SOURCE: Pfeiler, Wm. K. “German Literature outside the Third Reich.” In German Literature in Exile: The Concern of the Poets, pp. 3-23. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1957.

In the following excerpt, Pfeiler examines the circumstances that led to the creation of a German literature in exile and comments on some of its main characteristics and figures.

The unprecedented political upheaval following Hitler's assumption of power, specifically after the Reichstag fire in February, 1933, manifested itself to Germany's neighbors dramatically by the early exodus of tens of thousands of people who, for “racial” reasons or political nonconformity, thought it wise to leave the realm of the Third Reich, where freedom and lives were endangered. The steady flow of fugitives never stopped; they were called emigrants or émigrés if their goal was permanent settlement abroad and if “legal” sanction for going abroad was given by the Nazi authorities; refugees or...