August Bage Verlag, 1964), pp. 324–235. The following analysis represents an analysis of the German Youth movement by one of its former members: Friedrich Kayser, “Wandervogel, Idee und Wirklichkeit; Gedanken einer Selbstdarstellung der deutschen Jugendbewegung” (typescript). Sender Freies Berlin, “Kulturelles Wort,” June 13, 1962, Document. Collection Title: The German Youth Movement Collection, No. 956. Hoover Institution Archives, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford, California.
64. Graebsch, pp. 125–126.
65. Document. Collection title: The German Youth Movement Collection No. 956, Folder 3, pp. 60–64. Typescript on “Die Artamanen.”
66. Ibid., pp. 69–75.
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid.
69. Severin Rüttgers, Erweckung des Volkes durch seine Dichtung (Leipzig, Dürr, 1933). Consult also Aley, pp. 13–18 and p. 215.
70. Pross, pp. 1–30. Consult also: Kurt Sonthheimer, “Das Reich der Unpolitischen. Die Jugendbewegung vor 1933” (typescript). Südwestfunk, Jugendfunk. Program of October 18, 1961, 11 p.m. Document: The German Youth Movement Collection No. 956, Folder 6, pp. 10–14.
71. Ibid. Consult also: “Wie ich die H.J. sah und erlebte” (anonymous typescript). Document. Collection title: T.S. National Socialism No. 467. Hoover Institution Archives, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford, California. The document is mainly concerned with a description of the “Volkish illusion” that originally inspired many of the young followers of the Nazi Regime, particularly those among the older Hitler Youth. In the same folder consult also: “Einfluss der H.J. auf die Jugend” (typescript).
72. Rudolf Hurtfield, “Severin Rüttgers als Erwecker des Sinnes für volkhafte Dichtung” Jugendschriften-Warte 44, 1 (January, 1939), 6–10.
2
From Book Burning Toward Gleichschaltung
The first indications of an emerging cultural policy in Germany were barely noticed by the general public. On April 13, 1933 the German Student Association posted a twelve point “Proclamation” at the entrance doors of the University of Berlin, demanding from the universities a greater sense of responsibility toward the German race, the German language, and German literature.1 This demand essentially corresponded to the direction of the Nazis’ cultural policy to be implemented just a few weeks later, yet it appeared to be spontaneous and no more than the usual sign of political unrest among the German student groups. Even when three weeks later the Frankfurter Zeitung announced the explicit demand by the German Student Association to remove all “un-German” books from the libraries,2 the public did not feel alerted to systems of control that soon would permeate all spheres of German cultural and political life.
The book burning ceremonies, that began on May 10, 1933 in the public squares of numerous German cities, were also ascribed to the initiative of some radical students, although the presence of prominent professors and Party and State representatives during these occasions placed the events in a different light. The cities affected included Cologne, Bonn, Frankfurt, Munich, Nuremberg, Würzburg, and Berlin.3 In Berlin, Josef Goebbels, the German Reich Minister of Propaganda, personally sanctioned the action by a public address while the books were still smoldering in the ashes. “One thing we know for sure,” he said, “namely that political revolutions will have to be prepared from a spiritual basis. At their beginning there always stands an idea, and only if the idea has been merged with power, will the historical miracle of a reform movement occur, and only then it will rise and develop.”4
The “spiritual basis” to which Goebbels referred, was already essentially prepared in a rough outline by the students who dramatically stepped forward toward the bonfires and solemnly recited the “sins” of the authors whose works they committed to the flames. As one after another would state what books were needed in Germany at the present time, they would condemn certain authors while recommending others—both in line with “Volkish” criteria. Thus, they denounced Marx and Kautsky for emphasizing class struggle and Marxism. They would blame Heinrich Mann, Ernst Glaeser, Erich Kästner, Friedrich Wilhelm and Sigmund Freud for having promoted a spirit of “decadence, moral decay, sloppy thinking, political treason, and eroticism,” whereas they accused Emil Ludwig and Werner Hegemann of having “falsified German history and degraded the great German heroes of the past,” and Theodor Wolff and Georg Bernhard of having created a “folk-alien journalism of the democratic and Jewish type.” Erich Maria Remarque they charged with “literary treason” against the German soldiers fighting so bravely in World War I; Alfred Kerr, with having “crippled the German language,” and Tucholsky and Ossietzky with having sinned against the German ethnic spirit by showing “a lack of respect for the German folk soul.”5
The recommendations followed the same order. The first student praised the idea of the German folk community which from then on literature should portray in idealistic terms. The second one demanded that books be faithful to the German people and the state. The third requested of literature that it portray the “nobility of the German soul,” and the fourth reminded all German authors that their works should reveal respect for German history, the spirit of the ancestors, and the spirit of the past. Others still referred to the necessity of promoting a type of literature that would show reverence for the German folk spirit by concerning itself with the love of home and nation, a search for the “roots” of German national identity, with native folklore and history, and a respect for “honesty and truth.” As such, it should be the goal of all literature to serve the German folk community rather than to express the “selfish” interests of its authors. The ceremonies took place at night, illuminated by dramatic torchlight processions and accompanied by marching bands of the military and police. Singing and cheerleading further dramatized the events which neither the public nor the press could overlook.6
Plate 5
Traditional Bonfires in Support of the New “Fate Community”
For those who were directly affected by the “witch hunt” action, there were not too many alternatives left. Erich Kästner, for example, in an interview a few years ago, commented that in personally witnessing the book burning ceremonies in which his own works were condemned, he would have liked to shout back at “them” through the microphone, yet instead, he only clenched his fists in his pockets.7 Then during the same night he and his friends had urged the writer Ossietzky to flee the country, yet Ossietzky had decided to stay and “fight back” as well as he might.8 Others were less optimistic. When Goebbels dissolved the Prussian Academy of Literature and dismissed a substantial portion of its membership while appointing new members to take their places in the Reichsschrifttumskammer (Reich Literature Chamber), Thomas Mann,9 and Ricarda Huch resigned voluntarily. As a branch of the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Culture Chamber), which Goebbels founded to control art, literature, theater, press, radio, music and film, the Reich Literature Chamber no longer was meant as a place for a free exchange of ideas but as a censorship organization. Huch was especially enraged that Goebbels’ “miracle of a reform movement” had resulted in Döblin’s dismissal on racial grounds. In her letter of resignation, she wrote among other things:
It appears quite natural to me that each German citizen should feel as a German. And yet, there are various opinions as to what it means to be a German and how Germandom should assert itself. What the present regime prescribes as “national consciousness”
