of the experiences that German and Austrian émigré psychiatrists and neurologists made in Great Britain since 1933, after the Nazi Governments in Central Europe had ousted them from their positions. When placing these occurrences in a wider historiographical perspective, the in-depth analysis provided here also describes the living and working conditions of the refugee neuroscientists on the British Isles. In particular, it looks at the very elements and issues that influenced the international forced migration of physicians and psychiatrists during the 1930s and 1940s. Only a fraction of refugee neuroscientists had however been admitted to Britain. Those lucky ones were assisted by a number of charitable, local, and academic organizations. This article investigates the rather lethargic attitude of the British government and medical circles towards German-speaking Jewish refugee neuroscientists who wished to escape Nazi Germany. It will also analyze the help that those refugees received from the academic establishment and British Jewish organizations, while likewise examining the level and extent of the relationship between social and scientific resentments in Great Britain. A special consideration will be given to the aid programs that had already began in the first year after the Nazis had seized power in Germany, with the foundation of the British Assistance Council by Sir William Henry Beveridge (1879–1963) in 1933.

Growing up in Wartime England—A Selection from "The Rachel Chronicles: A Kind of Memoir"

The following contribution is an excerpt from the unpublished memoirs of Austrian Jewish emigree, Lilian Renee Furst (1931–2009), a pioneer in the field of comparative literature. This journal issue grew out of an April 2011 conference in her memory, held at the National Humanities Center, on “Jewish emigres and the Shaping of Postwar Culture.” The nexus between her innovative intellectual contributions and her experience as a Jewish emigre reflects one of the conference's central concerns: How, why, and in what fashion did the emigres' dislocations shape innovative intellectual paths and cosmopolitan visions of Europe and European culture. Born in Austria and educated in England, Furst pursued an intellectual career in the United States, hoping it would allow her to break out of narrow national boundaries. The excerpt of her memoir here illuminates how her life's work as a pioneer in the field of comparative literary studies grew out of her experience with language as a German-speaking refugee in wartime England. Her memoir written in the third person about “Rachel” also reflects her dual identity as Jew and European. Part I by Dr. Anabel Aliaga-Buchenau, the literary executor of the memoir and a former graduate student of places “The Rachel Chronicles: A Kind of Memoir” in relation to Furst's other autobiographical writing. Part II includes Furst's own introduction to “The Rachel Chronicles,” followed by her chapter on “Growing up in wartime England.” (The whole of her unpublished memoir is available to researchers in the Personal Papers of Lilian R. Furst, Girton College Archives, Cambridge University (http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0271%2FGCPP%20Furst)). Part III is a bibliography of Furst's writings.

Masculinity and Confinement: German-Speaking Refugees in Canadian Internment Camps (1940-1943)

The forced migration of German-speaking refugees fleeing Nazism brought to Canada a group of “accidental” immigrants—the “Camp Boys.” The group consisted of German and Austrian nationals, Jewish and non-Jewish, who had previously migrated to the United Kingdom. In 1940, the British government decided to register all “enemy aliens” and to intern some of them. A few weeks later, approximately 2,000 male internees (aged from 16-65 years) were sent overseas to Canadian internment camps. They spent several months in a confined, allmale, but sociologically extremely diverse, environment. The internment camps thus became a vividly remembered matrix of masculinity, especially for the younger “Boys.” From the Camp Boys’ retrospective self-narratives, it appears that their self-representation and self-construction as “men” was deeply affected by the feelings of confinement, powerlessness, and impotence they experienced in the camps. By looking at the way power circulated in the camps, and the way hierarchies were constructed (intersecting class, religion, and sexuality), the author addresses and reframes the notion of subordinated vs. “hegemonic masculinity” (R.W. Connell). By looking at the retrospective self-narratives produced by these men, he also addresses the narrative and performative construction of masculine identities.

Exil en miniature Zu Robert Neumanns Roman In the Steps of Morell (1951)

In “Self Portrait Autumn 1941”, a sub-section of Chapter 2 (“The Pillar of Absalom”) of Robert Neumann’s novel In the Steps of Morell (1951), the everyday life of an exile in London at the height of the “Blitz” (Autum/Winter 1940) is described en miniature as experienced by German-speaking refugees, the main emphasis being the lack of integration into the host country (England), especially with regard to gainful employment.

Eine Fahrt ins Blaue. Deutschsprachiges Theater und Kabarett im australischen Exil und Nach-Exil (1933–1988) (review)

Reviewed by: Eine Fahrt ins Blaue. Deutschsprachiges Theater und Kabarett im australischen Exil und Nach-Exil (1933–1988) Ulrike Garde Birgit Lang. Eine Fahrt ins Blaue. Deutschsprachiges Theater und Kabarett im australischen Exil und Nach-Exil (1933–1988). Berlin: Weidler, 2006. 346 pp. € 49. ISBN 3-89693-459-7. This book is the first full study of the theatre and cabaret performed by German-speaking refugees, most of them of Jewish background, who came to Australia before or during the Second World War. The focus is on those exiles in Melbourne and Sydney who organized themselves into several groups to stage performances predominantly in the German language. Accordingly, it offers a comprehensive account of the Kleines Wiener Theater, Kammerspiele Sydney, Theaterfreunde, Kleines Theater, Papricabaret, Showmen, Deutsche Volks- und Bauernbühne, and the Continental Players, including their smaller splinter groups. Through the study of their theatrical performances, Lang gives us a detailed account of the process of acculturation for these emigrants who predominantly fled Austria in fear of the National Socialist regime. She bases her analysis on theories taken from gender and migration studies. Thus the artistic developments are contextualized in the various phases of cultural transition, which are set against the background of individual biographies as well as Australia’s cultural and socio-political history. In this context, the theatre represents the space where cultural identities are negotiated both on and off the stage. The study covers the period from 1933 until 1988, and its structure reflects the cultural transition that took place during this time. Lang’s analysis begins with the early performances that reinforced the “community of destiny” of the exiles, reflecting at the same time their efforts to cope with the unfamiliar environment. This phase was also characterized by attempts to preserve their cultural heritage with Vienna as a focal point. In the following chapters, the study traces how the respective developments of performance content and choice of plays are interwoven with the members of the groups creating and re-creating their identities. This includes subsequent performances “between the [Australian and Austrian] cultures,” the separation into subgroups, and the final transformation into minority theatre(s) in the “postexile” phase. In this last phase [End Page 296] the emigrants began to feel part of a Jewish or German/Austrian community. Through all these phases, the Bunte Abende provided a stage for representations of internalized and constructed cultural differences such as language, humour, food, gender roles, and comparisons of cultural activities. The book’s chronological structure emphasizes the concepts of transition and journey that are aptly suggested by its title. It was taken from the 1952 Bunter Abend, one of the many loosely arranged plays in the cabaret tradition, which was performed by the Kleines Wiener Theater. However, the book title’s connotations exceed this one meaning: on the one hand it refers to the transient cultural identities “on the move,” on the other hand it evokes the refugees’ journey into the unknown characterized by the uncertainty of ever returning to the Vienna of the second republic with its cultural institutions such as the Burgtheater. At the same time, Lang also uncovers the bilingual word-play in the title, which is the first of many detailed analyses in the book. These analyses are based on a range of material that Lang has meticulously gathered from private and public collections. The material cited and discussed also includes a great number of scripts for the Bunte Abende, which provide her with ample material for her study. It offers a comprehensive account including detailed descriptions of the theatres’ most significant productions, their aims and developments, and it cites relevant material. References to studies about other German-speaking “exile theatres” provide a broader context for Lang’s Australian case studies. She does not include performances at Australian universities, which also represented a cultural centre for refugees of a similar background. This is understandable given the wealth of material already covered. The book represents a useful resource offering a wealth of information for scholars as well as for the interested general public. Access to this cultural phenomenon is facilitated by the two appendices containing comprehensive information about performances and biographical information on those involved...

Explaining the Enemy: Images of German Culture in English-Language Fiction by German-Speaking Exiles in Great Britain, 1933-45

Explaining the Enemy:Images of German Culture in English-Language Fiction by German-Speaking Exiles in Great Britain, 1933-45 Nicole Brunnhuber (bio) The fact of the matter is that I have never written a word in German having been much too young to write books before my flight in England in 1933 and I cannot therefore see a point in my joining a German PEN Club. Please do not misunderstand me. I never for a moment deny my German origin as unfortunately so many of my fellow refugees do, but when I left Germany at the Machtübernahme I decided to forget all about that country for ever. Personally I believe neither in the cultural nor the political revival of Germany, or/rather it is of complete indifference to me if that country will ever print another book or be bombed from the face of the earth, which I sincerely hope it will. (Feiner, Letter to Richard Friedenthal) Ruth Feiner's response to Richard Friedenthal's invitation to join the German PEN Club in Exile in 1942 leaves, at first glance, little doubt as to the author's deliberate and manifest rejection of her native culture. The excerpt from her letter above, however, is misleading, and some of the author's claims are simply untruthful: Feiner's first four novels, although published in English, were in fact translations and had been drafted by Feiner in her native tongue, German. Although Feiner seems to have abandoned her native language as soon as she was capable of producing English-language fiction, she continued to resort to Germany as subject-matter, even when the British public and critics may well have been sated with what was frequently dismissed as refugee fiction or atrocity stories. Feiner's ostensible efforts to distance herself from her native culture, as expressed in her letter to Friedenthal, are simply not substantiated by her literary work. Her alleged desire to draw a definitive line between her original nationality and her adopted British culture emerges as questionable [End Page 277] when one considers a series of novels that continually weave German topoi and cultural references even into her most "British" romance fiction. As for Feiner's comments on Germany, her novels demonstrate an ambiguous attitude towards her native country, vacillating between loathing and nostalgia. That an exiled writer's textual response to his or her native culture is inconsistent is not surprising, particularly considering the fact that experiences of the loss of one's homeland are inevitably varied and highly subjective. Such considerations are compounded by the particular historical dimensions of the German exile experience in Great Britain. With the declaration of war, German culture became virtually synonymous with the Nazi enemy. Intense Germanophobia was fuelled by the speeches of Lord Vansittart, first broadcasted in 1940 and published with fourteen reprints in 1941 alone. According to Richard Löwenthal, the furore caused by Vansittart's Black Record. Germans Past and Present surpassed even the Germanophobia arising from the declaration of war and the spy hysteria following the fall of the Low Countries (96). If refugees had already been discouraged from manifesting their German identity in public by assistance organizations prior to the war, open hostilities and the policy of wholesale internment and deportations of 1940 certainly intensified the scrutiny under which German-speaking refugees were placed. Mourning the loss of the German or Austrian homeland in British exile not only ran the risk of appearing utterly insensitive, ungrateful, and regressive, but may even have jeopardized personal freedoms. As refugees found themselves under increasing pressure to profess their loyalty to their host country, and constructs of cultural and national identity were integral tools for identifying enemy and ally, language itself began to assume a powerful significance. According to Richard Dove, internees adopted English as their textual language partially "as a demonstration of their attachment to their adopted country" (159). Such reasoning may help explain why more exiled writers switched languages in England than in any other country of asylum, a point Klaus Mann made in his essay "Das Sprach-Problem" in 1947 (133). An examination of the generic characteristics of English-language novels by German-speaking exiles in Britain also...

'Stimme der Wahrheit': German-Language Broadcasting by the BBC by Charmian Brinson , Richard Dove (review)

878 Reviews based on re-presenting the absent homeland. Bischoff's contribution is particularly impressive for its scholarly overview of the differentand competing discourses of current exile studies. She is keen to differentiate exile literature from the narrow definitions of German Exilforschung and also from the French postmodern paradigm of universal strangerhood. (Rather more esoteric contributions, such as Tobias on Celan and Schmidt on Baer, would have benefited from this kind of academic contextualization .) Hilfrich's article examines exile in Helene Cixous's writings, but does not stress adequately the Jewish particularity of this writer,remaining instead within the postmodern paradigm of ubiquitous homelessness. Nevertheless, her emphasis on the bodily dimension of exile writing is worthy of note and corresponds in many respects both to Philipp Theisohn's analysis of the relationship between writing and soil in Kafka, and to Schmidt's intriguing, if difficult,examination of conflated historiographical-theological modes in Baer's treatise on 'Galut'. The volume ends on a contrapuntal note with Frank Stern's critique of the com? monplace and often obscurantist German-Jewish exile narrative in scholarship con? cerned with the German-Jewish influence on Hollywood. Overall the volume is thematically coherent and of a solid scholarly standard. Some ofthe contributions, such as Schmidt's article on Baer, however, could have done with more direct editorial intervention, as the English-language register is not sufficiently idiomatic throughout. University of Edinburgh Mary Cosgrove 'Stimme der Wahrheit': German-Language Broadcasting by the BBC. Ed. by Charmian Brinson and Richard Dove. (The Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, 5) Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. 2003. xvi + 25opp. ?53; $66. ISBN 90-420-0978-0. The Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies has established itself as a must-read for anyone interested in the field of Exile Studies in Britain and internationally. This fifthvolume is no exception: its focus on the BBC, employer of numerous German-speaking refugees in the late 1930s and the 1940s, promises greatly to enhance our understanding of refugee activity in Britain. The firstsection, '"London Calling": Broadcasting to the Enemy', concentrates on the war years, with a chapter on the Austrian radio service and its editor Patrick Smith by Charmian Brinson and one on the Feature Programmes of the Austrian Service by Richard Dove. Both stress the factthat the Austrian Service was established almost as an afterthought to the better-known German Service and outline the increasing em? phasis placed on the independence of Austria from Germany. Although both Brinson and Dove provide a detailed overview of this particular service, it becomes evident that the overall picture of wartime German-language broadcasting in Britain will necessarily remain fragmented. The volume, based on the papers of a conference on the topic held at the Germanic Institute in 2002, might have benefited from further papers on the German Service to give a more comprehensive picture. Unfortunately, it is clear that further research will be hindered by the lack of material preserved in the BBC archives. However, in other areas the volume follows its predecessors by extending its focus beyond the well-known institutions and individuals in exile. Two chapters outline the difficulties of those who sought to contribute to the BBC pro? grammes as freelance writers: Deborah Vietor-Englander and JenniferTaylor focus on two women writers, Hermynia Zur Muhlen and Grete Fischer, who suffered the vagaries of the hand-to-mouth existence of the refugee intellectual. The second section moves chronologically forward and concentrates on post-war radio services, both in Britain and in East and West Germany. Stephen Lawrie shows MLR, 100.3, 2005 879 Erich Fried as a successful employee of the post-war BBC, who even had it written in his contract that he was allowed to write poetry during officehours. Lawrie credits the Corporation with giving Fried much-needed support during the early stages of his career. The subject of the BBC's post-war influence on the West German media is explored by Toby Thacker's research, showing how the wartime experience of using music for propaganda purposes influenced the practice of 'music control' in the British zone. Jens Briining's article...

‘Für eine aufmerksamere und nachdenklichere Welt’: Beiträge zu Marie Luise Kaschnitz ed. by Dirk Göttsche (review)

842 Reviews examples are from Britain than from North America. For the United States Feiwel Kupferberg presents an extremely short paper on German-speaking refugees in the American film industry; Nick Warr, in his paper on Siegfried Kracauer's 'extraterritorial critique', suggests reasons why the wider work ofthe famous author of modern film studies is neglected despite his troubled move to America; and David Kettler's 'Self-Knowledge and Sociology; Nina Rubinstein's Studies in Exile' examines the ambiguous conjunction of autobiography and sociological theory in her work. Thereafter the case studies tend to be British. Dorothea McEwan maps the trade routes of the mind through the example of the Warburg Institute in London; Johannes Feichtinger discusses the significance of Austrian emigre art historians for English art scholarship; and Charlotte Benton highlights refugee and emigre architects in Britain from 1933 to 1939. Other papers focus, for example, on Gaby Schreiber in exile in England as a remarkably successful exponent of Bauhaus principles in her vast design consultancy; on the Wiener Kreis in Britain; on Austrian motifs in Wittgenstein 's later works; and on child psychology and the Hampstead Nursery. The paper by Andrea Hammel on German-Jewish women writers and their texts is the only one devoted to exile literature, though the cultural alienation of German writers in Hollywood is brieflymentioned in Kupferberg's paper. Though not literary figures as such, Franz Borkenau and Sebastian Haffner are singled out in another paper as the most successful political writers to make the cultural and intellectual transfer from the German to the English scene. This book is the outcome of a conference at the University of Sussex in September 2000. Almost inevitably there is some unevenness in the quality and scope of the papers. Some are extremely technical and theoretical, while others are short and gen? eral. Some have extensive notes and bibliographies, while others have hardly any of either. Nevertheless, the range of the work analysed makes this volume an invaluable extension of the scope of Exile Studies. Institute of Germanic Studies, London J.M. Ritchie 'Fiir eineaufmerksamereund nachdenklichere Welt': Beitrage zu Marie Luise Kaschnitz. Ed. by Dirk Gottsche. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler. 2001. 220 pp. ?28. ISBN 3-476-45274-3 (pbk). This volume, born out of a conference to celebrate what would have been Marie Luise Kaschnitz's hundredth birthday, seeks to rescue the writer from relative obscurity. Kaschnitz won almost all the literary prizes of the Bundesrepublik, including the Buchner Prize (1955), and her significance was compared in 1973, in a Handbuch edited by Benno von Wiese, to that of Ingeborg Bachmann. However, the comparison is instructive. While Bachmann has seemed to become increasingly contemporary, Kaschnitz was bypassed by the feminist movement in the 1980s (probably on account of her conservative notions of gender) and has been enthroned as the grand old lady of German letters. With that, however, comes what Brecht called the 'impotence of the classic'. This volume attempts to dust offthe cobwebs and argue forher pivotal position 'be? tween tradition und modernity'. It includes Kaschnitz specialists (Johannes Ostbo, Nikola Rossbach, Uwe Schweikert, Helga Vetter) as well as academies from other fields who bring their own interests to bear. The volume is divided into three sections. Given Kaschnitz's famous declaration in the 1945 essay 'Menschen und Dinge', 'Beginnen wir wieder mit dem Wort Ich', the firstpart concentrates on aspects ofthe auto? biographical, with detailed appraisals ofthe diaries (Vetter), formsofself-presentation (Schweiket), autobiographical sketches (Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf, Rossbach), and a MLR, 99.3, 2004 843 focus on autobiographical places (Ernst Ribbat). Fascinating here is the use made of the newly published Tagebiicher 1936-1966 (Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 2000). The second section offersvarious perspectives on individual works or genres. Two pieces deal with short stories: Gottsche himself offersa sensitive analysis of the modernity of short prose pieces throughout her career, and Ostbo examines configurations ofnarra? tive voice against the backdrop of theories of 'Kurzprosa'. In a detailed piece Ludwig Volker analyses Kaschnitz's response to death in her poetry,focusing particularly on a number of characteristic motifs,while Hubert Ohl offersa fascinating insight into the poet Peter Huchel's role as editor of the idiosyncratic volume...

A Subterranean History: Paul Wittek (1894-1978) and the Early Ottoman State

In the extensive literature which has appeared in recent years on the work of refugee or self-exiled German-speaking historians during the Emigration2, little attention appears to have been paid to those who concerned themselves with what may be termed, in the broadest sense, oriental history. This is equally the case for German-speaking historians born within the boundaries of the Dual Monarchy, as for that greater number who were by origin subjects of the German Empire and its post-war successors. Thus, for example, Catherine Epstein's recently published and otherwise admirable prosopographic study of German-speaking refugee historians in the United States3 makes no mention of the Vienna-born Islamicist and medieval historian Gustave E. von Grunebaum, who had a

Book Reviews : A Past Renewed. A Catalog of German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933. By Catherine Epstein. Publications of the German Historical Institute. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993. vii + 386 pp. 35.00/$54.95

Book Reviews : A Past Renewed. A Catalog of German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933. By Catherine Epstein. Publications of the German Historical Institute. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993. vii + 386 pp. 35.00/$54.95

An Interrupted past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933LehmannHartmutSheehanJames J. An Interrupted past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933 Cambridge University PressCambridge, 1991, x, 234, £30.00/$39.50

An Interrupted past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933LehmannHartmutSheehanJames J. <i>An Interrupted past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933</i> Cambridge University PressCambridge, 1991, x, 234, £30.00/$39.50

Book Reviews : An interrupted past: German-speaking refugee historians in the United States after 1933. Edited by Hartmut Lehmann and James J. Sheehan. Cambridge University Press. 1991. x + 234 pp. 30.00

Book Reviews : An interrupted past: German-speaking refugee historians in the United States after 1933. Edited by Hartmut Lehmann and James J. Sheehan. Cambridge University Press. 1991. x + 234 pp. 30.00

An interrupted past: German-speaking refugee historians in the United States afrer 1933

An interrupted past: German-speaking refugee historians in the United States afrer 1933

An Interrupted Past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933

An Interrupted Past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933

An Interrupted Past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933.

An Interrupted Past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933.

An Interrupted Past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933

An Interrupted Past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933