Communazis
Subtitle: FBI Surveillance of German Emigre Writers
Contributors: Jan van Heurck (Translator)
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 10, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 384
ISBN-13: 9780300082029
Subjects: American history: Second World War; American history: postwar, from c 1945 -; Immigration & emigration; Political control & freedoms; Special & elite forces; Postwar period, 1945 to c 2000; Second World War, 1939-1945; Germanic Literature; Literature And Society; History; Politics / Current Events; German; Germanic & Scandinavian languages; Literary Criticism; USA; European - German; Government - U.S. Government; Modern - 20th Century; History / General; Europe - Germany; 20th century; Authors, Exiled; Authors, German; Mexico; Political and social views; United States
Description: "This book, based on secret FBI files released for the first time to Alexander Stephan under the provisions of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts, reveals the disturbing details and the surprising extent of government surveillance operations conducted against German exiles during World War II and the McCarthy era.".

"Not only the FBI but also the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and other agencies spied on the German emigres. Wiretaps were installed, mail was routinely opened and read, records of visitors were maintained. Searches - not always with legal warrants - were conducted, informants hired, and connections to exile writers established (Thomas Mann's daughter, Erika, volunteered her insights).

Stephan sets these activities in historical contest and discusses the widespread xenophobia and paranoia that surrounded Nazism and Communism, which were frequently conflated in the public imagination. The author illuminates not only the relationship between German anti-Nazis and U.S. politics of the period but also between intellectuals and the modern surveillance state."--BOOK JACKET.