Away from Germany to save lives: Emigration from the Third Reich was one of the largest refugee movements of the 20th century

In his latest book on the subject of exile, Wolfgang Benz offers a comprehensive account. He aims to bring together three themes into a single, comprehensive picture: the flight of Jews who left Germany to save their lives, the emigration of political opponents of the Nazi regime, and the exodus of leading figures in culture and science. This is no easy undertaking. Benz even acknowledges in the foreword that this means "forgoing any semblance of completeness."

The author boldly eschews the idea of ​​completeness. The large wave of emigration of mostly Jewish filmmakers, which contributed significantly to the rise of Hollywood as a film metropolis, is not mentioned at all. Regarding literature, Benz focuses on the 1934 Moscow Writers' Congress, undoubtedly an interesting event. Mexico, a country of exile, is also acknowledged. But the USA, which was the most important place of refuge for writers, is treated comparatively stepmotherly.

The author touches on Ernst Toller and Thomas Mann, central figures in the New York literary émigré scene, only in passing. Little light is also shed on the emigration of scholars, such as Ernst Fraenkel and others, who returned to Germany after the war and established the discipline of political science there. The Institute for Social Research, which found a home at Columbia University, is only mentioned once.

The book follows a different structural principle. After a lengthy review of emigration during the First World War, the necessity of which is not entirely clear, there follows a chapter on fleeing the victorious National Socialists. This chapter contains some very surprising theories. Benz, for example, writes: "Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann did not flee Germany, nor was he expelled." He goes on to say that the National Socialists "would have liked to keep him as a figurehead of German culture in the 'Third Reich'."

The opposite is true. Following his lecture on the 50th anniversary of Richard Wagner's death on February 13, 1933, there was an intense smear campaign against the writer, who was already unpopular due to his "cosmopolitan-democratic views." The Bavarian Political Police issued an arrest warrant for Thomas Mann, which he only escaped because he never returned from a lecture tour abroad. Incidentally, his wife Katia came from a famous Jewish family persecuted by the Nazis. For this reason alone, emigration was the only alternative.

Equally strange are the comments about Sigmund Freud and Ernst Toller, who left their homeland not to continue working in peace elsewhere or out of "weariness of the fatherland," as Benz writes, but to save their lives as Jews. Freud's four sisters were unable to leave the country; they were all murdered by the Nazis in 1942/43. The same applies to Ernst Toller's siblings. The author doesn't mention this—for whatever reason.

What follows is an overview of National Socialist "Jewish policy" from 1933 to 1938, from the "Seizure of Power" to the "Reichskristallnacht." The minority of Jewish Germans was marginalized with increasing brutality. On the one hand, the Nazi government encouraged emigration to Palestine, while on the other, it fleeced those willing to leave with the "Reich Flight Tax." In addition, there were other taxes and the obligation to sell houses, businesses, and valuables for far less than their real value. Emigration was not prohibited until October 1941. By then, more than 350,000 people, almost two-thirds of Jewish Germans, had succeeded in leaving Germany.

A core part of the book is the "Places of Exile," a topography of emigration. Here, it becomes clear that many emigrants had to pack their bags again and again, as the Nazi henchmen were constantly on their heels. Quite a few emigrants emigrated to the Saar region, which was under international administration after the end of the First World War, but which, after a referendum on March 1, 1935, became part of the German Reich again.

Austria offered safe refuge only until the invasion of the German Wehrmacht in March 1938. Democratic Czechoslovakia was a very important stopover for many emigrants, but the state was dismantled in 1938/39. Many other countries, such as France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway, also no longer offered protection after the outbreak of war and the German occupation. Many refugees who had believed themselves safe fell into the hands of the Gestapo. Others, with endless effort, fought their way to distant lands.

Ibibobo and Buenos Aires, Sydney and Melbourne are places that Benz presents in his charming topography. It is striking, however, that Stockholm, the most important place of political exile besides London, is missing from his map. Socialists of various stripes gathered here and made plans for a post-war reorganization of Europe. The most important representatives of these circles were Willy Brandt and Bruno Kreisky, who, after their return from exile, became internationally respected heads of government in Germany and Austria, respectively.

A separate chapter is dedicated to the Kindertransports of 1938/39, which mostly led to Great Britain and saved approximately 10,000 Jewish children. Another chapter deals with the so-called Aliyah Bet, illegal immigration to Palestine, which was rigorously protected by the British. These immigration attempts often failed. Many Jewish refugees found themselves in British concentration camps in Cyprus or were sent back to Europe, which often resulted in their murder.

Wolfgang Benz vividly describes numerous individual stories, thus illustrating the various facets of emigration in an impressive way. The book is therefore a worthwhile read, even if the overall picture contains a few gaps.

Wolfgang Benz: Exile. History of an Expulsion 1933–1945. C.-H.-Beck-Verlag, Munich 2025. 416 pp., Fr. 49.90.