'February 1933' by Uwe Wittstock
What to do in the face of a looming catastrophe? Many of Germany’s brightest writers threw a party on the eve of Hitler’s appointment as chancellor. Some of them no longer took politics seriously in a country where disfunction had become expected. Some assumed Hitler was a storm soon to pass. Others were worried.
February 1933 is uniquely focused on the response of writers in that first month of the Third Reich. German journalist Uwe Wittstock intersperses Covid-reminiscent references to the infection rate from a flu epidemic sweeping Germany alongside casualty reports from violence as Nazis clashed with leftists. He weaves together the stories of various writers including the Hollywood ready account of Jewish novelist Hermann Kesten.
The author knew he was a marked man but fulfilled a contract with German radio to read a story on the air. With his wife at his side, he walked into the broadcast center past rows of storm troopers, his contract with the station serving as his pass. “He expects the door to the studio will be torn open at any moment and one of the many men in uniform will lead him away,” Wittstock writes. After all, Kesten was reading a story with anti-authoritarian implications. But no, after the broadcast, he was paid his honorarium “and while leaving the building must show his papers multiple times. No one detains him.” The Kestens take the night train to a new life as expatriates.
Bertolt Brecht had other ideas but was left with no choice but follow suit. Addressing a leftist meeting, Brecht proposed creating an authorial storm troop to protect writers, “a suggestion that fits splendidly into the world of his Threepenny Opera.” Finding little enthusiasm for his idea, Brecht lit out for Vienna, then Switzerland and, eventually, the U.S., where he remained until fleeing postwar anti-Communist investigations.
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Institutional resistance to Hitler was scant but a few individuals were willing to help. Although in bed with a fever, heater critic Alfred Kerr fled to Prague when a policeman phoned, tipping him off to an impending raid on his home. Within weeks, the Nazis solidified their hold on a nation divided along lines of enthusiasm, apathy and fear. “The preciousness of democracy and justice is evident once they begin to disappear,” Wittstock concludes.
