Eisblumen

One reads Gottfried Benn. Perhaps one is also familiar with Oskar Loerke, Georg Britting, or Werner Bergengruen, but are their poems still being read? And what about the many other authors who remained steadfast enough during the times of dictatorship, terror, and war to write poetry that preserved an independent artistic conscience? Between 1933 and 1945, there lies a true treasure of moving and impressive lyrical texts from Germany—sometimes an open testament to courageous political resistance, sometimes the astonishing counterpart to upheavals in the authors' biographies, and very often simply an expression of a poetic power that refused to be harnessed to the cart of clichés and slogans. This anthology documents the potential and diversity of nonconformist writing in the field of lyrical poetry during the Nazi regime and invites a rediscovery of a world unjustly forgotten.