Children’s Literature in Hitler’s Germany - Christa Kamenetsky

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23–25.

      9. For a general description of Goebbels’ attitude toward literature and literary criticism consult Westecker. Also: Bernhard Payr, Das Amt Schrifttumspflege Berlin (Berlin, Verlag der N.S.D.A.P., 1941). Two relevant articles about the new literary criticism in relation to children’s books are: Heinrich Scharrelmann, “Über die Beurteilung und Stoff von Jugendschriften” Jugendschriften-Warte 42/1 (January, 1936), 23–25 and Udo Dickel, “Positive Buchbesprechung” Jugendschriften-Warte 44, 9–10 (Sept./Oct/, 1939), 139.

      10. Irene Dyrenfurth-Graebsch, Geschichte der deutschen Jugendbuchforschung (Hamburg, Stichrate, 1951), p. 197. Also, see the related discussion of this issue in Chapter 1.

      11. Peter Aley, Jugendliteratur im Dritten Reich: Dokumente und Kommentare (Hamburg, Verlag für Buchmarktforschung, 1969), pp. 3–30. See especially his analysis of the Magdeburg Conference. For a general discussion of the impact of the Nazis’ “positive” folk culture and Volkish ideology consult Georg L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich (New York, Grosset and Dunlap, 1964) and Hans Kohn, The Mind of Germany: The Education of a Nation (New York, Scribner’s 1960) and Peter Viereck, Metapolitics: The Roots of the Nazi Mind (New York, Capricorn, 1964), pp. 67–74.

      12. Hans Maurer, Jugend und Buch im Neuen Reich (Leipzig, Lehmanns Verlag, 1934), pp. 32–33.

      13. Reichsverwaltung des N. S.L. B., eds., Die Schülerbücherei, p. 60. See also: Marianne Günzel and Harriet Schneider, Buch und Erziehung. Jugendschrifttumskunde (Leipzig, Klinkhardt, 1943), pp. 157–158.

      14. Helmuth Langenbucher, Die Deutsche Gegenwartsdichtung. Eine Einführung in das volkhafte Schrifttum unserer Zeit (Berlin, 1940), p. 37.

      15. H. Boeschenstein, The German Novel (Toronto, Toronto University Press, 1949), p. 3. Boeschenstein said that the Nazis neglected universal human elements in favor of formalistic elements in their pursuit of a “realism” that was far removed from the reality of the conditions prevailing in the Third Reich. This notion can be confirmed by a stylistic analysis of children’s books.

      16. Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts: 2nd ed. (Munich, Eher Verlag, 1931), p. 251.

      17. Adolf Hitler, “Volk und Kunst” in Hirts Deutsches Lesebuch 8B (Breslau, Hirt Verlag, 1940) p. 119.

      18. Alfred Rosenberg, “Symbol und Rasse” I Bid., p. 49.

      19. See, for example, R. R. Blackmur Form and Value in Modern Poetry (New York, Random House, 1957), p. 367. Blackmur considers art and literature as living, searching, forever changing processes—a definition that is quite contrary to the Nazis’ didactic conception of “symbols.”

      20. Marion Marshak, “German Fiction Today” The American Journal of Sociology (January, 1944), 356.

      21. Wilhelm Rödiger, The Teaching of History: Its Purpose, Material and Method (London, Friends of Europe Publications #57, 1938), pp. 3–10.

      22. Baldur von Schirach, cited by Maurer, p. 45. Grunberger commented that the Reich Youth Leadership Organization officially defined the child below the age of ten as “the non-uniformed creature who has never participated in a group meeting or a route march.” Richard Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich; A Social History of Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 (New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), p. 277.

      23. Maurer, pp. 13–14.

      24. Franz Lichtenberger, “Die geschichtliche Entwicklung der Idee der Kindertümlichkeit” Jugendschriften-Warte 45, 9–10 (September/October, 1940), 75–80.

      25. Fritz Helke, “H.J.-Arbeit am Schrifttum” Der deutsche Schriftsteller I, 1 (1936), 9.

      26. Die Schülerbücherei, p. 88.

      27. Fr. Jürgens, “Jugend und Buch im Neuen Reich; Eine Buchbesprechung” Jugendschriften-Warte 39, 12 (December, 1934), 85–87.

      28. Ludwig Göhring, “Vom Wesen der Jugendschrift. Die Meinung eines alten Erziehers” Jugendschriften-Warte 33, 10 (October, 1938), 58–60.

      29. Franz Lichtenberger, “Grundsätzliches zur Jugendschriftenfrage” Jugendschriften-Warte 45, 1–2 (January/February, 1940), 85–87.

      30. Wilhelm Fronemann’s letter to the Reich Minister of Education in Berlin was dated August 5, 1933. It is cited in full by Aley, pp. 15–16. For Barfaut’s less favorable view of Fronemann see p. 215.

      31. Wilhelm Fronemann, “Idee und Aufbau der deutschen Jugendliteratur und die Frage der Jugendschriftenverzeichnisse” Jugendschriften-Warte 39, 1 (January, 1934), 1–2.

      32. Wilhelm Fronemann, “Zur heutigen Lage der Jugendlesekunde” Jugendschriften-Warte 39, 2 (February, 1934), 25–28.

      33. Ibid., 28 and 26. Much more radical (and less ambiguous) in regard to racial issues were the definitions of the new tasks of children’s literature as stated by Max Fehring, who in 1933 was placed in charge of all children’s literature affairs in Hamburg. See Max Fehring, “Die geistigen Grundlagen der Arbeit am Jugendschrifttum” Jugendschriften-Warte 38, 7 (July, 1933), 49–52. Fehring clearly demanded a new direction in children’s literature that would take its inspiration from the Volkish values of the past (including the heritage of Germanic folklore), but which would essentially integrate these with the Volkish ideals of the Nazi ideology and its racial objectives. In particular, see the definition of “völkische Jugendschrift” on p. 52.

       PART II

       The Interpretation of Children’s Literature

       4

       Folktale, Germandom, and Race

      The German folktale gained significantly in status and popularity during the National Socialist Regime, as the Party promoted it actively within the context of German folk education. A Party official put it quite plainly in 1935: “The German folktale shall become a most valuable means for us in the racial and political education of the young.”1 To the already fairly large German folktale collections in the libraries the Nazis added a great number of new publications early in the thirties, and the markets were flooded with series of paperbacks promoting the German folk heritage. The schools, too, officially supported this trend by paying close attention to the German folktale at all levels of education.2

      On the surface, the folktale revival during the Nazi period resembled a similar one during the German Romantic movement. The Party emphasized this similarity while giving the impression that they were merely continuing a well established conservative trend based on a “neo-Romantic” faith in the German peasant. The wave of enthusiasm about the folktale revival could be felt particularly strongly among educators, writers, and philologists who had set their minds and hearts on Rüttgers’ ideas pertaining to a renewal of German national identity through German folklore and “roots” research. During the German National Book Congress in Berlin in 1933, the main speaker focused on a recollection of nostalgic sentiments that the German folktale had provoked among writers of German literature. Among others, he referred to a writers’ meeting not long before, when the host had taken from his book shelf a small, brown, leather bound volume of the Kinder- und Hausmärchen by the Brothers Grimm, while reflecting how much the simple yet vivid folk language of this work had inspired his grandfather. The speaker remembered that from there the conversation had turned to patriotic ideas and the present state of the nation. All of them had agreed whole-heartedly that it was their love of the German folktale and their love of their ancestors that had united them in spite of many individual differences. If ever again something new and creative would arise in German literature, he concluded, then it would have to reach the level of the simple German folktale, for in its sincerity and honesty it reflected the true spirit of Germandom.3

      Patriotic

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