CULTURAL HISTORY AND LITERARY IMAGINATION This book provides a view of literary life under the Nazis, highlighting • Guy Tourlamain the ambiguities, rivalries and conflicts that determined the cultural climate of that period and beyond. Focusing on a group of writers – in particular, Hans Grimm, Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer, Wilhelm Schäfer, Emil Strauß, Börries Freiherr von Münchhausen and Rudolf Binding – it examines the continuities in völkisch-nationalist thought in Germany from c.1890 into the post-war period and the ways in which völkisch-nationalists identified themselves in opposition to four successive German regimes: the Kaiserreich, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the Federal Republic. Although their work Völkisch predated Hitler’s National Socialist movement, their contribution to preparing the cultural climate for the rise of Nazism ensured them continued prominence in the Third Reich. Those who survived into the post-war era continued to represent the völkisch-nationalist worldview in the West German public sphere, opposing both Socialism and National Writers the Soviet and liberal-democratic models for Germany’s future. While not uncontroversial, they were able to achieve significant publishing success, suggesting that a demand existed for their works among the German public, stimulating debate about the nature of the recent past and its effect on Germany’s cultural and political identity and position in the world. Völkisch Writers and National Socialism Guy Tourlamain received his D.Phil. from Oxford University in 2007. He also spent time as a visiting student at the University of Gießen, A Study of Right-Wing Political Culture University of Hamburg and Humboldt University in Berlin as well as undertaking postdoctoral research at the German Literature in Germany, 1890–1960 Archive in Marbach am Neckar. From 2007 to 2012 he was Lecturer in Modern History at Liverpool Hope University. He currently lives and works in Bonn. GUY TOURLAMAIN ISBN 978-3-03911-958-5 www.peterlang.com Peter Lang CULTURAL HISTORY AND LITERARY IMAGINATION This book provides a view of literary life under the Nazis, highlighting • Guy Tourlamain the ambiguities, rivalries and conflicts that determined the cultural climate of that period and beyond. Focusing on a group of writers – in particular, Hans Grimm, Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer, Wilhelm Schäfer, Emil Strauß, Börries Freiherr von Münchhausen and Rudolf Binding – it examines the continuities in völkisch-nationalist thought in Germany from c.1890 into the post-war period and the ways in which völkisch-nationalists identified themselves in opposition to four successive German regimes: the Kaiserreich, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the Federal Republic. Although their work Völkisch predated Hitler’s National Socialist movement, their contribution to preparing the cultural climate for the rise of Nazism ensured them continued prominence in the Third Reich. Those who survived into the post-war era continued to represent the völkisch-nationalist worldview in the West German public sphere, opposing both Socialism and National Writers the Soviet and liberal-democratic models for Germany’s future. While not uncontroversial, they were able to achieve significant publishing success, suggesting that a demand existed for their works among the German public, stimulating debate about the nature of the recent past and its effect on Germany’s cultural and political identity and position in the world. Völkisch Writers and National Socialism Guy Tourlamain received his D.Phil. from Oxford University in 2007. He also spent time as a visiting student at the University of Gießen, A Study of Right-Wing Political Culture University of Hamburg and Humboldt University in Berlin as well as undertaking postdoctoral research at the German Literature in Germany, 1890–1960 Archive in Marbach am Neckar. From 2007 to 2012 he was Lecturer in Modern History at Liverpool Hope University. He currently lives and works in Bonn. GUY TOURLAMAIN www.peterlang.com Peter Lang Völkisch Writers and National Socialism CULTURAL HISTORY AND LITERARY IMAGINATION EDITED BY CHRISTIAN J. EMDEN & DAVID MIDGLEY VOL. 21 PETER LANG Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Wien Völkisch Writers and National Socialism A Study of Right-Wing Political Culture in Germany, 1890–1960 Guy Tourlamain PETER LANG Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Wien Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche - Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at www. www.knowledgeunlatched.org. Open Access: The online version of this publication is published on www.peterlang.com and www.econstor.eu under the international Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Learn more on how you can use and share this work: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-nd/4.0/. All versions of this work may contain content reproduced under license from third parties. Permission to reproduce this third-party content must be obtained from these third-parties directly. Cover image: Monument of the Battles of the Nations (Völkerschlachtdenkmal) in Leipzig, Germany. Source: <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Völkerschlachtdenkmal_(Monument_of_the_Battles_of_the_Nations).jpg> . Photo by Gunther Kuhnle, 2013. CC-BY-SA-3.0 license (<http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en>). ISSN 1660-6205 ISBN 978-3-03911-958-5 (print) ISBN 978-3-0353-0635-4 (eBook) © Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2014 Hochfeldstrasse 32, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland [email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net This publication has been peer reviewed. Contents Acknowledgements vii Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1 ‘Wegbereiter’ for the Nazis? Völkisch-Nationalist Writers in Germany, 1870–1933 23 Chapter 2 Völkisch Writers and National Socialist Kulturpolitik 99 Chapter 3 The German Literature Academy: Control Mechanism or Cauldron of Dissent? 157 Chapter 4 Beyond the Literature Academy 217 Chapter 5 Völkisch-Nationalism in the Post-War Era 279 Concluding Remarks 347 Select Bibliography 353 Index 373 Acknowledgements This book would not have been possible without the help of many people. I owe particular thanks to Anthony Nicholls at St Antony’s College, Oxford, who, with his knowledge of German history, patiently guided me through my doctoral thesis, the starting point for this work. I would also like to thank Axel Schildt and Uwe Lohalm at the Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg, Christoph Kleßmann of the Institut für zeit- historische Forschung in Potsdam and Siegfried Lokatis at the University of Potsdam, all of whom have given me the benefit of their advice. Peter Pulzer and Jeremy Noakes examined the original thesis, provided rigorous criticism and generous suggestions. Similarly, my thanks go to the editors of the Cultural History and Literary Imagination book series at Peter Lang, David Midgley and Christian Emden, for their careful reading of the text and comments based on their very considerable knowledge of the field. Yoav Alon, John Appleby, Frank Druffner, Jocasta Gardner, Randall Hansen, Bernhard Fulda and Zoe Waxman all read chapters at various stages. I am extremely grateful for their insights; any remaining flaws are my own. I am also grateful to the staff of numerous libraries and archives in Germany, in particular the staff of the Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg and the German Federal Archives in Berlin. Above all, with- out the help of the staff of the German Literature Archive in Marbach am Neckar this book would never have been completed. One of the greatest challenges for such a project is that of funding. I am therefore extremely grateful to the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S., whose award of a ‘Hanseatic Scholarship for Britons’ allowed me to spend two years studying in Hamburg and Berlin. I would also like to thank the Deutsche Schillergesellschaft Marbach, which provided me with a ‘Marbach Stipendium’ and two postdoctoral grants in order that I might carry out research at the German Literature Archive in Marbach am Neckar. Finally, a visiting research fellowship at the SFB 640 ‘Repräsentationen viii Acknowledgements sozialer Ordnungen im Wandel’ at the Humboldt University in Berlin in the autumn of 2011 provided much needed resources and writing time. Colleagues at Liverpool Hope University were also sources of advice and support, in particular John Appleby, Rachel Cowgill, Patrice Haynes, Jan Jobling, Terry and John Phillips and Fiona Pogson. The list of remain- ing friends who have kept me going is long. I thank them all! Steven and Jake gave me hospitality for a summer in San Francisco, where sec- tions of the book were written; discussions with James Hanvey, Frank Gehring, Katharine Gilmartin, Philip Kennedy, Christian Könne and Kevin Kornegay provided feedback, encouragement and stimulus; John Worthen and Cornelia Rumpf-Worthen provided meals and a desk for the final phase. Finally this work would not have been possible without the sup- port of Stefan Kirmse, who accompanied