The Politics of Literature in Nazi Germany

Books in the Media Dictatorship

Jan-Pieter Barbian, Kate Sturge

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781441107343
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781441168146
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: German History
• Index: History

This is the most comprehensive account to date of literary politics in Nazi Germany and of the institutions, organizations and people who controlled German literature during the Third Reich. Barbian details a media dictatorship-involving the persecution and control of writers, publishers and libraries, but also voluntary assimilation and pre-emptive self-censorship-that began almost immediately under the National Socialists, leading to authors' forced declarations of loyalty, literary propaganda, censorship, and book burnings. Special attention is given to Nazi regulation of the publishing industry and command over all forms of publication and dissemination, from the most presitigious publishing houses to the smallest municipal and school libraries. Barbian also shows that, although the Nazis censored books not in line with Party aims, many publishers and writers took advantage of loopholes in their system of control. Supporting his work with exhaustive research of original sources, Barbian describes a society in which everybody who was not openly opposed to it, participated in the system, whether as a writer, an editor, or even as an ordinary visitor to a library.

Table of contents

• FC
• Half title
• Credits
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Changing Personnel, Changing Agendas: From the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich
• 3 The Institutional Structure of the Media Dictatorship and Its Power over Books
• 4 Books in the Media Dictatorship: The Perspective of the Rulers
• 5 Books in the Media Dictatorship: The Perspective of the Ruled
• 6 A Failed Experiment? Books in the Nazi Media Dictatorship
• Sources and Bibliography
• Index