StudienVerlag - Oapen

Distinguished Germans in Exile:
Irreconcilably Opposed to the Nazi Regime (1939)
[Leserbrief, zusammen mit Rudolf Olden]
DV: Manchester Guardian, 24 8.1939
Sir – The European conflict, whether considered as pending or already begun,
reveals less a dissension between different States, races, and nations than the profound
antagonism between ideologies, political and religious. If a war should arise
from this conflict it would be from the very beginning not merely a war between
different countries but a civil and religious war, as we have seen happen in Spain,
where only yesterday this very conflict which now threatens Europe broke out in
the form of a civil war.
Similarly the German people are divided on the ideological issue. In 1914 even
those Germans who opposed the Emperor’s policy were unanimous in espousing the
cause of their country directly war broke out. Herr Hitler’s regime has fundamentally
altered this. Today quite a number of Germans value their „Weltanschauung“ more
highly than a common nationality or language. In the case of many the moral urge
to declare their point of view openly was so strong that they have left their native
country and have become exiles, although in many cases they were not driven to
this grievous step by external circumstances. Whether those who disagreed were
persecuted by the new rulers or not, whether they went into exile or hid their heads
in shame at home, their sympathy and feeling of affinity with other forms of Government
would, if a configuration were to break out in Europe, unite them closely
to those who oppose the National-Socialist lust for expansion.
This fact has been proved again in Spain, where thousands of Germans fought
on the side of the Republic just because some of them opposite had been sent by
the German Government. It was proved once more in the latter half of April 1939,
when thousands of Germans voluntarily and of their own initiative offered their
services to the French Army.
Among those who have left Germany there are two former German Reichskanzlers,
one Prussian Prime Minister, several German and Austrian Cabinet Ministers,
a President of the Senate of Danzig, as well as many Communists, Social Democrats,
Catholic Centrists, German Nationalists, and former National Socialists. There is
not a single political section of Germany which has not its representatives among
the exiles, not to speak of the many hundreds of German scholars who are living
abroad today, cut off from their native country not so much on account of their
race as because of their opinions, men such as Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein.
As for German literature, the only writers of any significance who have remained
in Germany are a few octogenarians. An unprecedented literary impoverishment
inside that country has been the result. On the other hand, many hundreds of German
writers live in foreign countries, among them some of national and international
reputation such as Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Franz Werfel,
Arnold Zweig, Stefan Zweig, Emil Ludwig, Alfred Neumann, Lion Feuchtwanger,
Leonhard Frank, Bruno Frank, Berthold Brecht, Alfred Polgar, Hermann Broch,
Theodor Wolff, Alfred Kerr, Georg Kaiser, René Schickele, Annette Kolb, Ludwig
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