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THE INTELLECTUAL MIGRATION: A TYPOLOGY
I also believe that more and more of
the better "Europe" will be moving here.
T.Mann, Jamestown, Rhode Island, 1938
The flow of immigrants entering the United States at any given
period is called wave. The oceanic metaphor is relevant if we
think in the different sizes of the waves, the predominance of
Atlantic maritime transportation up to the 1950s, and also in
the fact that the waves arrive recurrently at American shores.
However, at this time we want to look at an immigration wave
which has rarely been recognized as such, it extended over
twelve years spanning from 1933 to 1945. This wave brought to
America several generations of Europeans fleeing racial and
political persecution. Some scholars called it the intellectual
migration because "in this relatively small group [of refugees]
the level of education and the quality of professional skills
were remarkable." (1) In America, its arrival was not seen as a
separate immigration wave and the reasons for the misperception
are that the migrs came not at once but over a number of
years, and not regularly but intermittently. Besides, there
were other events dominating the headlines during that period
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such as American isolationism, restricted immigration, economic
depression, other political and social upheavals, and a world
war. It also there seems to be working a deeper notion having
to do with the popularity of immigrants in the United States in
general, and specifically these refugees. Immigrants are mainly
ignored by a culture whose members do not want to be reminded
that either them or their ancestors sometime in the past where
immigrants too. To this general attitude it could be added the
anti-semitism common at the time and the prevalent anti-
intelectualism of the American people. (2)
In 1929, the Immigration Restriction Act went finally into
effect and from then on visas became scarce and very difficult
to get. Americans did not want to hear about either new
immigrants or refugees, moreover, there was no legal category
for refugees. The Americans had had enough already, first, with
the Depression, and then with their two-front world war.
Nonetheless, somehow this migration came within the limits of
the quotas, on special visas, or even as temporary visitors
staying in America for good.
The intellectual migration brought over an extraordinary
assortment of immigrant-refugees, the best and the brightest of
the European intellectual, scientific, and artistic world. They
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were the migrs from European Fascism who began arriving from
the time of the Nazi takeover in Germany in 1933. Individuals
from many countries engrossed this migration: the largest
contingent was made up of Germans, and Austrians, but the
political and racial persecution sent away also Czechs,
Italians, Spaniards, Hungarians, French, Romanians, Bulgarians,
Greeks, Polish, and some Russians too. Most of them were
persecuted out of the continent (exile-by-force), a minority
left freely out of political, or moral conviction (exile-by-
choice), some tried to come but failed, while others
reluctantly succeed. Some were already in America and stayed
out when the upheaval began. The lives of all of them make up
the story of the intellectual migration.
In 1968 this group of migrs was referred to by Laura Fermi,
wife of the physicist-refugee Enrico Fermi, as the intellectual
migration, because of the high level of education and
intellectual achievement of its core elite. In 1969, Donald
Fleming and Bernard Bailyn used the same designation in their
compilation of articles on the migrs. The designation has
been used again and again, and, though elitist, it seems fit as
shorthand to designate these exiles. (3) No other group with
similar characteristics has ever come to America. Their
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intellectual achievements were and still are astonishing and
the study of this peoples migration constitutes a very
significant chapter not only of American immigration history
but also of American Intellectual, Artistic, and Scientific
history.(4)
Chronologically, this wave came after the decline of American
immigration in the 1920s and the restrictionist period, but
before the post World War II displaced persons wave. A
scholar of the migration asserted that the history of exile
literature [intellectual migration] would not be terminated
until its last representative in exile had died or has returned
to his native country. By the same token we would like to say
that the history of this group will not be over until the last
of its members passed from the scene (there are no more
returns). They are the witnesses and the last representatives
of the migration's legacy. (5)
The political turn-moil of those years dispersed thousands of
refugees all over the world, and the majority migrated to the
United States. The best estimate indicates that the refugees
entering America between 1933 and 1944 were about 266,000 among
them 22,842 were intellectuals, professionals, or artists (6).
These numbers are small if compared with the masses going
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through Ellis Island at the dawn of the century, and, because
of that, its study requires different parameters. We need to
look at them almost individually and thus the topic becomes
very vast. A sociological, impersonal or statistical view would
not reveal their experiences, their contributions, their
endeavors, their failures, and their final destiny after the
migration. They should be looked at from a historical view
point without disregarding the context provided by sociology or
the other auxiliary sciences.(7)
The analysis of this migration requires a basic typology to
facilitate its contextual and chronological placement, and also
because such a typology would "provide[s a] theoretical
structure for a broad range of scholarship." As William
Petersen indicated long ago, what is required is a theoretical
framework into which the data may be fitted. He emphasized also
two general points, first, that it is useful to make explicit
the logical structure of a typology; and second that the
criteria by which types are to be distinguished must be
selected with care. (8) This paper will try to follow these
guidelines establishing three basic parameters to classify the
refugees. The first criteria to be developed will be
generational, the second occupational, and the last one will
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distinguish them by country of birth.
Generational Approach
In the last two decades there has been an increasing use of the
generational concept in the sociological and historical
discourse. All attempts to build grand theory based on it
including a historical theory of cyclical reproduction have
failed as they should. However, it seems to this writer that
the concept has great explanatory power in both history and
sociology. My proposal is simple: to use the concept of
generation as a classificatory device. Almost twenty years ago,
Hans Jaeger highlighted what he called a "promising approach"
in generation theory, saying that "[T]he study of concrete
groups, organizations, schools, and movements constitutes the
most promising approach to the research about historical
generations. An examination which starts with the vast
historical reality of a group and then investigates the age
structure uses an approach opposite to that which starts with
the age structure of a group and only then look for factual
connections or correspondences." (9) To be sure, here we will
refer to historical generations without adopting any general
theory, however, we will incorporate when proper the conceptual
insights develop by the generational theory masters.
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Establishing to what generation these individuals belong
explains not only their place in the subsequent history of the
group but also the background they brought to America, their
limitations, and frequently even the nature of the influence
they exerted here.
The concept of generation has been the subject not only of a
large bibliography in sociological studies, but also of many
enlightening historical writings. Here well limit the
generational concept to the age group impacted by specific
historical events during their members' main formative years.
Following Karl Mannheim we placed the formative years as those
spanning from the 17th birthday up to the 25th's. (10) I say
"main" formative years because historical events influence
people all the time and at every age, but it seems that the
psychological impact received during those years leave a
permanent imprint, a distinguishing mark.However, it would be
disingenuous to concentrate exclusively on the years between
the 17th and the 25th birthdays as the only life phase where
personality formation takes place. Obviously, the "primary
stratum of experiences" (infant years) plays a major role in
the subsequent phase of "personal experimentation with life."
(11) The early adolescent years are also crucial. However,
during the formative years the person is the most
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impressionable, the "imprint" that their psyche suffered
defines their way of thinking, their basic attitudes, and his
or her patterns of experience and expression most radically. In
other words, the experiential imprint one receives during
his/her formative years stays with the individual the rest of
his or her life. Thus, according to Karl Mannheim, in this way
they forge a generational style. Another generationalist put it
in this way: "older members of society also experience the same
events, yet they interpret them according to perspectives they
developed during their formative years. Since each generation
has its own Weltanschauung, the experiencing of these events
becomes 'stratified' by a multitude of generational
perspectives."
It has always been my understanding that historically, age
matters the most. Here we have the intellectual migration, this
large and diverse group. How to study its American reception,
their own American experience, their achievements and failures,
their adaptation or revolt, and their cultural legacy? It seems
that without a basic generational typology it will be very
confusing to talk about this people experiences and
achievements. For instance, looking at the migr musicians, we
find these two age extremes, on the one side Alexander
Zemlinsky (1871-1942), and on the other Andre Previn (1929- ).
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They both are members of the intellectual migration despite the
58 years span between their births. They cannot be considered
as part of the group without highlighting the many profound
differences between them and what they mean in terms of
immigration experience.
The older members of the group immigrated in their sixties and
seventies like Maurice Maeterlinck a writer from Belgium born
in 1862, Jacques Hadamard a mathematician from France born in
1865, Richard Beer-Hoffmann, a poet and dramatist from Austria
born in 1866, and Arturo Toscanini, the conductor from Italy
born in 1867. But these are rather exceptions because the bulk
of the oldest migration is from the 1870s. On the other end,
the very youngest are represented by people born even in the
1930s who came here as children with their parents absorbing
through them a cultural mixture from the European home and the
American surroundings. As an example, I would like to mention
Werner Gundersheimer born in 1937, scholar, historian and ex
director of the Folger library. As to age, these are the outer-
limits of the intellectual migration.
Some students of the migration may object to the inclusion of
the younger generations within the group. It has been said that
only those who brought their education from Europe belong to
the migration, because the younger ones studied or developed
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their skills in America. This view cannot be favored because
the younger refugees brought with them European experiences
along with the basic emigration experience plus their personal
qualities, besides most of the time they came with their family
group who prolonged in America the influence of their foreign
culture. All these factors marked them out as members of this
migration.
As to the time of the migration itself we will include those
coming to America from 1933 up to the end of the war in 1945.
However, I make an exception for people that were already here
in 1933 (a short stay) and decided not to return to Europe
during the mentioned period. We would like to repeat here
Robert Boyers's preface words from his compilation of articles
on the intellectual migration. He said that he included
"figures who never even emigrated, for one reason or another,
but who are nonetheless significantly a part of the migr
generation ... [like] ... Walter Benjamin and Karl Kraus."
Kraus is undoubtdly an exaggeration but as to Benjamin you may
say that his writings migrated to America with the Frankfurt
School. Thus, this paper will include individuals who are not
part of the group but should be included because of their
cultural significance and influence on the migration. (12)
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Without going deeper into generational theory what is
significant for our classificatory purpose is the general
outlook, attitudes, habits and style provided by the
generational imprint. Thus, Thomas Mann's Weltschauung is
markedly different from that of, for instance, Erich M.
Remarque, Hannah Arendt, or Peter Gay.
It has been a regular and in some way justified objection to
generational theory that it is imprecise because there is no
agreement as to the boundaries between the generations and
their lengths. Here we preferred to design the generational
categories within precise dates even though we realized that
valid differences may be pointed out. Our view is specific to
the period, the place, and the individuals and it is
unconcerned with establishing a full-strength theory. It must
be understood that there are exceptions which hopefully will
confirm the rule. Moreover, each individual case must be looked
at to determine whether his or her place within a specific zone
of dates coincides with his or her formative experiences.
A generation is said to be a group of like-aged individuals who
are commonly imprinted by socio-historical events because they
experienced those events at a similar age. Thus, men who are
born into the same social environment about the same time
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necessarily come under analogous influences, particularly in
their formative years. Mere common location in a generation is
of only potential significance. Contemporaries have to
participate in the same ideas and concepts. Ortega y Gasset
says that a generation is a zone of 15 years during which a
certain form of life (vital sensitivity, climate of opinion)
was predominant. "Practically every society recognizes a
discrete coming-of-age moment (or 'rite of passage') separating
the dependence of youth from the independence of adulthood.
This moment is critical in creating generations; any sharp
contrast between the experiences of youths and rising adults
may fix important differences in peer personality that last a
lifetime."
Eckstein and Barberia pointed out that cohorts that differ in
their pre-immigration backgrounds can be expected to differ, in
certain respects, in their post-immigration experience. (13)
Hazlett also remarks that the generational imprint is part of
the culturally imposed identity (like that pertaining to women
or minorities). (14) For Pilcher the notion of generations
provides a way to understanding differences between age-groups,
and it constitutes also a means of locating individuals and
groups within historical time. These ideas have been emphasized
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by previous theorists, and evidence of its reliability has been
established. (15)
The sociologists who studied the intellectual migration have
delineated various groups following three statistical
categories: the elder group, an intermediate group, and a
younger group of refugees. Those who in 1933 were older than 45
integrated the elder group (born before 1888). The intermediate
group was formed by those which in 1933 were between 44 and 16
years of age (born between 1889 and 1917). Finally, those 16
years of age and younger at the time of emigration were within
the younger group (born after 1917). (16) These groupings may
satisfy the sociologists perspective, but fall short of the
actual historical generations represented within the migration.
The intermediate group is too large and includes individuals
pertaining to at least two different generations. These
refugees were born after 1888 but before 1917, a span of 29
years including individuals as diverse as Werner Jaeger, the
Classic German Philologist born in 1888, and Peter Drucker, the
Austrian management consultant and educator born in 1908.
Jaeger passed away in 1961, but Drucker in 2005. It is obvious
that these two individuals European experiences made them
members of different generations. The intermediate group then
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includes two different generations, one is the very-much-
analyzed war generation and the other may be designated as the
Weimar generation. This last designation has the disadvantage
of making sense only for the Germans, but not for the other
European countries. However, I'll use it because the Central
European culture at that time was defined mainly by German
culture which was in many ways hegemonic. Besides, most of the
migrs were from Germany and Austria. Another example of the
distinction may be found in Joseph Wechsberg when he describes
the 1914 family's farewell to his father going to war.
Wechsberg was born in 1907 and belongs to the Weimar generation
and his father instead died in WWI. (17)
These generations are to be defined by historical events of the
period spanning from the 1870s to the 1930s. This sixty-year
period begins with the Franco-Prussian war and ends with World
War II, and the main historical event of the period is World
War I. The members of the intellectual migration whose
formative years coincided with World War I are said to belong
to the War generation which is by itself a well-established
concept. (18) All European countries, except Britain, required
compulsory military service for its young men. In Germany, all
able bodied men between the ages of 17 and 45, were liable for
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military service (19).
Therefore, for the purposes of this typology, the war
generation would be integrated by those born from 1889 to 1900.
A Central European born in 1889 would have been 25 in 1914 and
then liable for military service within his formative years,
and, by the same token, an individual born in 1897 would have
been 17 in 1914 and thus subject to the rigors of the war
during his formative years. It should be noted that Central
Europeans who were older than 25 during the war also
experienced it because they were drafted anyway, but most of
them served in non-combat positions. Thus, their experiences
have a different relevance because they were already passed
their formative years. Nonetheless, every personal history must
be considered because the war experience was not the same for
everybody, and even the war generation may be subdivided
depending on the year the person began his military service.
(20)
Thus, being the war generation a well-established concept, the
other generations may be defined preceding or following it.
People born before 1888 should necessarily belong to a previous
generation even though they may have served in the Great War.
They were formed in the 19th century and did not possess the
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mind set, expectations and goals of the war generation.
By the same token, people who were too young to serve in the
war had formative experiences acquired in the post-war social
and political upheavals, a very different existential
environment. The mental imprint of this group must necessarily
be markedly diverse from the war generation. Finally, a
different generation develops in a Europe at the mercy of the
Nazi dictatorship, and, those who got the imprinting at that
time must be grouped in a separate generation. It has been
called the younger generation by several scholars. (21)
Two well-respected scholars distinguished between pre-war
generations. Thus, Detlev J.K. Peukert founded two generations
previous to the war generation. They are the Wilhelmine
generation, contemporaries of Wilhelm II born between 1847 and
1869, and the Grunderzeit generation of those born in the
decade of the establishment of the Reich, between 1870 and 1879.
Then, Peukert lists the Wartime generation of those born in the
1880s and 1890s who experienced military service during the
Great War. (22) The other scholar is Wolfgang Schivelbusch who
analyzed the Wilhelmine generation, those born between 1853 and
1865, and said that they experienced the founding of the German
empire and were a classic "post-heroic" generation of
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inheritors (victors' sons, "epigones" and "literati"). (23)
Even though these two elaborations are well-thought and
compelling they were built for different purposes and do not
consider the intellectual migration. I will use the designation
"Wilhelmine generation" to include all the refugees born before
1888, leaving those born between 1888 and 1900 within the War
generation. The migration includes only a few members born in
the 1860s minimizing in this way the need to halve this group,
however, when necessary, I will take into account the
distinctions pointed out by Peukert and Schivelbusch between
the generations of those borne before or after 1865.
Additionally, in the case of the war generation, some scholars
distinguish between sub-generations because the German draft
covered men within 17 and 45. Thus, some distinguish between
"two groups: those who were mature men in 1914 and who
experienced the war as an interruption of their peacetime
activities; and those born between 1885 and 1900, for whom the
war was an introduction to life and adventure.(24) This is a
distinction which can be clearly identified in the case of
Ludwig Bendix who served in his late 30s and even Paul Tillich
serving during his late 20s. Additionally, the refugees
themselves distinguished between those drafted at the beginning
of the war in 1914 from those incorporated later; a case in
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point is Zuckmayer who placed Remarque and his age group in a
generation separate from his. Again, I will keep in mind these
distinctions whenever appropriate. (25)
Walter Laqueur, a refugee scholar himself, has recently
published "Generation Exodus" an account of the so-called
younger generation of emigrants. He said in the preface that
his is a first attempt to sketch the portrait of a generation,
the young people from Germany and Austria who were forced to
emigrate after the Nazis went into power, and that this was the
cohort of those born, roughly speaking, between 1914 and 1928.
Laqueur (1921- ) himself belongs to this generation which will
be called the "younger generation" to followed the terminology
used by other scholars. (26)
Now, in between the "War generation" and the "Younger
generation" we have those born between 1901 and 1916 which
constitute a separate and definite generation, the "Weimar
generation" imprinted in their adolescence by the chaos created
after Germany's defeat (revolution of 1919), death caused by
the Pandemic Influenza of 1918-1919, economic distress caused
by the German hyper-inflation of 1921-1923, and in general the
cultural turmoil of post-war Central Europe.
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It seems possible to add another generation after Laqueur's
generation exodus or Fermi's young generation, because some
members of the migration born after 1928 were imprinted by the
migration itself, and, of course, by the American culture.
However, similarly to the Wilhelmine generation including
individuals born in the 1860s, we are including in the younger
generation figures like Andre Previn (1929- ), Leo Spitzer
(1939- ), etc. who were born after 1928. Therefore, in
summary, the lineup of generations goes like this:
Wilhelmine Generation (born before 1888)
War Generation (bornfrom 1889 to 1900)
Weimar Generation (bornfrom 1901 to 1917)
Younger Generation (bornafter 1918)
Examples fitting each category are Thomas Mann born in 1875 for
the older group; Carl Zuckmayer born in 1897 for the war
generation; Hannah Arendt born in 1906 for the Weimar
generation; and Peter Gay born in 1923 for the younger refugees.
This classification of the intellectual migration in four
groupings will allow us to draw conclusions and establish
connections among them illuminating thus many aspects of their
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migration experience.
Wilhelmine Generation
You [Erich Kahler] have given an example of fortitude that
honorably differs from the complete incompetence of most refugee
intellectuals faced with their new situation. None of them, I have
the impression, is prepared to learn anything new; rather they all
want to go on as they did in times now buried, and expect roasted
squabs to fly into their mouths. T.Mann to E. Kahler, 05/25/1941
This generation was formed during the Wilhelmian Empire and
before, including then those emigrants born up to 1888. They
are those too old to fight in the First World War, even though
they might have served anyway in a non-combatant capacity. Hans
Jaeger, a scholar of generations, provides an example of
generational phenomena found in Wilhelmine Germany between 1914
and 1918 saying that "in 1914, we find in Germany a society
which bears the imprint of the Wilhelmine Empire ... among
older people. A widespread economic and social expansion, an
authoritarian state and the education of subjects, a display of
power with respect to foreign policy... The Wilhelmine
lifestyle had left such a deep imprint on the German people
because of its long duration." (27)
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Thomas Mann (1875-1955) in his 1950 article entitled The Years
of My Life called this generation the Old Timers, and spoke of
a cultural advantage which the man born in 1875 possessed over
those born straight into the post-bourgeois world. He said
that the old timers still witnessed a form of opposition to
liberalism and rationalism that itself abided by the loftiest
tenets of culture, a darkling variety of humanism, as it were,
a pessimism that wrote the language of our great humanistic
epoch, its proud misanthropy never denying respect for ideas,
for the higher vocation, for the dignity of man. Peter Gay
illustrates the theme of the Gospel of Work with Thomas Manns
fathers example extolling in his will the virtues of work.
These observations confirm Manns generational outlook. (28)
Zweig in his homage to Ludwig for his 50th birthday said that
for that whole generation, for all of us who began our lives
before the War in the old forms that had once been appropriate,
the world upheaval also signified an inner upheaval. He
recognized that even though they belonged to the Wilhelmine
generation, WWI shook them up and made them understand the
teaching of events. (29)
Another example of this generation is Bruno Walter (1876-1962)
the notable conductor whose autobiography describes the
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spiritual attitude of those times. Mann was 39 at the time of
WWI, and Walter 38, and the war did not alter the basic outlook
and habits of these men. Neither one of them, of course, served
in the war even though the German draft extended to age 45. (30)
H. Stuart Hughes, one of the historians of the migration,
places the German intellectual of the Wilhelminian era in a
peculiarly ambiguous relationship to his own political and
social milieu. For him the polarity between the attractions of
Berlin and those of the southwest was paralleled by a tension
between political acceptance and opposition. (31) They were too
old to fight in WWI. However, some of them like Ludwig Bendix
(1877-1954), Reinhards father, served as a soldier in the home
guard continuing nonetheless his legal practice and his
writings. Men of this generation who were born before 1888
stood outside the 20th centurys zone of influence.
Gay in Weimar Culture says that Gropius (1883-1969) developed
his ideas during the Empire, the war gave them political
direction, and they found open expression in the revolution.(32)
Some of the migrs may seem to belong chronologically to one
generation but their crucial experiences placed them in another.
H. Stuart Hughes gives the example of Karl Mannheim (1893-1947)
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saying that he was eleven years younger that Cesare Borgese
(1882-1952), but, Mannheim, in terms of historical experience
was a member of the same generation than Borgese. Both had come
to intellectual maturity before WWI; and both had their base
point in the prewar sense of economic security and social
deference that the cultivated had enjoyed. Hughes also
contrasted the smaller age gap that separated Mannheim from
Erich Fromm, and assert that however, it marked a real
psychological watershed. Born in 1900, Fromm belonged to the
generation that went through the war as adolescents and whose
decisive intellectual encounters were to occur in the tormented
early years of the 1920s. (33)
Heinrich Mann brings up the images of his youth in Bismarckian
Germany [indicating that they] reflect not merely nostalgia,
but rather present an ideal period of individual development, a
time whose stability was inextricably linked to the policies of
Bismarck: he not only maintained peace from 1875-1890, but he
strengthened it. Thanks to the peace Bismarck was able to
continue another twenty-five years in spite of arrogance and
ill will. Reflecting upon his youth, Mann perceives in this
enduring peace the basis for the continuity of individual
development: In order for a young person to develop in a
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coherent fashion, to develop, to use an expression of the 19th
century, historically, he has to believe that the course of his
life is anchored in a logical scheme of things, which ceases if
there is war. Wars are the violent rupture in a life which had
otherwise been connected. (34) Perhaps an even sharper
description of that era is found in Stefan Zweigs
autobiography (1881-1942). (35)
Another revealing case is that of Paul Tillich, the theologian
and philosopher born in 1886 who actually belongs to this
generation. However, he was 28 at the time of WWI and served
the four years of the war as a chaplain. His war experience was
very intense and prolonged enough to leave him shaken and
stricken, but he was already formed as an individual and as a
member of the Wilhelminian generation. His personality was
formed in the 1890s and he is clearly a man of the 19th century.
Tillich himself expounded frequently on the idea of his
existence being on a boundary, perhaps he was also in a
boundary as to pertaining to two generations the Whilhelminian
and also the war generation. "In a sermon delivered in 1955,
Tillich confessed to a recognition that the refugees and the
tradition they represented constituted 'a generation of the
end.' He and his compatriots had lost, by virtue of their
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attachment to a culture that bred mass destruction and death,
the ability to survive spiritually in the atmosphere of hope
that he had identified as uniquely American. ... He and his
generation could only be 'symbols of death,' participants in an
ending." (36)
The notion that this generation had reached the end of its road
at the time of WWII was repeatedly communicated by Stefan Zweig
to his friends. In New York, when Zuckmayer told him that they
should live to be 90 or 100 to see decent times again, Zweig
answered that "those will never come again to us .. we shall be
homeless ... What is the sense of living on as one's own shadow?
We are ghosts or memories ... However the war may turn out a
world is coming in which we don't belong." (37)
This generation passed away in the forties, fifties and sixties,
and it made up about 20% of the entire IM (38). The oldest
member of the cohort would be Maeterlinck born in 1861 and the
youngest born in 1888. The median age is represented by those
born in 1875 like Thomas Mann. Taking him as an example the
formative years span from 1892 (17 years old) and 1900 (25
years old).
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War Generation (1889 to 1900)
A thorough description and analysis of this conspicuous
European generation was made by Robert Wohl in his definitive
The Generation of 1914 (1979). The members of this generation
are those born between 1889 and 1900 whether or not they served
in the war. (39) Some of them reached influential positions
before the war. Wohl says that to understand this generation,
chronological limits have to be abandoned, and the zone of
dates replaced by a magnetic field (experiential field as a
common frame of reference) at the center of which lies an
experience or a series of experiences. The war is undoubtedly
the defining experience. The distinction between the war
generation and the preceding Wilhelmine generation is given by
"different structures of sensibility, different conceptions
about the relation between self and culture that had developed
during the First World War." (40)
They viewed themselves as a distinct generation whose youth
coincided with the opening of the twentieth century and their
lives were then bifurcated. The experiences of this generation
were not only the experiences during the war but also those
acquired growing up and formulating their first ideas in a
world framed by two dates 1900 and 1914, their vital horizon.
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(41) It has been said that this generation coalesced around the
cultural atmosphere created by the decadence of the old world,
the world of their parents, the world of the 19th century that
reached its imperial pinnacle "between the 1850s and 1911 [when]
the Europeans carved up into colonies almost the entire
underdeveloped world. According to this view Europe began
cultural disintegration by 1900; and reached its paroxistic
culmination with the war experience." (42)
The image devised by this generation before the war was a
reversal of the qualities that they disliked or feared in the
generation of their parents. They considered themselves as
doers while saw their fathers as thinkers; they sought
assurance in a calm faith while their elders floundered in
moral relativism; and they felt strong and vital while there
parents had been weak and indecisive. (43) Laura Fermi put
this generation between 1890 and 1910.(44)
To this cohort belongs Karl Wittfogel, the sinologist, born in
1896, a member of the German Youth movement before the war, and
politically active during the Weimar period. Others members are
Leo Lowenthal, the sociologist, born in 1900, Kurt Lewin, the
psychologist, born in 1890, Hans Kohn, the historian, born in
1891, and Herbert Marcuse, the philosopher, born in 1898, all
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of them served in WWI. Wohl says that those who belonged to
the war generation are the young who went to war, or managed
to avoid it, and afterwards found themselves confronted with
and spurred into action by the various forms of debris that the
war left behind. Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968) and Karl Mannheim
(1893-1947) are also members of this age group.
Also called Front Generation, it is described as integrated
by those born between 1892-1897 (others said, those born
between 1890-1900). They are those who had borne WWIs brunt in
the trenches. In general, men born before 1888 stood outside
the twentieth centurys zone of influence. (45)
Zuckmayer in his autobiography lists the influences that
affected his generation, and also distinguishes between the
generations of volunteers who went to war in August 1914 from
the next generation one year and a half or two younger who went
to war the next year or so. He said that Remarque belonged to
that generation and that they did not share the excitement and
the enthusiasm of the volunteer generation. He also discusses
the exhilaration felt by most of the Germans in 1914.(46)
Another landmark experience for this generation and the next
must have been the influenza epidemic of 1918 which at the end
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of the Great War inaugurated for many their formative period.
It has been said that this epidemic "affected the course of
history and was a terrifying presence at the end of [the
war]. ... Children were orphaned, families destroyed. Some who
lived through it said it was so horrible that they would not
even talk about it. Others tried to put it behind them as
another wartime nightmare, somehow conflating it with the
horrors of trench warfare and mustard gas. ... It swept the
globe in months, ending when the war did." (47)
An Austrian member of this generation is Joseph Roth (1894-1939)
who was 18 at the outset of the war. He wrote: "My strongest
experience was the war and the fall of my fatherland, the only
one I ever had: the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy." (48) The name
of this generation with the addition of the word "empire" has
been used to define the following generation. (49)
Weimar Generation (1901-1917)
They were those too young to fight in the First World War who
came of age during the tumultuous years caused by war and defeat
maturing during the post-war crisis and witnessing the Weimar
instability and the inflation. Historian George L. Mosse,
himself a German refugee, in a review of Henry Pachter's Weimar
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Etudes, analyzed and discussed the intellectual assumptions and
roots of the Weimar generation. Mosse pertains to the younger
generations those who were formed by the triumph of fascism
unlike Pachter whose formative years took place during the
Weimar period. So, Mosse said that "the Weimar generation was
essentially anti-historical and optimistic about man, while that
which grew to maturity in the 1930s was deeply conscious of
historical connections, crushed by the weight of history gone
wrong."(50)
Kay Schiller says that Paul Oskar Kristeller (1905-1999)
belonged to the generation of Germans between 1900 and 1910,
wich was marked by its generally low chances on the
oversubscribed German academic market of the mid 1920s. (51)
Most of the members of this generation have already passed away.
(52) It was a truly post-war generation. As Peter Gay says, the
Republic was born in defeat, lived in turmoil, and died in
disaster. (53) Mommsen said that the dominant generational
experience of this group was the collapse of the prewar
bourgeois social order, and also that, for this generation, war,
revolution, and inflation were traumatic experiences. Reulecke
says that "many young people from the generation born after
1901 (i.e. the cohort not sent to the front, conscription
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extending only as far as the birth-year 1901) reacted with
bitterness to the hardships they were suffering and condensed
their frustration into the phrase 'the war is our parents.'" One
of the main representatives of this generation is Hannah Arendt
born in 1906. Whitfield says that "Arendt was supremely a
product of Weimar culture."(54)
It includes those born between 1901 and 1917. In this group we
find T. Adorno and B. Bettelheim both born in 1903. It is
symptomatic that during the 1960s Bettelheim and Arendt both
participated in the Eichmann controversy.(55). Additionally, in
his Foreword to Krohns book, Vidich says that, in the 1960s,
Arendt collated and synthesized the work done by the original
generation in the New School. He implicitly defined the
original generation as that composed by the two categories here
designated as Wilhelmine and the War generation (56). It was
also called War Youth Generation (born between 1900 and 1910,
those who were too young to be called to serve in WWI but old
enough to respond consciously to those events. Perhaps the
Weimar generation may be subdivided in two sub-generations, one
covering those born between 1900-1910 and one covering 1910-
1920, pushing then the younger generation three years ahead.
Franz Neumann born in 1900 did military service at the end of
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WWI receiving his first ideological education in the Soldiers
councils which sprang up in the wake of the armistice of 1918.
Then he became a labor lawyer (57).
Claudia Althaus, elaborating on the trajectory of Arendts
thought, characterizes her generation as that of the inter-war
Prussian Jews, and indicated that the formative experience that
informs Arendts work bound the consciousness of this
generation- is that of a break in tradition expressed by the
sense of wordlessness and wandering imposed on Jews; the horror
of the Holocaust; and the loss of any reliability of either
tradition or metaphysics as standards of judgment (58).
Wohl talks about the class of 1902, as a transitional
generation, followed in turn by those born after 1910, who are
perceived to be essentially different from that transitional
generation. This split would also recognize a distinction
within the Weimar generation. Moreover, even Laqueur says that
there was a tremendous difference between even the youngest of
the older refugees, say those born around 1910 and those ten
years younger. "The older generation [and I think he includes
here the Wilhelmine, the War, and the Weimar generations]
suffered because America was not Europe, but the younger
refugees were less deeply rooted in Europe and more adaptable.
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(59).
A witness of the Weimar years in his autobiographical
recollections indicates that "Hitler appealed to the two great
experiences that had marked the younger generation": the "great
war game" of 1914-18 and the "triumphal anarchic looting" of
the 1923 inflation. In this twin appeal laid, in essence, the
Nazis' foreign and domestic policies. (60) Hitler may very well
considered the Weimar generation as "his younger generation",
because he himself was a member of the war generation, having
been born in 1889 he belonged to the early veterans of the war
generation.
Younger generation
It is called generation exodus by Lacqueur, and includes those
who emigrated, and got their training in America. They were
born between 1917 and 1928 and did not embraced the nationwide
mobilization of 1933 because mainly they belonged to the
victimized group (Jews) or, if they didn't, because they
abhorred of the nature of the new regime (61).
L. Fermi says that the youngest among those who left Europe in
1940 or 1941 were born close to the opening of the twenties.
Herbert Strauss was born in 1918, and Walter Laqueur in 1921.
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Reinhard Bendix (1916-1991) distinguishes between the older and
the younger generation including in the former the Wilhelmine,
the War, and the Weimar generations. The significance he
assigns to the distinction is that the older generation never
fully immigrated, in other words, they did not assimilated or
acculturated. In Bendixs autobiography From Berlin to
Berkeley, it can be found the drama of his fathers (Ludwig,
1877-1954) naivet, hardheadness, suffering and fastidiousness
concerning his emigration. Even though Bendix was born in 1916,
as a result of his own self-conscious immigrating identity, he
may be included within the younger category (62).
All the members of the intellectual migration had two strains
in their personality, one was the cultural imprint of their
foreign birth and the other, as part of the latter, was the
generational imprint of his or her European time. It goes
without saying that the former which is not the base of this
classification is found in all the cohorts while the latter
adds a slighter strain for the younger generations. (63)
In his Foreword to Krohns book, Vidich describes this
generation as the youthful generation of migrs such as Lewis
Coser (1913-2003) and Herbert Gans (1927- ) who arrived in
the United States in the late thirties or immediately after the
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war tended with few exceptions to cut themselves off from their
German origins and sought to Americanize themselves. Apart from
a few young migrs such as Werner Marx (1910-1994), Peter
Berger (1929- ), Brigitte Berger , Beate Salz, and Thomas
Luckmann (1927- ) who, by studying at the Graduate Faculty
immediately after the war, were exposed to the older tradition
of thought, the new generation of German students confronted a
fractured intellectual culture. For them, studying American
sources was difficult to resist. (64)
Fritz Stern (1926- ) an historian, identifies himself as
belonging to the postwar generation.(65) Laqueur says that even
though he treated this younger generation as a whole, it is
necessary to trace a fundamental dividing line between those
born between 1914 and 1922, and those born between 1923 and
1928. The reason for this is that the latter came to America to
incorporate themselves to the education system which was the
law of the land unlike the former that came to work and help
their families.(66) Some of the refugees felt that clinging to
the German language was an existential necessity because it
preserved their identity; however, the great majority of the
refugees did not share this attitude. For them the German
language was neither home nor emotional pillar.(67)
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Laqueur says that he belongs to the last generation of Jews
with conscious memories of growing up in Weimar Germany and
under the Nazis, adding that a great many of the generation
before them have put their recollections on paper, but very few
of his generation had done so. And he believes that the reason
for that discrepancy is obvious: his generation did not root
deeply in their country of origin, as they grew they tended to
look forward rather than backward. Their interest in Germany
faded, they used their native language infrequently, they
became absorbed in the society and culture of their new homes
(68).
One of the very young members of this group is Andre Previn
born in 1929 who came to America and got established in L.A. in
1938. He came as an eleven-year-old youngster. His father was a
German lawyer who did not know English and was unable to take
the California bar. Another is Mike Nichols born in 1931. We
should also mention Werner Gundersheimer born in 1937.
My aim in proposing this classification is to make more
intelligible and therefore easier the handling of the large
mass of emigres. We know that most of them were Jews, and came
from Germany and Austria. We will also try to classify them by
profession or scholarly specialty, however, the generational
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criteria seems to us to be no only essential but also very
telling at the time of evaluating their views of America.
Occupational Approach
The percentage of intellectual professional and artists within
the intellectual migration has been calculated in about 8.5% of
the total number of migrs clever enough, or lucky enough to
have reached America during the 1930s and early 1940s. The
professional pursuits, intellectual endeavors, and/or artistic
merits of these people were as diverse as their experiences.
The following is an alphabetical non-exhaustive listing of
their occupations with references to literary works focused on
that specific occupation. These references are given as
bibliographical examples.
Actors and actresses (performing arts)
Joseph Horowitz, Artistsin Exile, New York: HarperCollins,
2008.
Agriculturalists
Rhonda F. Levine, Class, Networks,and Identity. Replanting
Jewish Livesfrom Nazi Germany to Rural New York, Lanham,
Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001
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Architects
TomWolfe, From Bauhaustoour House, New York: Bantam
Books, 1981.
Peter Hahn, "Bauhausin Exile," Exiles+Emigres. The Flight
of European Artistsfrom Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof
Art, 1997,pgs. 210-223
Franz Schulze, "The Bauhaus Architectsandthe Riseof
Modernisminthe United States," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof
European Artists from Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof
Art, 1997,pgs. 224-234
KathleenJames, "Changingthe Agenda: from German Bauhaus
modernismto U.S.internationalism," (Vander Rohe, Gropius,
and Breuer) Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof European Artistsfrom
Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art, 1997,pgs. 235-252
KathleenJames-Chakraborty,ed.,Bauhaus Culture From
Weimar to the Cold War, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2006.
Art historians
Erwin Panofsky, Meaninginthe Visual Arts, Phoenix:
Universityof Chicago Press, 1982
Karen Michels, "Transferand Transformation: the German
periodoin Americanarthistory," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof
European Artistsfrom Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof
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Art, 1997,pgs. 304-316
Kevin Parker, "Arthistoryandexile: Richard Krautheimer
and Erwin Panofsky," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof European
Artistsfrom Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art, 1997,
pgs. 317-325
Artists
Stephanie Barron & Sabine Eckmenn,ed., Los Angeles County
Museumof Art, Exile & Emigres: The Flightof European Artists
from Hitler, 1997
Chemists
Ute Deichmann, "The ExpulsionofJewish Chemists &
Biochemistsfrom Academia In Nazi Germany", Perspectiveson
Science, 7.1 (1999) 1-86.
P. Thomas Carroll,Immigrants in American Chemistry,
Jarrell Jackman & Carla M. Borden, ed., The Muses Flee Hitler
Cultural Transfer and Adaptation, 1930-2945, Washington D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983, pgs. 189-203.
Cinematographers
Gene D. Phillips, Exilesin Hollywood: major Europeanfilm
directorsin America, Danvers, Mass. Associated University
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Presses, 1998
John Baxter, The Hollywood Exiles, New York: Taplinger
Publisher, 1976.
DavidWallace, Exilesin Hollywood, Pompton Plains, New
Jersey: Limelight Editions, 2006.
Classicists
William M. Calder, III, "The Refugee Classical Scholarsin
the USA: An Evaluationoftheir Contribution," Illinois
Classical Studies,vol. 17.1 (Spring 1992): 153-173.
Communication Researchers
Stefanie Averbeck, The Post-1933 Emigration of
Communication Researchers from Germany, European Journal of
Communication,vol. 16 (4): 451-475.
Comparative Politics
Gerhard Loewenberg, The Influence of European migr
Scholars on Comparative Politics, 1925-1965, American
Political Science Review,vol. 100, No. 4 (November 2006).597-
604.
Composers
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Michael H. Kater, "Composersofthe Nazi Era," N.Y.: Oxford
UP 2000.
Reinhold Brinkmann & ChristophWolff,ed.,Driven into
Paradise: The Musical Migration from Nazi Germany to the United
States, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Conductors
PaulJackson, "Maestrosofthe Storm. How European
Conductors Found Refugeatthe Met," Opera News,July 1995, 36.
Dermatologists
S. Eppinger,etal.,The Emigrationof GermanysJewish
Dermatologistsinthe Periodof National Socialism,"Journalof
the European Academyof Dermatologyand Venereology (2003)17,
525-530.
Economists
Keith Tribe, "German migr Economists and the
Internationalisation of Economics," The Economic Journal, 111
(November 2001): 740-746.
F. M. Scherer, The Emigration of German-Speaking
Economistsafter 1933,Journalof Economic Literature,vol. 38,
No. 3 (Sept 2000), 614-626.
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Engineers
D.S. Halacy, Jr., Father of Supersonic Flight. Theodor von
Karman, N.Y.: Messnar, 1965.
Film Producers
Jan-Christopher Horak, "German Exile Cinema, 1933-1950,"
Film History, 8 (4) 1996, 373-389.
Germanists
Mark M. Anderson, "The Silent Generation?Jewish Refugee
Students,Germanistik,and Columbia University," The Germanic
Review,Win 2003, 78, No. 1,pg. 20-38
Guy Stern, "TheWaywewere: Reminiscencesof Columbia's
German Department," The Germanic Review,Win 2003, 78, No. 1,
pg. 13-19
Jeffrey M. Peck, "Postcript: dedicationtoaninfluential
generationof Germanists: thetransferofknowledgefrom German
toJewsin American German Studies," German Politicsand
Society, 23.1 (Spring 2005) pg. 189
Historians
Hartmut LehmannandJamesJ. Sheehan, An Interrupted Past.
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German-Speaking Refugee Historiansinthe United Statesafter
1933, GHI, Cambridge UP, 1991
Catherine Epstein, A Past Renewed: A Catalogof German-
Speaking Refugee Historiansinthe United Statesafter 1933,
German Historical Institute: Cambridge UP 1993
Journalists
Michael Groth, "The Roadto New York: The Emigrationof
BerlinJournalists, 1933-1945 (Germany, United States)," Diss.
Univ.of Iowa, 1984, AAT8407746.
Lawyers
Ugo Mattei, Review of The Reception of Continental Ideas in
the Common Law World, 1820-1920 by Mathias Reimann, and Der
Einfluss deutscher Emigranten auf die Rechtsentwicklung in
den USA und in Deutschland by Marcus Lutter, Ernst C.
Stiefel, and Michael H. Hoeflich; The American Journal of
Comparative Law, vol. 42, No. 1, (Winter, 1994), pp. 195-218.
John H. Langbein, The Influence of Comparative Procedure in
the U.S., The American Journal of Comparative Law, vol. 43,
No. 4 (Autumm 1995): 545-554.
Librarians
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Hildegard Muller, "German Librariansin Exilein Turkey,
1933-1945," Librariesand Culture,vol. 33, No. 3, Summer 1998,
294-305.
Mathematicians
Nathan Reingold, (Refugee Mathematiciansinthe United
Statesof America, 1933-1941: Receptionand Reaction,( Annals
of Science, 38 (1981): 313-338.
Musicians
Reinhold Brinkmann & ChristophWolff,ed., Driveninto
Paradise. The Musical Migrationfrom Nazi Germanytothe United
States, U.of Chicago P., 1999
Painters
Barbara Copeland Buenger, "Antifascismor Autonomous Art?
Max Beckmann,Wassily Kandisnsky,John Heartfield,and Kurt
Schwitters," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof European Artists
from Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art, 1997,pgs. 57-85
Keith Holz, "Antifascismor Autonomous Art? Oskar
Kokoschka," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof European Artists
from Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art, 1997,pgs. 86-95
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Photographers
Deborah Irmas, "Experiencingthe NewWorld: Andreas
Feininger, Andre Kertesz," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof
European Artistsfrom Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art,
1997,pgs. 195-209
Psiquiatrists
Sanford Gifford, "Emigre Analystsin Boston, 1930-1940,"
Int Forum Psychoanalisis 12:164-172 (2003).
Physicians
Alfred E. Cohn, "Exiled Physiciansinthe United States",
The American Scholar, Summ 1943, 352.
Publishers and editors
Leon Sokoloff, "Refugees from Nazism and he biomedical
publishing industry," Studies in History and Philosophy of
Biologicaland Biomedical Sciences, 33 (2002)315-324.
Richard Abel & Gordon Graham,ed., Immigrant Publishers The
Impact of Expatriates in Britain and America, New Brunswick,
NewJersey: Transaction Publishers, 2009.
Sculptors
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Matthew Affron, "Construinga NewJewish Identity.Jacques
Lipchitzin New York,1941-45," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof
European Artistsfrom Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art,
1997pgs. 120-125.
Sinologists
Martin Kern, The Emigrationof German Sinologists 1933-
1945: Notesonthe Historyand Historiographyof Chinese
Studies, TheJournalofthe American Oriental Society,
10/1/1998.
Social Scientists
Irving Louis Horowitz, "Betweenthe Charybdisof Capitalism
andhe Scyllaof Communism: The Emigrationof German Social
Scientists, 1933-1945," 11 Social Science History No. 2 (Summer
1987), 113-138.
Social Workers
Carel Sternberg, IRC Obituary,Jan 17, 2003
Writers
Dagmar C.G. Lorenz, "JewishWomen Authorsandthe Exile
Experience: Claire Goll, Veza Canetti, Else Lasker-Schuler,
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Nelly Sachs, Cordelia Edvardson," German Lifeand Letters 51:2,
April 1998.
Egbert Krispyn, Anti-NaziWritersin Exile, Athens: U.of
Georgia P., 1978.
Wolfgang Elfe,James Hardin,and Gunther Holst,ed., The
Fortunesof GermanWritersin America: Studiesin Literary
Reception, Columbia: U.of South Carolina P., 1992.
National Approach
This approach seems to lose significance because most of the
refugees were from Germany and those from Austria may even be
included in the majority group because of the similarity of
cultural influences. However, distinctions should be made due
to the intermittent nature of the migration and the country
conditions overtime from 1933 to 1945. It is also true that the
overwhelming majority of the migrants got their basic imprint
from the Central European culture. Nonetheless, distinctions
should be made for each nationality, the Spaniards, the French,
the Italians, the Polish, the Russians, the Hungarians, the
Bulgarians, the Romanians, the Checks, the Hollanders, the
Belgium, the Finns, the Norwegians, and the Danes. Laura Fermi,
one of the earliest students of the migration, dedicated
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chapter five of her book to analyze the refugees national
origins. Some book-length studies are dedicated to specific
nationalities.
Once you go to each nationality it is not just the figure of
the individual exile that counts, on the contrary your are
opening a new world and end up deepening your research into the
specific countrys 20th century history, its relationship with
the U.S., etc.
FRANCE
The characteristics of the French migration are: (1)
relatively few number of refugees compared with other
nationalities; (2) most of the refugees returned to France at
the end of the war; and (3) they were not enemy aliens but
citizens of an allied country.
ColinW Nettelbeck,Forever French, New York: Berg, 1991.
Jeffrey Mehlman,migr New York, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
UP, 2000
Patrick Wilcken, Claude Levi-Strauss. The Poet in the
Laboratory, New York: Penguin Press, 2010. [Chapter 4: Exile,
pg. 115].
Richard Preston Unsworth,A French Connection, in Peter I.
Rose ed., The Dispossessed, Amherst: U. of Massachusetts P.,
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2005, pg. 157.
Christopher Benfey & Karen Remmler, ed., Artists,
Intellectualas, and World War II. The Pontigny Encounters at
Mount Holyoke College, 1942-1944, Boston: Univ. of
Massachusetts Press, 2006.
ITALY
Charles Killinger, Fighting Fascism from the Valley:
Italian Intellectuals in the United States, in Peter I. Rose
ed., The Dispossessed, Amherst: U. of Massachusetts P., 2005, pg.
133.
Laura Fermi,Illustrious Immigrants, Chicago: U. of Chicago
P., 1968, pg. 33-34.
HUNGARY
Kati Marton,The Great Escape, New York: Simon & Schuster,
2006
Tibor Frank, Double Exile: Migrations of Jewish-Hungarian
Professionals through Germany, Bern: Peter Lang, 2009.
SPAIN
RobertaJohnson, Spanish Emigres of 1939 as Professors and
Scholars in the U.S., Hispania, v. 80, No. 2 (May 1997): 265-
267
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Samuel G. Armistead, Americo Castro in the United States
(1937-1969), Hispania, v. 80, No. 2 (May 1997)L 271-274.