Generational Approach to the IM Doc Manuscript at Home

8/6/2019 Generational Approach to the IM Doc Manuscript at Home

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THE INTELLECTUAL MIGRATION: A TYPOLOGY

I also believe that more and more of

the better "Europe" will be moving here.

T.Mann, Jamestown, Rhode Island, 1938

The flow of immigrants entering the United States at any given

period is called wave. The oceanic metaphor is relevant if we

think in the different sizes of the waves, the predominance of

Atlantic maritime transportation up to the 1950s, and also in

the fact that the waves arrive recurrently at American shores.

However, at this time we want to look at an immigration wave

which has rarely been recognized as such, it extended over

twelve years spanning from 1933 to 1945. This wave brought to

America several generations of Europeans fleeing racial and

political persecution. Some scholars called it the intellectual

migration because "in this relatively small group [of refugees]

the level of education and the quality of professional skills

were remarkable." (1) In America, its arrival was not seen as a

separate immigration wave and the reasons for the misperception

are that the migrs came not at once but over a number of

years, and not regularly but intermittently. Besides, there

were other events dominating the headlines during that period


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such as American isolationism, restricted immigration, economic

depression, other political and social upheavals, and a world

war. It also there seems to be working a deeper notion having

to do with the popularity of immigrants in the United States in

general, and specifically these refugees. Immigrants are mainly

ignored by a culture whose members do not want to be reminded

that either them or their ancestors sometime in the past where

immigrants too. To this general attitude it could be added the

anti-semitism common at the time and the prevalent anti-

intelectualism of the American people. (2)

In 1929, the Immigration Restriction Act went finally into

effect and from then on visas became scarce and very difficult

to get. Americans did not want to hear about either new

immigrants or refugees, moreover, there was no legal category

for refugees. The Americans had had enough already, first, with

the Depression, and then with their two-front world war.

Nonetheless, somehow this migration came within the limits of

the quotas, on special visas, or even as temporary visitors

staying in America for good.

The intellectual migration brought over an extraordinary

assortment of immigrant-refugees, the best and the brightest of

the European intellectual, scientific, and artistic world. They


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were the migrs from European Fascism who began arriving from

the time of the Nazi takeover in Germany in 1933. Individuals

from many countries engrossed this migration: the largest

contingent was made up of Germans, and Austrians, but the

political and racial persecution sent away also Czechs,

Italians, Spaniards, Hungarians, French, Romanians, Bulgarians,

Greeks, Polish, and some Russians too. Most of them were

persecuted out of the continent (exile-by-force), a minority

left freely out of political, or moral conviction (exile-by-

choice), some tried to come but failed, while others

reluctantly succeed. Some were already in America and stayed

out when the upheaval began. The lives of all of them make up

the story of the intellectual migration.

In 1968 this group of migrs was referred to by Laura Fermi,

wife of the physicist-refugee Enrico Fermi, as the intellectual

migration, because of the high level of education and

intellectual achievement of its core elite. In 1969, Donald

Fleming and Bernard Bailyn used the same designation in their

compilation of articles on the migrs. The designation has

been used again and again, and, though elitist, it seems fit as

shorthand to designate these exiles. (3) No other group with

similar characteristics has ever come to America. Their


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intellectual achievements were and still are astonishing and

the study of this peoples migration constitutes a very

significant chapter not only of American immigration history

but also of American Intellectual, Artistic, and Scientific

history.(4)

Chronologically, this wave came after the decline of American

immigration in the 1920s and the restrictionist period, but

before the post World War II displaced persons wave. A

scholar of the migration asserted that the history of exile

literature [intellectual migration] would not be terminated

until its last representative in exile had died or has returned

to his native country. By the same token we would like to say

that the history of this group will not be over until the last

of its members passed from the scene (there are no more

returns). They are the witnesses and the last representatives

of the migration's legacy. (5)

The political turn-moil of those years dispersed thousands of

refugees all over the world, and the majority migrated to the

United States. The best estimate indicates that the refugees

entering America between 1933 and 1944 were about 266,000 among

them 22,842 were intellectuals, professionals, or artists (6).

These numbers are small if compared with the masses going


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through Ellis Island at the dawn of the century, and, because

of that, its study requires different parameters. We need to

look at them almost individually and thus the topic becomes

very vast. A sociological, impersonal or statistical view would

not reveal their experiences, their contributions, their

endeavors, their failures, and their final destiny after the

migration. They should be looked at from a historical view

point without disregarding the context provided by sociology or

the other auxiliary sciences.(7)

The analysis of this migration requires a basic typology to

facilitate its contextual and chronological placement, and also

because such a typology would "provide[s a] theoretical

structure for a broad range of scholarship." As William

Petersen indicated long ago, what is required is a theoretical

framework into which the data may be fitted. He emphasized also

two general points, first, that it is useful to make explicit

the logical structure of a typology; and second that the

criteria by which types are to be distinguished must be

selected with care. (8) This paper will try to follow these

guidelines establishing three basic parameters to classify the

refugees. The first criteria to be developed will be

generational, the second occupational, and the last one will


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distinguish them by country of birth.

Generational Approach

In the last two decades there has been an increasing use of the

generational concept in the sociological and historical

discourse. All attempts to build grand theory based on it

including a historical theory of cyclical reproduction have

failed as they should. However, it seems to this writer that

the concept has great explanatory power in both history and

sociology. My proposal is simple: to use the concept of

generation as a classificatory device. Almost twenty years ago,

Hans Jaeger highlighted what he called a "promising approach"

in generation theory, saying that "[T]he study of concrete

groups, organizations, schools, and movements constitutes the

most promising approach to the research about historical

generations. An examination which starts with the vast

historical reality of a group and then investigates the age

structure uses an approach opposite to that which starts with

the age structure of a group and only then look for factual

connections or correspondences." (9) To be sure, here we will

refer to historical generations without adopting any general

theory, however, we will incorporate when proper the conceptual

insights develop by the generational theory masters.


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Establishing to what generation these individuals belong

explains not only their place in the subsequent history of the

group but also the background they brought to America, their

limitations, and frequently even the nature of the influence

they exerted here.

The concept of generation has been the subject not only of a

large bibliography in sociological studies, but also of many

enlightening historical writings. Here well limit the

generational concept to the age group impacted by specific

historical events during their members' main formative years.

Following Karl Mannheim we placed the formative years as those

spanning from the 17th birthday up to the 25th's. (10) I say

"main" formative years because historical events influence

people all the time and at every age, but it seems that the

psychological impact received during those years leave a

permanent imprint, a distinguishing mark.However, it would be

disingenuous to concentrate exclusively on the years between

the 17th and the 25th birthdays as the only life phase where

personality formation takes place. Obviously, the "primary

stratum of experiences" (infant years) plays a major role in

the subsequent phase of "personal experimentation with life."

(11) The early adolescent years are also crucial. However,

during the formative years the person is the most


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impressionable, the "imprint" that their psyche suffered

defines their way of thinking, their basic attitudes, and his

or her patterns of experience and expression most radically. In

other words, the experiential imprint one receives during

his/her formative years stays with the individual the rest of

his or her life. Thus, according to Karl Mannheim, in this way

they forge a generational style. Another generationalist put it

in this way: "older members of society also experience the same

events, yet they interpret them according to perspectives they

developed during their formative years. Since each generation

has its own Weltanschauung, the experiencing of these events

becomes 'stratified' by a multitude of generational

perspectives."

It has always been my understanding that historically, age

matters the most. Here we have the intellectual migration, this

large and diverse group. How to study its American reception,

their own American experience, their achievements and failures,

their adaptation or revolt, and their cultural legacy? It seems

that without a basic generational typology it will be very

confusing to talk about this people experiences and

achievements. For instance, looking at the migr musicians, we

find these two age extremes, on the one side Alexander

Zemlinsky (1871-1942), and on the other Andre Previn (1929- ).


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They both are members of the intellectual migration despite the

58 years span between their births. They cannot be considered

as part of the group without highlighting the many profound

differences between them and what they mean in terms of

immigration experience.

The older members of the group immigrated in their sixties and

seventies like Maurice Maeterlinck a writer from Belgium born

in 1862, Jacques Hadamard a mathematician from France born in

1865, Richard Beer-Hoffmann, a poet and dramatist from Austria

born in 1866, and Arturo Toscanini, the conductor from Italy

born in 1867. But these are rather exceptions because the bulk

of the oldest migration is from the 1870s. On the other end,

the very youngest are represented by people born even in the

1930s who came here as children with their parents absorbing

through them a cultural mixture from the European home and the

American surroundings. As an example, I would like to mention

Werner Gundersheimer born in 1937, scholar, historian and ex

director of the Folger library. As to age, these are the outer-

limits of the intellectual migration.

Some students of the migration may object to the inclusion of

the younger generations within the group. It has been said that

only those who brought their education from Europe belong to

the migration, because the younger ones studied or developed


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their skills in America. This view cannot be favored because

the younger refugees brought with them European experiences

along with the basic emigration experience plus their personal

qualities, besides most of the time they came with their family

group who prolonged in America the influence of their foreign

culture. All these factors marked them out as members of this

migration.

As to the time of the migration itself we will include those

coming to America from 1933 up to the end of the war in 1945.

However, I make an exception for people that were already here

in 1933 (a short stay) and decided not to return to Europe

during the mentioned period. We would like to repeat here

Robert Boyers's preface words from his compilation of articles

on the intellectual migration. He said that he included

"figures who never even emigrated, for one reason or another,

but who are nonetheless significantly a part of the migr

generation ... [like] ... Walter Benjamin and Karl Kraus."

Kraus is undoubtdly an exaggeration but as to Benjamin you may

say that his writings migrated to America with the Frankfurt

School. Thus, this paper will include individuals who are not

part of the group but should be included because of their

cultural significance and influence on the migration. (12)


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Without going deeper into generational theory what is

significant for our classificatory purpose is the general

outlook, attitudes, habits and style provided by the

generational imprint. Thus, Thomas Mann's Weltschauung is

markedly different from that of, for instance, Erich M.

Remarque, Hannah Arendt, or Peter Gay.

It has been a regular and in some way justified objection to

generational theory that it is imprecise because there is no

agreement as to the boundaries between the generations and

their lengths. Here we preferred to design the generational

categories within precise dates even though we realized that

valid differences may be pointed out. Our view is specific to

the period, the place, and the individuals and it is

unconcerned with establishing a full-strength theory. It must

be understood that there are exceptions which hopefully will

confirm the rule. Moreover, each individual case must be looked

at to determine whether his or her place within a specific zone

of dates coincides with his or her formative experiences.

A generation is said to be a group of like-aged individuals who

are commonly imprinted by socio-historical events because they

experienced those events at a similar age. Thus, men who are

born into the same social environment about the same time


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necessarily come under analogous influences, particularly in

their formative years. Mere common location in a generation is

of only potential significance. Contemporaries have to

participate in the same ideas and concepts. Ortega y Gasset

says that a generation is a zone of 15 years during which a

certain form of life (vital sensitivity, climate of opinion)

was predominant. "Practically every society recognizes a

discrete coming-of-age moment (or 'rite of passage') separating

the dependence of youth from the independence of adulthood.

This moment is critical in creating generations; any sharp

contrast between the experiences of youths and rising adults

may fix important differences in peer personality that last a

lifetime."

Eckstein and Barberia pointed out that cohorts that differ in

their pre-immigration backgrounds can be expected to differ, in

certain respects, in their post-immigration experience. (13)

Hazlett also remarks that the generational imprint is part of

the culturally imposed identity (like that pertaining to women

or minorities). (14) For Pilcher the notion of generations

provides a way to understanding differences between age-groups,

and it constitutes also a means of locating individuals and

groups within historical time. These ideas have been emphasized


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by previous theorists, and evidence of its reliability has been

established. (15)

The sociologists who studied the intellectual migration have

delineated various groups following three statistical

categories: the elder group, an intermediate group, and a

younger group of refugees. Those who in 1933 were older than 45

integrated the elder group (born before 1888). The intermediate

group was formed by those which in 1933 were between 44 and 16

years of age (born between 1889 and 1917). Finally, those 16

years of age and younger at the time of emigration were within

the younger group (born after 1917). (16) These groupings may

satisfy the sociologists perspective, but fall short of the

actual historical generations represented within the migration.

The intermediate group is too large and includes individuals

pertaining to at least two different generations. These

refugees were born after 1888 but before 1917, a span of 29

years including individuals as diverse as Werner Jaeger, the

Classic German Philologist born in 1888, and Peter Drucker, the

Austrian management consultant and educator born in 1908.

Jaeger passed away in 1961, but Drucker in 2005. It is obvious

that these two individuals European experiences made them

members of different generations. The intermediate group then


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includes two different generations, one is the very-much-

analyzed war generation and the other may be designated as the

Weimar generation. This last designation has the disadvantage

of making sense only for the Germans, but not for the other

European countries. However, I'll use it because the Central

European culture at that time was defined mainly by German

culture which was in many ways hegemonic. Besides, most of the

migrs were from Germany and Austria. Another example of the

distinction may be found in Joseph Wechsberg when he describes

the 1914 family's farewell to his father going to war.

Wechsberg was born in 1907 and belongs to the Weimar generation

and his father instead died in WWI. (17)

These generations are to be defined by historical events of the

period spanning from the 1870s to the 1930s. This sixty-year

period begins with the Franco-Prussian war and ends with World

War II, and the main historical event of the period is World

War I. The members of the intellectual migration whose

formative years coincided with World War I are said to belong

to the War generation which is by itself a well-established

concept. (18) All European countries, except Britain, required

compulsory military service for its young men. In Germany, all

able bodied men between the ages of 17 and 45, were liable for


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military service (19).

Therefore, for the purposes of this typology, the war

generation would be integrated by those born from 1889 to 1900.

A Central European born in 1889 would have been 25 in 1914 and

then liable for military service within his formative years,

and, by the same token, an individual born in 1897 would have

been 17 in 1914 and thus subject to the rigors of the war

during his formative years. It should be noted that Central

Europeans who were older than 25 during the war also

experienced it because they were drafted anyway, but most of

them served in non-combat positions. Thus, their experiences

have a different relevance because they were already passed

their formative years. Nonetheless, every personal history must

be considered because the war experience was not the same for

everybody, and even the war generation may be subdivided

depending on the year the person began his military service.

(20)

Thus, being the war generation a well-established concept, the

other generations may be defined preceding or following it.

People born before 1888 should necessarily belong to a previous

generation even though they may have served in the Great War.

They were formed in the 19th century and did not possess the


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mind set, expectations and goals of the war generation.

By the same token, people who were too young to serve in the

war had formative experiences acquired in the post-war social

and political upheavals, a very different existential

environment. The mental imprint of this group must necessarily

be markedly diverse from the war generation. Finally, a

different generation develops in a Europe at the mercy of the

Nazi dictatorship, and, those who got the imprinting at that

time must be grouped in a separate generation. It has been

called the younger generation by several scholars. (21)

Two well-respected scholars distinguished between pre-war

generations. Thus, Detlev J.K. Peukert founded two generations

previous to the war generation. They are the Wilhelmine

generation, contemporaries of Wilhelm II born between 1847 and

1869, and the Grunderzeit generation of those born in the

decade of the establishment of the Reich, between 1870 and 1879.

Then, Peukert lists the Wartime generation of those born in the

1880s and 1890s who experienced military service during the

Great War. (22) The other scholar is Wolfgang Schivelbusch who

analyzed the Wilhelmine generation, those born between 1853 and

1865, and said that they experienced the founding of the German

empire and were a classic "post-heroic" generation of


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inheritors (victors' sons, "epigones" and "literati"). (23)

Even though these two elaborations are well-thought and

compelling they were built for different purposes and do not

consider the intellectual migration. I will use the designation

"Wilhelmine generation" to include all the refugees born before

1888, leaving those born between 1888 and 1900 within the War

generation. The migration includes only a few members born in

the 1860s minimizing in this way the need to halve this group,

however, when necessary, I will take into account the

distinctions pointed out by Peukert and Schivelbusch between

the generations of those borne before or after 1865.

Additionally, in the case of the war generation, some scholars

distinguish between sub-generations because the German draft

covered men within 17 and 45. Thus, some distinguish between

"two groups: those who were mature men in 1914 and who

experienced the war as an interruption of their peacetime

activities; and those born between 1885 and 1900, for whom the

war was an introduction to life and adventure.(24) This is a

distinction which can be clearly identified in the case of

Ludwig Bendix who served in his late 30s and even Paul Tillich

serving during his late 20s. Additionally, the refugees

themselves distinguished between those drafted at the beginning

of the war in 1914 from those incorporated later; a case in


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point is Zuckmayer who placed Remarque and his age group in a

generation separate from his. Again, I will keep in mind these

distinctions whenever appropriate. (25)

Walter Laqueur, a refugee scholar himself, has recently

published "Generation Exodus" an account of the so-called

younger generation of emigrants. He said in the preface that

his is a first attempt to sketch the portrait of a generation,

the young people from Germany and Austria who were forced to

emigrate after the Nazis went into power, and that this was the

cohort of those born, roughly speaking, between 1914 and 1928.

Laqueur (1921- ) himself belongs to this generation which will

be called the "younger generation" to followed the terminology

used by other scholars. (26)

Now, in between the "War generation" and the "Younger

generation" we have those born between 1901 and 1916 which

constitute a separate and definite generation, the "Weimar

generation" imprinted in their adolescence by the chaos created

after Germany's defeat (revolution of 1919), death caused by

the Pandemic Influenza of 1918-1919, economic distress caused

by the German hyper-inflation of 1921-1923, and in general the

cultural turmoil of post-war Central Europe.


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It seems possible to add another generation after Laqueur's

generation exodus or Fermi's young generation, because some

members of the migration born after 1928 were imprinted by the

migration itself, and, of course, by the American culture.

However, similarly to the Wilhelmine generation including

individuals born in the 1860s, we are including in the younger

generation figures like Andre Previn (1929- ), Leo Spitzer

(1939- ), etc. who were born after 1928. Therefore, in

summary, the lineup of generations goes like this:

Wilhelmine Generation (born before 1888)

War Generation (bornfrom 1889 to 1900)

Weimar Generation (bornfrom 1901 to 1917)

Younger Generation (bornafter 1918)

Examples fitting each category are Thomas Mann born in 1875 for

the older group; Carl Zuckmayer born in 1897 for the war

generation; Hannah Arendt born in 1906 for the Weimar

generation; and Peter Gay born in 1923 for the younger refugees.

This classification of the intellectual migration in four

groupings will allow us to draw conclusions and establish

connections among them illuminating thus many aspects of their


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migration experience.

Wilhelmine Generation

You [Erich Kahler] have given an example of fortitude that

honorably differs from the complete incompetence of most refugee

intellectuals faced with their new situation. None of them, I have

the impression, is prepared to learn anything new; rather they all

want to go on as they did in times now buried, and expect roasted

squabs to fly into their mouths. T.Mann to E. Kahler, 05/25/1941

This generation was formed during the Wilhelmian Empire and

before, including then those emigrants born up to 1888. They

are those too old to fight in the First World War, even though

they might have served anyway in a non-combatant capacity. Hans

Jaeger, a scholar of generations, provides an example of

generational phenomena found in Wilhelmine Germany between 1914

and 1918 saying that "in 1914, we find in Germany a society

which bears the imprint of the Wilhelmine Empire ... among

older people. A widespread economic and social expansion, an

authoritarian state and the education of subjects, a display of

power with respect to foreign policy... The Wilhelmine

lifestyle had left such a deep imprint on the German people

because of its long duration." (27)


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Thomas Mann (1875-1955) in his 1950 article entitled The Years

of My Life called this generation the Old Timers, and spoke of

a cultural advantage which the man born in 1875 possessed over

those born straight into the post-bourgeois world. He said

that the old timers still witnessed a form of opposition to

liberalism and rationalism that itself abided by the loftiest

tenets of culture, a darkling variety of humanism, as it were,

a pessimism that wrote the language of our great humanistic

epoch, its proud misanthropy never denying respect for ideas,

for the higher vocation, for the dignity of man. Peter Gay

illustrates the theme of the Gospel of Work with Thomas Manns

fathers example extolling in his will the virtues of work.

These observations confirm Manns generational outlook. (28)

Zweig in his homage to Ludwig for his 50th birthday said that

for that whole generation, for all of us who began our lives

before the War in the old forms that had once been appropriate,

the world upheaval also signified an inner upheaval. He

recognized that even though they belonged to the Wilhelmine

generation, WWI shook them up and made them understand the

teaching of events. (29)

Another example of this generation is Bruno Walter (1876-1962)

the notable conductor whose autobiography describes the


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spiritual attitude of those times. Mann was 39 at the time of

WWI, and Walter 38, and the war did not alter the basic outlook

and habits of these men. Neither one of them, of course, served

in the war even though the German draft extended to age 45. (30)

H. Stuart Hughes, one of the historians of the migration,

places the German intellectual of the Wilhelminian era in a

peculiarly ambiguous relationship to his own political and

social milieu. For him the polarity between the attractions of

Berlin and those of the southwest was paralleled by a tension

between political acceptance and opposition. (31) They were too

old to fight in WWI. However, some of them like Ludwig Bendix

(1877-1954), Reinhards father, served as a soldier in the home

guard continuing nonetheless his legal practice and his

writings. Men of this generation who were born before 1888

stood outside the 20th centurys zone of influence.

Gay in Weimar Culture says that Gropius (1883-1969) developed

his ideas during the Empire, the war gave them political

direction, and they found open expression in the revolution.(32)

Some of the migrs may seem to belong chronologically to one

generation but their crucial experiences placed them in another.

H. Stuart Hughes gives the example of Karl Mannheim (1893-1947)


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saying that he was eleven years younger that Cesare Borgese

(1882-1952), but, Mannheim, in terms of historical experience

was a member of the same generation than Borgese. Both had come

to intellectual maturity before WWI; and both had their base

point in the prewar sense of economic security and social

deference that the cultivated had enjoyed. Hughes also

contrasted the smaller age gap that separated Mannheim from

Erich Fromm, and assert that however, it marked a real

psychological watershed. Born in 1900, Fromm belonged to the

generation that went through the war as adolescents and whose

decisive intellectual encounters were to occur in the tormented

early years of the 1920s. (33)

Heinrich Mann brings up the images of his youth in Bismarckian

Germany [indicating that they] reflect not merely nostalgia,

but rather present an ideal period of individual development, a

time whose stability was inextricably linked to the policies of

Bismarck: he not only maintained peace from 1875-1890, but he

strengthened it. Thanks to the peace Bismarck was able to

continue another twenty-five years in spite of arrogance and

ill will. Reflecting upon his youth, Mann perceives in this

enduring peace the basis for the continuity of individual

development: In order for a young person to develop in a


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coherent fashion, to develop, to use an expression of the 19th

century, historically, he has to believe that the course of his

life is anchored in a logical scheme of things, which ceases if

there is war. Wars are the violent rupture in a life which had

otherwise been connected. (34) Perhaps an even sharper

description of that era is found in Stefan Zweigs

autobiography (1881-1942). (35)

Another revealing case is that of Paul Tillich, the theologian

and philosopher born in 1886 who actually belongs to this

generation. However, he was 28 at the time of WWI and served

the four years of the war as a chaplain. His war experience was

very intense and prolonged enough to leave him shaken and

stricken, but he was already formed as an individual and as a

member of the Wilhelminian generation. His personality was

formed in the 1890s and he is clearly a man of the 19th century.

Tillich himself expounded frequently on the idea of his

existence being on a boundary, perhaps he was also in a

boundary as to pertaining to two generations the Whilhelminian

and also the war generation. "In a sermon delivered in 1955,

Tillich confessed to a recognition that the refugees and the

tradition they represented constituted 'a generation of the

end.' He and his compatriots had lost, by virtue of their


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attachment to a culture that bred mass destruction and death,

the ability to survive spiritually in the atmosphere of hope

that he had identified as uniquely American. ... He and his

generation could only be 'symbols of death,' participants in an

ending." (36)

The notion that this generation had reached the end of its road

at the time of WWII was repeatedly communicated by Stefan Zweig

to his friends. In New York, when Zuckmayer told him that they

should live to be 90 or 100 to see decent times again, Zweig

answered that "those will never come again to us .. we shall be

homeless ... What is the sense of living on as one's own shadow?

We are ghosts or memories ... However the war may turn out a

world is coming in which we don't belong." (37)

This generation passed away in the forties, fifties and sixties,

and it made up about 20% of the entire IM (38). The oldest

member of the cohort would be Maeterlinck born in 1861 and the

youngest born in 1888. The median age is represented by those

born in 1875 like Thomas Mann. Taking him as an example the

formative years span from 1892 (17 years old) and 1900 (25

years old).


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War Generation (1889 to 1900)

A thorough description and analysis of this conspicuous

European generation was made by Robert Wohl in his definitive

The Generation of 1914 (1979). The members of this generation

are those born between 1889 and 1900 whether or not they served

in the war. (39) Some of them reached influential positions

before the war. Wohl says that to understand this generation,

chronological limits have to be abandoned, and the zone of

dates replaced by a magnetic field (experiential field as a

common frame of reference) at the center of which lies an

experience or a series of experiences. The war is undoubtedly

the defining experience. The distinction between the war

generation and the preceding Wilhelmine generation is given by

"different structures of sensibility, different conceptions

about the relation between self and culture that had developed

during the First World War." (40)

They viewed themselves as a distinct generation whose youth

coincided with the opening of the twentieth century and their

lives were then bifurcated. The experiences of this generation

were not only the experiences during the war but also those

acquired growing up and formulating their first ideas in a

world framed by two dates 1900 and 1914, their vital horizon.


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(41) It has been said that this generation coalesced around the

cultural atmosphere created by the decadence of the old world,

the world of their parents, the world of the 19th century that

reached its imperial pinnacle "between the 1850s and 1911 [when]

the Europeans carved up into colonies almost the entire

underdeveloped world. According to this view Europe began

cultural disintegration by 1900; and reached its paroxistic

culmination with the war experience." (42)

The image devised by this generation before the war was a

reversal of the qualities that they disliked or feared in the

generation of their parents. They considered themselves as

doers while saw their fathers as thinkers; they sought

assurance in a calm faith while their elders floundered in

moral relativism; and they felt strong and vital while there

parents had been weak and indecisive. (43) Laura Fermi put

this generation between 1890 and 1910.(44)

To this cohort belongs Karl Wittfogel, the sinologist, born in

1896, a member of the German Youth movement before the war, and

politically active during the Weimar period. Others members are

Leo Lowenthal, the sociologist, born in 1900, Kurt Lewin, the

psychologist, born in 1890, Hans Kohn, the historian, born in

1891, and Herbert Marcuse, the philosopher, born in 1898, all


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of them served in WWI. Wohl says that those who belonged to

the war generation are the young who went to war, or managed

to avoid it, and afterwards found themselves confronted with

and spurred into action by the various forms of debris that the

war left behind. Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968) and Karl Mannheim

(1893-1947) are also members of this age group.

Also called Front Generation, it is described as integrated

by those born between 1892-1897 (others said, those born

between 1890-1900). They are those who had borne WWIs brunt in

the trenches. In general, men born before 1888 stood outside

the twentieth centurys zone of influence. (45)

Zuckmayer in his autobiography lists the influences that

affected his generation, and also distinguishes between the

generations of volunteers who went to war in August 1914 from

the next generation one year and a half or two younger who went

to war the next year or so. He said that Remarque belonged to

that generation and that they did not share the excitement and

the enthusiasm of the volunteer generation. He also discusses

the exhilaration felt by most of the Germans in 1914.(46)

Another landmark experience for this generation and the next

must have been the influenza epidemic of 1918 which at the end


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of the Great War inaugurated for many their formative period.

It has been said that this epidemic "affected the course of

history and was a terrifying presence at the end of [the

war]. ... Children were orphaned, families destroyed. Some who

lived through it said it was so horrible that they would not

even talk about it. Others tried to put it behind them as

another wartime nightmare, somehow conflating it with the

horrors of trench warfare and mustard gas. ... It swept the

globe in months, ending when the war did." (47)

An Austrian member of this generation is Joseph Roth (1894-1939)

who was 18 at the outset of the war. He wrote: "My strongest

experience was the war and the fall of my fatherland, the only

one I ever had: the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy." (48) The name

of this generation with the addition of the word "empire" has

been used to define the following generation. (49)

Weimar Generation (1901-1917)

They were those too young to fight in the First World War who

came of age during the tumultuous years caused by war and defeat

maturing during the post-war crisis and witnessing the Weimar

instability and the inflation. Historian George L. Mosse,

himself a German refugee, in a review of Henry Pachter's Weimar


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Etudes, analyzed and discussed the intellectual assumptions and

roots of the Weimar generation. Mosse pertains to the younger

generations those who were formed by the triumph of fascism

unlike Pachter whose formative years took place during the

Weimar period. So, Mosse said that "the Weimar generation was

essentially anti-historical and optimistic about man, while that

which grew to maturity in the 1930s was deeply conscious of

historical connections, crushed by the weight of history gone

wrong."(50)

Kay Schiller says that Paul Oskar Kristeller (1905-1999)

belonged to the generation of Germans between 1900 and 1910,

wich was marked by its generally low chances on the

oversubscribed German academic market of the mid 1920s. (51)

Most of the members of this generation have already passed away.

(52) It was a truly post-war generation. As Peter Gay says, the

Republic was born in defeat, lived in turmoil, and died in

disaster. (53) Mommsen said that the dominant generational

experience of this group was the collapse of the prewar

bourgeois social order, and also that, for this generation, war,

revolution, and inflation were traumatic experiences. Reulecke

says that "many young people from the generation born after

1901 (i.e. the cohort not sent to the front, conscription


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extending only as far as the birth-year 1901) reacted with

bitterness to the hardships they were suffering and condensed

their frustration into the phrase 'the war is our parents.'" One

of the main representatives of this generation is Hannah Arendt

born in 1906. Whitfield says that "Arendt was supremely a

product of Weimar culture."(54)

It includes those born between 1901 and 1917. In this group we

find T. Adorno and B. Bettelheim both born in 1903. It is

symptomatic that during the 1960s Bettelheim and Arendt both

participated in the Eichmann controversy.(55). Additionally, in

his Foreword to Krohns book, Vidich says that, in the 1960s,

Arendt collated and synthesized the work done by the original

generation in the New School. He implicitly defined the

original generation as that composed by the two categories here

designated as Wilhelmine and the War generation (56). It was

also called War Youth Generation (born between 1900 and 1910,

those who were too young to be called to serve in WWI but old

enough to respond consciously to those events. Perhaps the

Weimar generation may be subdivided in two sub-generations, one

covering those born between 1900-1910 and one covering 1910-

1920, pushing then the younger generation three years ahead.

Franz Neumann born in 1900 did military service at the end of


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WWI receiving his first ideological education in the Soldiers

councils which sprang up in the wake of the armistice of 1918.

Then he became a labor lawyer (57).

Claudia Althaus, elaborating on the trajectory of Arendts

thought, characterizes her generation as that of the inter-war

Prussian Jews, and indicated that the formative experience that

informs Arendts work bound the consciousness of this

generation- is that of a break in tradition expressed by the

sense of wordlessness and wandering imposed on Jews; the horror

of the Holocaust; and the loss of any reliability of either

tradition or metaphysics as standards of judgment (58).

Wohl talks about the class of 1902, as a transitional

generation, followed in turn by those born after 1910, who are

perceived to be essentially different from that transitional

generation. This split would also recognize a distinction

within the Weimar generation. Moreover, even Laqueur says that

there was a tremendous difference between even the youngest of

the older refugees, say those born around 1910 and those ten

years younger. "The older generation [and I think he includes

here the Wilhelmine, the War, and the Weimar generations]

suffered because America was not Europe, but the younger

refugees were less deeply rooted in Europe and more adaptable.


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(59).

A witness of the Weimar years in his autobiographical

recollections indicates that "Hitler appealed to the two great

experiences that had marked the younger generation": the "great

war game" of 1914-18 and the "triumphal anarchic looting" of

the 1923 inflation. In this twin appeal laid, in essence, the

Nazis' foreign and domestic policies. (60) Hitler may very well

considered the Weimar generation as "his younger generation",

because he himself was a member of the war generation, having

been born in 1889 he belonged to the early veterans of the war

generation.

Younger generation

It is called generation exodus by Lacqueur, and includes those

who emigrated, and got their training in America. They were

born between 1917 and 1928 and did not embraced the nationwide

mobilization of 1933 because mainly they belonged to the

victimized group (Jews) or, if they didn't, because they

abhorred of the nature of the new regime (61).

L. Fermi says that the youngest among those who left Europe in

1940 or 1941 were born close to the opening of the twenties.

Herbert Strauss was born in 1918, and Walter Laqueur in 1921.


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Reinhard Bendix (1916-1991) distinguishes between the older and

the younger generation including in the former the Wilhelmine,

the War, and the Weimar generations. The significance he

assigns to the distinction is that the older generation never

fully immigrated, in other words, they did not assimilated or

acculturated. In Bendixs autobiography From Berlin to

Berkeley, it can be found the drama of his fathers (Ludwig,

1877-1954) naivet, hardheadness, suffering and fastidiousness

concerning his emigration. Even though Bendix was born in 1916,

as a result of his own self-conscious immigrating identity, he

may be included within the younger category (62).

All the members of the intellectual migration had two strains

in their personality, one was the cultural imprint of their

foreign birth and the other, as part of the latter, was the

generational imprint of his or her European time. It goes

without saying that the former which is not the base of this

classification is found in all the cohorts while the latter

adds a slighter strain for the younger generations. (63)

In his Foreword to Krohns book, Vidich describes this

generation as the youthful generation of migrs such as Lewis

Coser (1913-2003) and Herbert Gans (1927- ) who arrived in

the United States in the late thirties or immediately after the


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war tended with few exceptions to cut themselves off from their

German origins and sought to Americanize themselves. Apart from

a few young migrs such as Werner Marx (1910-1994), Peter

Berger (1929- ), Brigitte Berger , Beate Salz, and Thomas

Luckmann (1927- ) who, by studying at the Graduate Faculty

immediately after the war, were exposed to the older tradition

of thought, the new generation of German students confronted a

fractured intellectual culture. For them, studying American

sources was difficult to resist. (64)

Fritz Stern (1926- ) an historian, identifies himself as

belonging to the postwar generation.(65) Laqueur says that even

though he treated this younger generation as a whole, it is

necessary to trace a fundamental dividing line between those

born between 1914 and 1922, and those born between 1923 and

1928. The reason for this is that the latter came to America to

incorporate themselves to the education system which was the

law of the land unlike the former that came to work and help

their families.(66) Some of the refugees felt that clinging to

the German language was an existential necessity because it

preserved their identity; however, the great majority of the

refugees did not share this attitude. For them the German

language was neither home nor emotional pillar.(67)


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Laqueur says that he belongs to the last generation of Jews

with conscious memories of growing up in Weimar Germany and

under the Nazis, adding that a great many of the generation

before them have put their recollections on paper, but very few

of his generation had done so. And he believes that the reason

for that discrepancy is obvious: his generation did not root

deeply in their country of origin, as they grew they tended to

look forward rather than backward. Their interest in Germany

faded, they used their native language infrequently, they

became absorbed in the society and culture of their new homes

(68).

One of the very young members of this group is Andre Previn

born in 1929 who came to America and got established in L.A. in

1938. He came as an eleven-year-old youngster. His father was a

German lawyer who did not know English and was unable to take

the California bar. Another is Mike Nichols born in 1931. We

should also mention Werner Gundersheimer born in 1937.

My aim in proposing this classification is to make more

intelligible and therefore easier the handling of the large

mass of emigres. We know that most of them were Jews, and came

from Germany and Austria. We will also try to classify them by

profession or scholarly specialty, however, the generational


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criteria seems to us to be no only essential but also very

telling at the time of evaluating their views of America.

Occupational Approach

The percentage of intellectual professional and artists within

the intellectual migration has been calculated in about 8.5% of

the total number of migrs clever enough, or lucky enough to

have reached America during the 1930s and early 1940s. The

professional pursuits, intellectual endeavors, and/or artistic

merits of these people were as diverse as their experiences.

The following is an alphabetical non-exhaustive listing of

their occupations with references to literary works focused on

that specific occupation. These references are given as

bibliographical examples.

Actors and actresses (performing arts)

Joseph Horowitz, Artistsin Exile, New York: HarperCollins,

2008.

Agriculturalists

Rhonda F. Levine, Class, Networks,and Identity. Replanting

Jewish Livesfrom Nazi Germany to Rural New York, Lanham,

Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001


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Architects

TomWolfe, From Bauhaustoour House, New York: Bantam

Books, 1981.

Peter Hahn, "Bauhausin Exile," Exiles+Emigres. The Flight

of European Artistsfrom Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof

Art, 1997,pgs. 210-223

Franz Schulze, "The Bauhaus Architectsandthe Riseof

Modernisminthe United States," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof

European Artists from Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof

Art, 1997,pgs. 224-234

KathleenJames, "Changingthe Agenda: from German Bauhaus

modernismto U.S.internationalism," (Vander Rohe, Gropius,

and Breuer) Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof European Artistsfrom

Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art, 1997,pgs. 235-252

KathleenJames-Chakraborty,ed.,Bauhaus Culture From

Weimar to the Cold War, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota

Press, 2006.

Art historians

Erwin Panofsky, Meaninginthe Visual Arts, Phoenix:

Universityof Chicago Press, 1982

Karen Michels, "Transferand Transformation: the German

periodoin Americanarthistory," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof

European Artistsfrom Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof


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Art, 1997,pgs. 304-316

Kevin Parker, "Arthistoryandexile: Richard Krautheimer

and Erwin Panofsky," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof European

Artistsfrom Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art, 1997,

pgs. 317-325

Artists

Stephanie Barron & Sabine Eckmenn,ed., Los Angeles County

Museumof Art, Exile & Emigres: The Flightof European Artists

from Hitler, 1997

Chemists

Ute Deichmann, "The ExpulsionofJewish Chemists &

Biochemistsfrom Academia In Nazi Germany", Perspectiveson

Science, 7.1 (1999) 1-86.

P. Thomas Carroll,Immigrants in American Chemistry,

Jarrell Jackman & Carla M. Borden, ed., The Muses Flee Hitler

Cultural Transfer and Adaptation, 1930-2945, Washington D.C.:

Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983, pgs. 189-203.

Cinematographers

Gene D. Phillips, Exilesin Hollywood: major Europeanfilm

directorsin America, Danvers, Mass. Associated University


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Presses, 1998

John Baxter, The Hollywood Exiles, New York: Taplinger

Publisher, 1976.

DavidWallace, Exilesin Hollywood, Pompton Plains, New

Jersey: Limelight Editions, 2006.

Classicists

William M. Calder, III, "The Refugee Classical Scholarsin

the USA: An Evaluationoftheir Contribution," Illinois

Classical Studies,vol. 17.1 (Spring 1992): 153-173.

Communication Researchers

Stefanie Averbeck, The Post-1933 Emigration of

Communication Researchers from Germany, European Journal of

Communication,vol. 16 (4): 451-475.

Comparative Politics

Gerhard Loewenberg, The Influence of European migr

Scholars on Comparative Politics, 1925-1965, American

Political Science Review,vol. 100, No. 4 (November 2006).597-

604.

Composers


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Michael H. Kater, "Composersofthe Nazi Era," N.Y.: Oxford

UP 2000.

Reinhold Brinkmann & ChristophWolff,ed.,Driven into

Paradise: The Musical Migration from Nazi Germany to the United

States, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Conductors

PaulJackson, "Maestrosofthe Storm. How European

Conductors Found Refugeatthe Met," Opera News,July 1995, 36.

Dermatologists

S. Eppinger,etal.,The Emigrationof GermanysJewish

Dermatologistsinthe Periodof National Socialism,"Journalof

the European Academyof Dermatologyand Venereology (2003)17,

525-530.

Economists

Keith Tribe, "German migr Economists and the

Internationalisation of Economics," The Economic Journal, 111

(November 2001): 740-746.

F. M. Scherer, The Emigration of German-Speaking

Economistsafter 1933,Journalof Economic Literature,vol. 38,

No. 3 (Sept 2000), 614-626.


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Engineers

D.S. Halacy, Jr., Father of Supersonic Flight. Theodor von

Karman, N.Y.: Messnar, 1965.

Film Producers

Jan-Christopher Horak, "German Exile Cinema, 1933-1950,"

Film History, 8 (4) 1996, 373-389.

Germanists

Mark M. Anderson, "The Silent Generation?Jewish Refugee

Students,Germanistik,and Columbia University," The Germanic

Review,Win 2003, 78, No. 1,pg. 20-38

Guy Stern, "TheWaywewere: Reminiscencesof Columbia's

German Department," The Germanic Review,Win 2003, 78, No. 1,

pg. 13-19

Jeffrey M. Peck, "Postcript: dedicationtoaninfluential

generationof Germanists: thetransferofknowledgefrom German

toJewsin American German Studies," German Politicsand

Society, 23.1 (Spring 2005) pg. 189

Historians

Hartmut LehmannandJamesJ. Sheehan, An Interrupted Past.


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German-Speaking Refugee Historiansinthe United Statesafter

1933, GHI, Cambridge UP, 1991

Catherine Epstein, A Past Renewed: A Catalogof German-

Speaking Refugee Historiansinthe United Statesafter 1933,

German Historical Institute: Cambridge UP 1993

Journalists

Michael Groth, "The Roadto New York: The Emigrationof

BerlinJournalists, 1933-1945 (Germany, United States)," Diss.

Univ.of Iowa, 1984, AAT8407746.

Lawyers

Ugo Mattei, Review of The Reception of Continental Ideas in

the Common Law World, 1820-1920 by Mathias Reimann, and Der

Einfluss deutscher Emigranten auf die Rechtsentwicklung in

den USA und in Deutschland by Marcus Lutter, Ernst C.

Stiefel, and Michael H. Hoeflich; The American Journal of

Comparative Law, vol. 42, No. 1, (Winter, 1994), pp. 195-218.

John H. Langbein, The Influence of Comparative Procedure in

the U.S., The American Journal of Comparative Law, vol. 43,

No. 4 (Autumm 1995): 545-554.

Librarians


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Hildegard Muller, "German Librariansin Exilein Turkey,

1933-1945," Librariesand Culture,vol. 33, No. 3, Summer 1998,

294-305.

Mathematicians

Nathan Reingold, (Refugee Mathematiciansinthe United

Statesof America, 1933-1941: Receptionand Reaction,( Annals

of Science, 38 (1981): 313-338.

Musicians

Reinhold Brinkmann & ChristophWolff,ed., Driveninto

Paradise. The Musical Migrationfrom Nazi Germanytothe United

States, U.of Chicago P., 1999

Painters

Barbara Copeland Buenger, "Antifascismor Autonomous Art?

Max Beckmann,Wassily Kandisnsky,John Heartfield,and Kurt

Schwitters," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof European Artists

from Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art, 1997,pgs. 57-85

Keith Holz, "Antifascismor Autonomous Art? Oskar

Kokoschka," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof European Artists

from Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art, 1997,pgs. 86-95


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Photographers

Deborah Irmas, "Experiencingthe NewWorld: Andreas

Feininger, Andre Kertesz," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof

European Artistsfrom Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art,

1997,pgs. 195-209

Psiquiatrists

Sanford Gifford, "Emigre Analystsin Boston, 1930-1940,"

Int Forum Psychoanalisis 12:164-172 (2003).

Physicians

Alfred E. Cohn, "Exiled Physiciansinthe United States",

The American Scholar, Summ 1943, 352.

Publishers and editors

Leon Sokoloff, "Refugees from Nazism and he biomedical

publishing industry," Studies in History and Philosophy of

Biologicaland Biomedical Sciences, 33 (2002)315-324.

Richard Abel & Gordon Graham,ed., Immigrant Publishers The

Impact of Expatriates in Britain and America, New Brunswick,

NewJersey: Transaction Publishers, 2009.

Sculptors


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Matthew Affron, "Construinga NewJewish Identity.Jacques

Lipchitzin New York,1941-45," Exiles+Emigres. The Flightof

European Artistsfrom Hitler, Los Angeles Public Museumof Art,

1997pgs. 120-125.

Sinologists

Martin Kern, The Emigrationof German Sinologists 1933-

1945: Notesonthe Historyand Historiographyof Chinese

Studies, TheJournalofthe American Oriental Society,

10/1/1998.

Social Scientists

Irving Louis Horowitz, "Betweenthe Charybdisof Capitalism

andhe Scyllaof Communism: The Emigrationof German Social

Scientists, 1933-1945," 11 Social Science History No. 2 (Summer

1987), 113-138.

Social Workers

Carel Sternberg, IRC Obituary,Jan 17, 2003

Writers

Dagmar C.G. Lorenz, "JewishWomen Authorsandthe Exile

Experience: Claire Goll, Veza Canetti, Else Lasker-Schuler,


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Nelly Sachs, Cordelia Edvardson," German Lifeand Letters 51:2,

April 1998.

Egbert Krispyn, Anti-NaziWritersin Exile, Athens: U.of

Georgia P., 1978.

Wolfgang Elfe,James Hardin,and Gunther Holst,ed., The

Fortunesof GermanWritersin America: Studiesin Literary

Reception, Columbia: U.of South Carolina P., 1992.

National Approach

This approach seems to lose significance because most of the

refugees were from Germany and those from Austria may even be

included in the majority group because of the similarity of

cultural influences. However, distinctions should be made due

to the intermittent nature of the migration and the country

conditions overtime from 1933 to 1945. It is also true that the

overwhelming majority of the migrants got their basic imprint

from the Central European culture. Nonetheless, distinctions

should be made for each nationality, the Spaniards, the French,

the Italians, the Polish, the Russians, the Hungarians, the

Bulgarians, the Romanians, the Checks, the Hollanders, the

Belgium, the Finns, the Norwegians, and the Danes. Laura Fermi,

one of the earliest students of the migration, dedicated


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chapter five of her book to analyze the refugees national

origins. Some book-length studies are dedicated to specific

nationalities.

Once you go to each nationality it is not just the figure of

the individual exile that counts, on the contrary your are

opening a new world and end up deepening your research into the

specific countrys 20th century history, its relationship with

the U.S., etc.

FRANCE

The characteristics of the French migration are: (1)

relatively few number of refugees compared with other

nationalities; (2) most of the refugees returned to France at

the end of the war; and (3) they were not enemy aliens but

citizens of an allied country.

ColinW Nettelbeck,Forever French, New York: Berg, 1991.

Jeffrey Mehlman,migr New York, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

UP, 2000

Patrick Wilcken, Claude Levi-Strauss. The Poet in the

Laboratory, New York: Penguin Press, 2010. [Chapter 4: Exile,

pg. 115].

Richard Preston Unsworth,A French Connection, in Peter I.

Rose ed., The Dispossessed, Amherst: U. of Massachusetts P.,


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2005, pg. 157.

Christopher Benfey & Karen Remmler, ed., Artists,

Intellectualas, and World War II. The Pontigny Encounters at

Mount Holyoke College, 1942-1944, Boston: Univ. of

Massachusetts Press, 2006.

ITALY

Charles Killinger, Fighting Fascism from the Valley:

Italian Intellectuals in the United States, in Peter I. Rose

ed., The Dispossessed, Amherst: U. of Massachusetts P., 2005, pg.

133.

Laura Fermi,Illustrious Immigrants, Chicago: U. of Chicago

P., 1968, pg. 33-34.

HUNGARY

Kati Marton,The Great Escape, New York: Simon & Schuster,

2006

Tibor Frank, Double Exile: Migrations of Jewish-Hungarian

Professionals through Germany, Bern: Peter Lang, 2009.

SPAIN

RobertaJohnson, Spanish Emigres of 1939 as Professors and

Scholars in the U.S., Hispania, v. 80, No. 2 (May 1997): 265-

267


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Samuel G. Armistead, Americo Castro in the United States

(1937-1969), Hispania, v. 80, No. 2 (May 1997)L 271-274.

Documents

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