Suspicious but Needed: Westemigranten between U.S. Exile and Return to the GDR

可疑但需要：美国之间的西方移民

• 批准号: 233500281
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Martin Sabrow
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam e.V. (ZZF)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2011-12-31 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/233500281?language=en
• 关键词: Suspicious; but; Needed; Westemigranten; between

This book project under the planned title "Beargwöhnt und benötigt: Westemigranten zwischen USA-Exil und DDR" (Suspicious and Needed: German Communist Émigrés Between the United States and Their Return to the GDR) focuses on the life and work of the German communist refugees in the United States, who returned, after 1945, to East Germany to help build a socialist society. It is mainly based on archival material from the US and Germany, including FBI files and personal files in the German Federal Archives and the Stasi Archives.This project will explore how the individual and collective experiences of these East German communists affected their lives and work. The group under review includes around forty individuals (around seventy with their families) who lived in the United States between 1938 and 1945-48. Among them were prominent and even famous writers, artists, and scholars, such as Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Bloch, Hanns and Gerhart Eisler, Henryk Grossmann, Stefan Heym, Alfred Kantorowicz, and Samuel Mitja Rapoport. Not all of them were members of the Communist Party of Germany, but all belonged in the US to a network that was closely linked with the party. The book will discuss the dual perception of the United States by the refugees: as a land that saved their lives and as a society that was largely racially segregated.In communist East Germany the returning refugees were welcomed and needed but likewise seen with suspicion. Their scholarly and artistic expertise could not be separated from their exile experience in the main country of "Western imperialism." The so-called Westemigranten (émigrés to the West) had to orient themselves in a society that was mainly directed by those communists who had returned from the Soviet Union or had survived Nazism in concentration camps or prisons. While many of the returnees from the US succeeded in literature, arts, science and scholarship or the media, only very few, such as Albert Norden, pursued political careers.The project will deal with the following key questions:1.) What political plans for a post-war Germany did the communist refugees conceptualize in American exile?2.) Why did these people return to East Germany and not to West Germany during the Cold War?3.) Was there a common cultural "American exile experience" that shaped the thoughts and actions of the former refugees in the GDR?4.) How did the "Westemigranten" survive the political purges of the 1950s? How was their political commitment shaped by these experiences? What were their places and positions in East German society in later years?

这本书的计划标题为“Beargwöhnt und benötigt：Westemigranten zwischen USA-Exil und DDR”（可疑和需要：美国之间的德国共产主义移民及其返回东德），重点关注德国共产主义难民的生活和工作1945 年后返回东德，帮助建设社会主义社会。它主要基于美国的档案材料。和德国，包括联邦调查局档案以及德国联邦档案馆和史塔西档案馆中的个人档案。该项目将探讨这些东德共产主义者集体的个人和经历如何影响他们的生活和工作。接受审查的群体包括大约四十人（大约70 人及其家人）在 1938 年至 1945-48 年间居住在美国，其中包括著名的作家、艺术家和学者，如贝尔托·布莱希特 (Bertolt Brecht)、恩斯特·布洛赫 (Ernst Bloch)、汉斯 (Hanns) 和格哈特 (Gerhart)。艾斯勒、亨利克·格罗斯曼、斯特凡·海姆、阿尔弗雷德·坎托洛维奇和塞缪尔·米贾·拉波波特并非所有人都是德国共产党成员，但他们都属于美国的一个与该党关系密切的网络。难民对美国的双重看法：作为一个拯救了他们生命的土地和一个基本上种族隔离的社会。在共产主义东德，返回的难民受到欢迎和需要，但同样对他们的学术和艺术专业知识持怀疑态度。不能所谓的“Westemigranten”（流亡西方的人）必须在一个主要由从苏联返回或曾在苏联返回的共产主义者领导的社会中自我定位。虽然许多从美国归来的人在文学、艺术、科学和学术或媒体领域取得了成功，但只有极少数人，如阿尔伯特·诺登，从事政治生涯。该项目将涉及以下关键问题。问题：1.）流亡美国的共产主义难民为战后德国制定了哪些政治计划？2.）为什么这些人在冷战期间返回东德而不是西德？3.）是否存在共同的文化“美国流亡经历”塑造了东德前难民的思想和行动？4.）“西移民”如何在 20 世纪 50 年代的政治清洗中幸存下来？这些经历如何塑造了他们的政治承诺？他们在东方的地位和地位晚年的德国社会？