Erich Kästner between 1933 and 1945 Opponent of the regime – internal emigrant – opportunist?

Unlike most of his colleagues, Erich Kästner did not emigrate, even though his books were burned and removed from libraries in 1933. Only “Emil and the Detectives” remained for a few years longer. There has been much speculation about his reasons for staying in the country. After all, as an internationally successful children's author, he was one of the very few, alongside a handful of other authors of the previous generation such as Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel and Stefan Zweig, who could have afforded exile. Erich Kästner himself was rather tight-lipped about his years during the dictatorship. Shortly after the end of the Second World War, he wrote in “Kurz und bündig” ('Short and Sweet'): “I am like a tree that – having grown in Germany – will wither away in Germany if it must.”

Since the Kästner estate was opened in the mid-1990s, many details about the period between 1933 and 1945 have come to light that go far beyond the author's own comments and memories. Kästner's files in the Federal Archives have been evaluated several times. The unabridged war diary, known as the ‘Blue Book’, has been transcribed, published and annotated. Nevertheless, a number of areas continue to be the subject of controversy: for example, the ‘Münchhausen’ film based on Kästner's 1943 screenplay, Kästner's strategies for continuing to work incognito from 1933 onwards, and the question of why he never wrote the eyewitness novel he had planned during the years of war.

The conference aims to draw preliminary conclusions. Based on contributions on individual aspects and works from this period and taking into account the question of what it meant to live and write in that dictatorship, Erich Kästner's role in National Socialism between opportunism and opposition will be examined.

Conference chairs: Sven Hanuschek and Gideon Stiening

The conference programme will be announced here shortly.

An event organised by the Förderverein Erich Kästner Forschung e.V. [Erich Kästner Research Association] and the International Youth Library Foundation.