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

Unlike most of his literary friends, Erich Kästner did not emigrate in 1933, even though his books were burned and removed from libraries – only “Emil and the Detectives” remained for a few years longer. It was banned for twelve years, according to a standard statement by the author, which he used several times in the 1950s. There has been much speculation about his reasons for staying in the country; after all, as an internationally successful children's author, he would have been one of the very few who could have afforded exile financially, alongside a handful of other authors of the previous generation – Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel, Stefan Zweig.

Erich Kästner commented on his years under the dictatorship in a rather tight-lipped and self-repeating manner; the debates about his work and his survival under National Socialism, on the other hand, have become almost excessive, albeit in part repetitive and without a precise view of the contexts – of what it meant to have to live and write under this dictatorship. The conference aims to arrive at a preliminary assessment of individual works from this period and to provide source-based overall assessments of Kästner between opportunism and opposition.

 Click here for more information on the conference programm. 
 
Conference chairs: Sven Hanuschek and Gideon Stiening

The conference is public and free of charge.

Sign up via mail at: anmeldung@ijb.de

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