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CATEGORIES OF THE NON‐CONFORMIST: THE HISTORICAL FICTION OF INNER EMIGRATION
Author(s) -
Klapper John
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
german life and letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1468-0483
pISSN - 0016-8777
DOI - 10.1111/glal.12037
Subject(s) - conformist , emigration , audience measurement , nazism , popularity , history , ambiguity , literature , humanism , german , sociology , philosophy , art , political science , law , linguistics , archaeology , politics
One of the striking features of German literature after the First World War was the increasing popularity of the historical novel. The spread of the genre continued unabated beyond the year 1933 and historical subject matter is to be found in equal measure in the work of exiled writers, oppositionally‐minded inner emigrants and authors loyal to the Nazi cause. Non‐conformist writers within the Third Reich sought through varied techniques of camouflage and deliberate ambiguity to circumvent censors, whilst at the same time conveying their subversive Christian and humanist message to an esoteric sensitised readership. This article offers for the first time a categorisation of non‐conformist historical fiction, identifying four distinct approaches and illustrating how they are realised in inner emigrant works by Andres, Bergengruen, Jünger, Klepper, le Fort, Mitterer, Reck‐Malleczewen, Saile, Schneider and Wiechert. The suggested hermeneutic framework for historical fiction confirms certain well‐known shortcomings of inner emigrant writing but also reveals the ways in which this literature addressed a real need under National Socialism and countered the spiritual poverty of the time.