Das Erbe von Humanismus und Aufklärung in der Exilliteratur. The Heritage of Humanism and Enlig

"I am still of the opinion that the literature of German exiled writers in all countries of the world can be most accurately understood and portrayed as a humanist front against the National Socialist Third Reich, despite all the contradictions and tensions in their own free sphere," wrote Walter A. Although his idea that exile literature was "a self-contained period of German literary history" is no longer recognised in research today, it is based on a still largely unchallenged view of exile literature. However, it is based on an assumption that is still largely valid: writers in exile invoked common values, regardless of the extent to which they were aware of this and what exactly they understood by >humanism<. This volume is dedicated to the desire of German-speaking writers and intellectuals to preserve, uphold and reinterpret these values, and shows which humanist and Enlightenment traditions and representatives they drew on in the process. What ideals and ideas underlie their views? In ten essays, the volume also traces the limits of these ideals and ideas and explores their inherent >dialectics< - as well as the recurring question of how literature in exile, and from exile, can or should exert political influence. With articles on Walter Benjamin, Yvan Goll, Theodor Kramer, Heinrich Mann, Anna Seghers, Friedrich Wolf, Arnold Zweig and Stefan Zweig, among others.