THE WEDGE DRIVEN between inner and outer literary opponents of the National Socialist regime constitutes one of the most aberrant developments of postwar German literary history, muddying the waters of the humane legacy that was bequeathed to the country after the war. Much has rightly been made of the achievements and contributions of exiled writers from Nazi Germany, of the privations of what was in the vast majority of cases a harsh and uncertain existence. Much has also been made of those inner emigrant writers whose pronouncements in the postwar period brought into disrepute the notion of an “inner opposition” or literary nonconformism, inviting accusations of self-exculpation and complicity with the regime. Gradually, however, we are also at last beginning to see a more open, better informed, more balanced, and less prejudiced appraisal of the many writers who remained and published in Germany between 1933 and 1945, and who displayed courage and a commitment to spiritual resistance. At the same time, this “drilling down” into context does not always and necessarily exculpate: today's better-informed picture can also support continuing skepticism, an understanding without approval of the compromises and even occasional acts of cowardice that writers engaged in.

Several critics after 1945, following in the footsteps of Thomas Mann, suggested that in retreating to inwardness and in affirming humane and Christian values and norms, inner emigrant writers merely served to anaesthetize the German reading public under Hitler and ensured that no serious resistance was offered. However, this sits awkwardly with the fact that many of these writers were severely criticized by literary critics at the time for failing to align themselves with Nazi values, that some were arrested, imprisoned, or banned from writing: in the eyes of the authorities their potential influence was clearly considered greater than has been suggested.