The German Novel, 1939-1944

198 Pages·1949·9.518 MB·English

by  H. Boeschenstein

THE GERMAN NOVEL, 1939-1944
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H. BOESCHENSTEIN
The german novel, 1939-1944
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS, 1949
Copyright, Canada, 1949, by University of Toronto Press. Reprinted in paperback 2014
London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press.
Preface
A REPORT such as this could be undertaken with
only one legitimate objective: to sort out, or to begin sorting out,
for the benefit of future historians of literature, the large number
of German literary works which the war has piled up before us.
I have tried to do just this with whatever novels were obtainable,
I hope that by culling the chaff away I have saved others from
wasting their time on it, and that by indicating the content of
the more significant novels, and to a less degree their stylistic
characteristics, I have shortened the task of future research.
Even though keeping this practical aim constantly in mind,
it was yet impossible to go on reading without an intense personal
curiosity. Would these books confirm the widely held conviction
that German publishers brought out nothing but trash during
the last fifteen years? Or would they prove that F. A. Voigt, the
editor of the Nineteenth Century, knew what he was talking
about when, during the war, he hinted that the standard of
literary and critical production in contemporary France and
Germany was remarkably high?1
It appears that Mr. Voigt was right, if the limited scope of
this investigation provides a fair indication also of what was done
in the drama and the lyric, and in the adjacent field of philo-
sophical writing. Now, if the readers of the Nineteenth Century
could be warned, even during the strain of those war years, not
to think too lightly of the current intellectual and spiritual efforts
of their enemies, then surely students of literature should by now
be in a sufficiently intelligent and tolerant mood to accept some
detailed evidence and to begin to scrutinize it objectively.
1"France and Germany," Nineteenth Century And After, CXXXII
(1942), 241-51.
[v]
Needless to say, a more competent judgment, to say nothing
of a final verdict, can only be formed when more reports are
received on the field covered here, and especially on those vast
areas which had to be left out of consideration. Apart from a
few articles on individual books we have, so far, only one brief
outline of recent German writing. In Pens under the Swastika,
W. W. Schütz, in addition to critical and scholarly works, also
examines German books that were published outside of the
Reich.1 Neither of these fields has been considered in the present
survey. As far as the number of novels accessible for investigation
is concerned I seem to have had more luck than Mr. Schütz.
Even so he mentions a few titles which I should have liked to
include had they but come to my attention—a strong reminder
that it will be some time before anything like an exhaustive
survey can be attempted and a more definitive opinion be stated.
The opportunity to acquire and to look into a considerable
volume of German literary works published during the war came
to me in my capacity as Director of the War Prisoners' Aid of
the Y.M.C.A., when I was visiting POW camps in Canada,
from 1943 to 1946. Recollection of those years will always dwell
with a feeling of deep appreciation upon the assistance I re-
ceived from Colonel H. N. Streight, Lt. Colonel H. W. Pearson,
and Mr. Tracy Strong. In facilitating my work in general they
enabled me to devote some of my time to academic interests.
A most direct and more than usual debt of gratitude I owe,
however, to Miss F. G. Halpenny, Assistant Editor of the Uni-
versity of Toronto Press, whose help in the preparation of the
manuscript proved invaluable.
A list of the novels published in Grossdeutschland between
1939 and 1944 which I was able to secure will be found in the
Bibliography, with their dates of publication. Dates of critical
and scholarly works and of novels that appeared prior to 1939
are indicated in the text.
H. B.
!Pens under the Swastika: A Study in Recent German Writing (London,
1946).
[vi]
Contents
1 FORM AND CONTENT 3
2 PEASANT LIFE 15
3 PROLETARIAN LIFE 23
4 MEDICINE 30
5 ART 44
6 EDUCATION 62
7 FOREIGN COUNTRIES 88
8 HISTORY 103
9 FUNDAMENTAL MOODS 133
10 ENTERTAINMENT 148
11 THE WESTERN TRADITION 153
BIBLIOGRAPHY 174
INDEX OF AUTHORS 187
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THE GERMAN NOVEL, 1939-1944