1st Edition
National Socialist Cultural Diplomacy Culture, Politics, and Comradeship at the German-Nordic Writers’ House, 1934-1939
National Socilaist Cultural Diplomacy provides the first comprehensive account of the German-Nordic Writers’ House. From 1934 to 1939, young Scandinavian and Finnish writers spent summers at a seaside villa in Travemünde, mingling with representatives of 'new German literature,’ to enjoy beach days, excursions in the Third Reich, and evening discussions on literature, politics, and comradeship. The book treats the Writers’ House as a case study of National Socialist cultural diplomacy, offering fresh insights on the ways in which semiofficial cultural mediators addressed, navigated, and were constrained by a dilemma central to all cultural diplomacy, but more urgently so in the case of totalitarian regimes like the Third Reich: that in order to be perceived as legitimate, culture cannot be too obviously circumscribed by politics, while cultural autonomy comes with a lack of control that does not sit well with totalitarian regimes.
Between the prevalent ideal in the Nordic cultural sphere that culture stands apart from politics, on the one hand, and the political aims of official German diplomacy, on the other, the institution showcases the constraints facing aspiring cultural diplomats in the Third Reich and the strategies with which the Writers’ House’s organizers addressed them. With the Writers’ House as a prism, National Socialist Cultural Diplomacy also offers a case study of the fault lines that emerged in the Nordic literary sphere with the post-1933 ideologization of the German literary field, its institutions, and its lucrative book market. At stake was the role and identity of the literary intellectual, the proper relationship between culture, economics, and politics, and—for some of the visiting writers—whether to place consciousness over comradeship. This book will be of interest to researchers of Nazism, social and cultural history, and the history of the extreme right.
Introduction
Part I: Keeping the Northern Gate Open: Continuities, Adaptation, and the Inauguration of the Writers’ House
1. Foundations
2. Inauguration
Part II: Writers and Diplomats: Writer Selections between Cultural Autonomy and Great Power Politics
3. The Politics of Cultural Relations
4. The Way of the World
Part III: Seaside Encounters: Comradeship as Cultural Diplomacy
5. Facilitating Comradeship
6. Like Belonging to the Same Volk
Conclusion
Biography
Frederik Forrai Ørskov is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Nordic Humanities Centre at Copenhagen University and the University of Southern Denmark.
“Based on a wealth of new archival material, National Socialist Cultural Diplomacy uncovers the fascinating story of the German-Nordic Writers’ House. This is an impressive contribution to our understanding of Nazi cultural ideology, policies, and ambitions, the history of cultural diplomacy, as well as the frequently fraught relations between literature and politics.”
Professor Tore Rem, Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo“A sophisticated study of Nazi Germany’s use of cross-border literary cooperation as a geopolitical tool, this book also offers a fascinating account of how Nordic writers’ encounter with Nazi cultural diplomacy stimulated important reflections about the meaning of culture, politics, and the boundary between the two.”
Benjamin G. Martin, Associate Professor, Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University“Even the German National Socialists sometimes sought cross-border cooperation. This book examines the debates, developments, and dilemmas surrounding one especially prominent project of Nazi cultural diplomacy – the Deutsch-Nordische Schriftstellerhaus near Lübeck. A fascinating piece of research providing important insights and a genuinely transnational perspective.”
Professor Kiran Klaus Patel, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich“During the Second World War translations from Scandinavian languages made up the largest part of translated German literature. Frederik Forrai Ørskov’s book is a welcome study of one of the ways the Nazis tried to institutionalize the literary exchange with the North, and his discussion of Nordic writers’ responses to the rise of fascism is today of more than historical interest.”
Professor emeritus Narve Fulsås, modern history, University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway
