List of well-known German-speaking emigrants and exiles (1933–1945)

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This list names prominent German-speaking personalities who left the German Reich between 1933 and 1945 during the period of National Socialist rule . This also includes emigrants from Saarland after March 1, 1935, from Austria after the “Anschluss” on March 12, 1938, or from the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia after March 15, 1939.

In subsections, persons are listed who emigrated from these areas before the National Socialist seizure of power , but who were unable or unwilling to return afterwards because of political opposition or racist persecution.

Literature and journalism

theatre

Movie

Emigration before the start of the Nazi regime

For a number of people who, in particular, had left Germany or Austria for various - often non-political - reasons before the Nazi era, their new homeland subsequently became exile due to their opposition to National Socialism. One of the best-known examples of this is Marlene Dietrich.

Emigration from the Nazi regime

More than 1,500 people working in the film industry left Germany after the NSDAP came into power .

Many Austrian filmmakers worked or lived in Germany before 1933. In addition, in Austria, where many filmmakers who came from there had returned in 1933, Jews were excluded from working in the film industry as early as 1936 ( agreement of April 20 ) due to strong pressure from Germany (see the history of early Austrian talkies ) . These are also among the emigrants of National Socialism.

  • Ernst Angel , Austrian director - went to England in 1939, then to the USA
  • Siegfried Arno , actor - went to the USA in 1933 via the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Portugal
  • Leon Askin Austrian actor, director, acting teacher, producer, screenwriter, emigrated to the USA in 1940 after six months internment in France, returned to Vienna in 1994
  • Johannes Ilmari Auerbach , German sculptor, painter and author - went to England in 1936
  • Felix Basch , Austrian director and actor - went to the USA in 1933
  • Hans Behrendt , author, director and actor - went to Spain in 1933
  • Artur Berger , Austrian film architect - fled to Moscow in 1936
  • Elisabeth Bergner , Austrian actress - went to the USA via England in 1933 (1940)
  • Curtis Bernhardt , director - went to the USA in 1933
  • Curt Bois , actor - went to the USA via Prague and Paris in 1933
  • Felix Bressart , actor - went to the USA via Switzerland, Austria, Paris in 1933 (1938)
  • Erik Charell , producer - went to the United States in 1936
  • Paul Czinner , director - went to the USA via England in 1933 (1940)
  • Ernst Deutsch , Austrian director - went to the USA in 1938
  • Alfred Deutsch-German , Austrian director - fled to France in 1938
  • Slatan Dudow , director - went to France in 1933
  • Ewald André Dupont , director - went to the USA via England in 1933
  • Tilla Durieux , actress - went to Yugoslavia via Austria in 1933
  • Jakob Fleck , Austrian director - returned to Austria in 1933, after internment in Dachau in 1938, emigrated to China in 1940
  • Luise Fleck , Austrian director - returned to Austria in 1933, emigrated to China in 1940
  • Curt Goetz , director, actor and playwright - went to the USA around 1939
  • John Gottowt , director, actor - went to Krakow via Denmark after 1933
  • Lilian Harvey , actress - went to the USA via France around 1939 (1941)
  • Oskar Homolka , actor - went to the USA via England in 1934
  • Oskar Karlweis , Austrian actor - went to the USA in 1938 via Switzerland, Paris, Spain and Portugal
  • Leopoldine Konstantin , Austrian actress - went to the USA (1938)
  • Fritz Kortner , Austrian director - went to England via Czechoslovakia, Vienna and Paris in 1933
  • Herman Kosterlitz aka Henry Koster , director - went to the USA in 1936
  • Robert Land , Austrian director - fled to the Czech Republic in 1933
  • Fritz Lang , director - went to the USA via France in 1934
  • Robert Liebmann , screenwriter, went to Paris in 1933, later to the USA, then back to France
  • Albert Lieven , actor - went to France with his Jewish wife Tatjana in 1936 and later to England from there.
  • Leopold Lindtberg , director - went to Switzerland via Paris, Warsaw and Tel Aviv in 1933
  • Peter Lorre , actor - went to the USA via Paris in 1933 (1935)
  • Valérie von Martens , actress - went to the USA around 1939
  • Joe May , director - went to the USA in 1933
  • Mia May , actress - went to the USA in 1933
  • Heinrich Nebenzahl , producer - went to Paris in 1933
  • Seymour Nebenzahl , producer - went to Paris in 1933, to the USA in 1938
  • Max Neufeld , Austrian director - returned to Austria in 1933, fled to Italy in 1938, and to Spain in 1941
  • Asta Nielsen , actress - returned to Denmark in 1935
  • Max Nosseck , actor, director - went to the USA via Spain in 1933 (1940)
  • Max Ophüls , director - went to the USA via France in 1935 (1942)
  • Richard Oswald , director - went to the USA via Austria, France, Holland and England in 1933 (1938)
  • Lilli Palmer , actress - went to the USA via Paris and London in 1937, returned to Germany in 1954, but continued to star in international productions
  • Julius Pinschewer , producer - went to Switzerland via England and Holland in 1933
  • Franz Planer , Austrian cameraman - returned to Austria in 1933, went to the USA in 1937
  • Erich Pommer , producer - went to the USA via Paris in 1933
  • Otto Preminger , director - went to the USA in 1935
  • Arnold Pressburger , producer - went to the USA via France around 1935/37 (1941)
  • Gregor Rabinowitsch , producer - went to France around 1935/37
  • Luise Rainer , actress - went to the USA after 1933
  • Walter Reisch , Austrian director and screenwriter - returned to Austria in 1933, went to the USA in 1937
  • Leontine Sagan , director - went to Africa in 1929
  • Reinhold Schünzel , director, actor - went to the USA in 1937
  • Detlef Sierck alias Douglas Sirk, director - went to the USA via France and the Netherlands in 1937
  • Robert Siodmak , director - went to the USA via France in 1934
  • Franz Spencer , actually Franz Schulz, screenwriter, moved to the USA in 1933
  • Szöke Szakall , actor - went to the USA in 1937
  • Wilhelm Thiele alias William Thiele, director - went to the USA via England and Austria in 1933 (1935)
  • Rosa Valetti , actress - went to Palestine via Vienna and Prague in 1933 (1936)
  • Hermann Vallentin , actor - went to Palestine after 1933
  • Conrad Veidt , actor, England
  • Otto Wallburg , actor, France, Amsterdam
  • Gustav von Wangenheim , actor, director - went to the Soviet Union after 1933
  • Robert Wiene , director - went to Paris via Budapest and London in 1934
  • Billy Wilder , Austrian director - went to Paris in 1933, to the USA in 1934
  • Karl Wolffsohn , publisher, cinema and theater pioneer - to Palestine in 1939
  • Adolf Wohlbrück , actor - went to England via France and the USA in 1936
  • Friedrich Zelnik , director and actor - went to England in 1933

music

see also list of composers persecuted by the Nazi regime

Fine arts and architecture

Politics (party membership at the time of exile)

science

mathematician

Scientists and physicians

Humanities and social scientists

Emigration before the start of the Nazi regime

For a number of people who had already left Germany or Austria for various reasons - but often because of the political climate and the advance of the National Socialists - their new homeland became retrospective due to their opposition to or expected persecution under National Socialism to exile.

  • Arthur Lenhoff , Labor Law Professor at the University of Vienna, did not return from a lecture tour in Switzerland in March 1938, but emigrated to the USA
  • Roman Rosdolsky , Marxist historian and economist, emigrated from Austria in 1934
  • Walther Schücking , international lawyer and pacifist, since 1930 first permanent judge at the World Court of Justice in The Hague
  • Alfred Vagts , historian and poet, emigrated in 1932
  • Hans Wehberg , international lawyer and pacifist, in Geneva since 1928
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein , philosopher, in Cambridge since 1929

Emigration from the Nazi regime

Also among the humanities and social scientists, many emigrated - at least also - because of the racist persecution because of their Jewish ancestors from the sphere of influence of National Socialism, from January 30, 1933 from the German Reich , from March 12, 1938 from annexed Austria .

Philosophers and theologians

Sports

Economy and Justice

Representatives of religious organizations

  • Kurt Blumenfeld , President of the Zionist Association for Germany; Palestine

Inventor and entrepreneur

  • Friedrich Schächter , more than 100 patents for Fisher Space Pen, BIC lighter, BIC wet razor and ballpoint pen testing machines

See also

Literature on the subject

  • Richard Drews, Alfred Kantorowicz : Forbidden and burned. German literature suppressed for 12 years . Munich 1947
  • Alfred Vagts: German-American return migration . Heidelberg 1960
  • Werner Berthold (Ed.): Exil-Literatur 1933–1945. Catalog for the exhibition of the German Library . Frankfurt 1965
  • Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Eds.): Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933 (= International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945 ). 3 volumes, Saur, Munich et al. 1980–1983
  • Conrad Pütter: Radio against the "Third Reich". German-language radio activities in exile 1933–1945. A manual . Saur, Munich et al. 1986, ISBN 3-598-10470-7
  • Jacques Grandjonc: Zone of Uncertainty. Exile and internment in the south of France 1933–1944 . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1993, ISBN 3499191385 (French original 1990, ISBN 2904631933 )
  • Wolfram Fischer (ed.): Exodus of the sciences from Berlin. Questions - Results - Desiderata. Developments before and after 1933 . Berlin 1994 (Academy of Sciences, Research Report 7)
  • Sybille Gerstengarbe: The first wave of dismissals of university lecturers from German universities due to the law to restore the civil service of 7 April 1933 . In: Reports on the history of science . 17, 1994, pp. 17-39.
  • Marianne Hassler (ed.): The exodus from Nazi Germany and the consequences. Jewish scientists in exile . Attempto, Tübingen 1997, ISBN 3893082654 .
  • Claus-Dieter Krohn , Patrik von zur Mühlen , Gerhard Paul, Lutz Winckler (eds.): Handbook of German-speaking Emigration 1933–1945 . WBG , Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 353413723X .
  • Jochen Brüning et al .: Terror and exile: persecution and expulsion of mathematicians from Berlin between 1933 and 1945; an Exhibition on the Occasion of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Technische Universität Berlin, August 19-27, 1998 . Berlin 1998.
  • Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 .
  • Konrad Jarausch : The expulsion of the Jewish students and professors from the Berlin University under the Nazi regime . In: Yearbook for University History . 1, 1998, pp. 112-133.
  • Cordula Lissner: Go back the escape route. Remigration to North Rhine and Westphalia 1945–1955 . Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2006.
  • Sandra Wiesinger-Stock / Erika Weinzierl / Konstantin Kaiser (ed.): From going away. To the exile of art and science . Vienna 2006, ISBN 3854761821 (Exile research today, 1).
  • Cilly Kugelmann (Ed.): Home and Exile. Emigration of German Jews after 1933 . Jüdischer Verlag, Frankfurt 2006, ISBN 978-3-633-54222-2 (book accompanying the exhibition of the same name, Jewish Museum Berlin: September 29, 2006 to April 9, 2007; House of History, Bonn: May 17 to October 7, 2007 ; Contemporary History Forum Leipzig: December 2007 to April 2008).
  • Catalog for the exhibition of the Deutsche Bibliothek, Frankfurt am Main 1985, The Jewish Emigration from Germany 1933-1941; The story of an expulsion , printer and publisher: Otto Lembeck, Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 3-7657-1333-3 with the participation of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York
  • Andreas W. Daum , Hartmut Lehmann , James J. Sheehan (eds.): The Second Generation. Émigrés from Nazi Germany as Historians . Berghahn Books, New York 2016, ISBN 978-1-78238-985-9 .
  • Max Beck, Nicholas Coomann (ed.): Historical experience and conceptual transformation. German-language philosophy in exile in the USA 1933–1945 , Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-643-50887-4 .
  • Kay Less : 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 .

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