Culture in dark times
Subtitle: Nazi fascism, inner emigration, and exile
By: Jost Hermand ; translated by Victoria W. Hill
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 278
ISBN-13: 9780857455901
Subjects: Fascism and culture; Exiles; National socialism; Social aspects; Intellectual life; Ideology; German Arts; National socialism and art; Social conditions; Cultural policy; Social distance; History
Work titles: Kultur in finsteren Zeiten
Description: "The meaning of "culture" today has expanded to include almost everything that surrounds people in their daily life, but today's usage would have baffled the influential ideological opinion makers of the first half of the twentieth century. Between 1933 and 1945 most members of all three groups--the Nazi fascists, Inner Emigration, and Exile--fought with equal fervor over who could definitively claim to represent the authentically "great German culture," as it was culture that imparted real value to both the state and the individual. But when authorities made pronouncements about "culture" were they really talking about high art? This book analyzes the highly complex interconnections among the cultural-political concepts of these various ideological groups and asks why the most artistically ambitious art forms were viewed as politically important by all cultured (or even semi-cultured) Germans in the period from 1933 to 1945, their ownership the object of a bitter struggle between key figures in the Nazi fascist regime, representatives of Inner Emigration, and Germans driven out of the Third Reich. Jost Hermand is Vilas Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Honorary Professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He has been visiting professor at Austin (Texas), Harvard, Berlin, Bremen, Marburg, Giessen, Kassel, Essen, Freiburg, Oldenburg, Potsdam, and Munich. He is an ACLS Fellow, recipient of the Hilldale Award for Academic Excellence, fellow of the Vienna Academy, member of the Saxon Academy in Leipzig, and holds an honorary PhD from the University of Kassel. His research and teaching encompass German literature and culture since 1750, with special emphasis on democratic traditions, German-Jewish relations, fascism, and Germany after 1945, as well as on schools of criticism and a comparative arts approach to German culture."--Publisher's website.
Notes: "German-language edition c2010 Böhlau Verlag ... [as] Kultur in finsteren Zeiten : Nazifaschismus, Innere Emigration, Exil"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Three Claims to Cultural Representation; title: [1]. Nazi Fascism; title: Cultural-Political Preconditions; title: Enemy Stereotypes; title: Stated Objectives; title: The Ideal of an "Eternally German" Culture; title: Approaches to Practical Implementation; title: Consequences for the Arts; title: Architecture; title: Painting and Sculpture; title: Music; title: Literature; title: Theater; title: Radio, Film, and the Press; title: Class-Specific Successes of National Socialist Cultural Policies; title: [2]. Inner Emigration; title: Between Aversion and Accommodation; title: Forms of Artistic Expression; title: Literature; title: Painting and Sculpture; title: Music; title: [3]. Exile; title: Fragmentation of the German Exile Community; title: Places of Refuge; title: Possibilities for an Effective Antifascism; title: Consequences for the Arts; title: Literature; title: Theater; title: Film; title: Painting, Graphic Art, and Photomontage; title: Music; title: Visions of a "Liberated" Culture in Post-Fascist Germany.