Hitler's Exiles

Book excerpt: This book is an extraordinary first-hand account of the German Academy in Exile. The Acedemy was established in 1936 as a platform for German intellectuals in America to speak out against Hitler. Its membership covered the leading German-speaking intellectuals who went into exile in opposition to Hitler's National Socialist government - artists, writers, musicians, scientists, philosophers, film directors and arcitects, including Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, Bertold Brect and many more. Together they helped to shape intellectual and cultural developments in the western world in the second half on the twentieth century. They came together in the Academy to show the world that Hitler and the Nazis were not Germany and that their country could resume its place in the civilised and humane world.