Flight of Fantasy: New Perspectives on Inner Emigration in German Literature 1933-1945

During the Nazi era many German writers chose, or were forced into, exile. Many others stayed and, after the end of this period, claimed to have retreated into "Inner Emigration". The nature of this kind of emigration and the underlying motives of these writers have been hotly debated to this day. Though the reception of Inner Emigration has often been confounded by disputes over the term itself, the issue is ultimately not a matter of nomenclature, but of more far-reaching issues of literary evaluation, moral discernment and the writing of history. This volume presents, for the first time, to an English-speaking readership the complexity of Inner Emigration through the analysis of problematic individual cases of writers who, under constant pressure from a watchful dictatorship to conform and to collaborate, were caught between conscience and compromise.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Introduction: “Coming to Terms” with the German Past Neil H. Donahue The Past of the Term Chapter 1. Inner Emigration: The Term and Its Origins in Postwar Debates Stephen Brockmann Foundational Essays Chapter 2. In the Thicket of Inner Emigration Reinhold Grimm Chapter 3. The Young Generation’s Non-National Socialist Literature during the Third Reich Hans Dieter Schäfer New Perspectives: Synoptic Studies Chapter 4. Culture as Simulation: The Third Reich and Postmodernity Hans Dieter Schäfer Chapter 5. Targeting the Reader, Entering History: A New Epitaph for the Inner Emigration Frank Trommler Chapter 6. Absences of Time and History: Poetry of Inner Emigration Leonard Olschner Chapter 7. Depictions of the State in Works of the Inner Emigration Colin Riordan Chapter 8. The Limits on Literary Life in the Third Reich Volker Dahm New Perspectives: Case Studies Chapter 9. Opposition or Opportunism? Günter Eich’s Status as Inner Emigrant Glenn R. Cuomo Chapter 10. Conservative Opposition: Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen’s Antifascist Novel Bockelson: A History of Mass Hysteria Karl-Heinz Schoeps Chapter 11. Luise Rinser’s Escape into Inner Emigration Diana Orendi Chapter 12. Survival without Compromise? Reconfiguring the Past in the Works of Hans Werner Richter and Alfred Andersch Rhys W. Williams Chapter 13. Exile honoris causa: The Image of Erich Kästner among Writers in Exile Guy Stern Chapter 14. Günther Weissenborn’s Ballad of His Life Wulf Koepke Chapter 15. Between Apocalypse and Arcadia: Horst Lange’s Visionary Imagination during the Third Reich Gerald Funk Chapter 16. “I mounted resistance, though I hid the fact”: Versions of Wolfgang Koeppen’s Early Biography David Basker Chapter 17. Elisabeth Langgässer and the Question of Inner Emigration Cathy S. Gelbin The Turn Inward Outside of Literature History Chapter 18. The Unsettling History of German Historians in the Third Reich Amy R. Sims Film Chapter 19. State of the Art as Art of the Nazi State: The Limits of Cinematic Resistance David Bathrick Selected Bibliography Index