Synopses & Reviews
Thousands of writers, artists, filmmakers, and intellectuals fled Germany in the 1930s. Many settled in the United States, hoping to find allies against Nazism and a safe refuge from Hitlerand#8217;s Gestapo. But in America nearly all of the exiled authorsand#151;among them Nobel Prize recipient Thomas Mann, his brother Heinrich, dramatist Bertolt Brecht, and novelists Erich Remarque and Lion Feuchtwangerand#151;became the subjects of intense suspicion and government surveillance. This riveting book, based on secret FBI files released for the first time to Alexander Stephan under the provisions of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts, reveals the disturbing details and the surprising extent of government surveillance operations conducted against German exiles during World War II and the McCarthy era.
Not only the FBI but also the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and other agencies spied on the German and#233;migrand#233;s. Wiretaps were installed, mail was routinely opened and read, records of visitors were maintained. Searchesand#151;not always with legal warrantsand#151;were conducted, informants hired, and connections to exile writers established (Thomas Mannand#8217;s daughter, Erika, volunteered her insights). Stephan sets these activities in historical context and discusses the widespread xenophobia and paranoia that surrounded Nazism and Communism, which were frequently conflated in the public imagination. The author illuminates the relationship not only between German anti-Nazis and U.S. politics of the period but also between intellectuals and the modern surveillance state.
About the Author
Alexander Stephan is professor of German at the University of Florida.