Exile and Literature in the Prague German Magazine Die Wahrheit

Abstract

This article shows how the topic of exile and exile literature was presented in the Prague magazine Die Wahrheit after Adolf Hitler came to power. Although Die Wahrheit was an expressly proCzechoslovak magazine, it focused on problematic aspects of the situation of German émigrés in the country, especially writers and other cultural actors. The article follows three interpretive models (Heinrich Heine, the ‘best Germany’, and ‘positive nomadism’), belonging to discursive formations in which the debate on the situation of exiles took place, shaping their self-understanding and ideas about possible solutions. The magazine’s critical attitudes towards the relationship between artistic exile and the Czechoslovak state are revealed on the example of debates about the (non) performance of Ferdinand Bruckner’s drama Die Rassen in Prague.

Keywords

• the german press
• exile
• czechoslovakia
• prague
• die wahrheit