Anti-Nazi Resistance on the American Continent: Artists, Intellectuals, and the “Other Germany”

March 21, 2023 at 12:00 PM Pacific Time

A public lecture by Raíssa Alonso (PhD candidate in Social History, University of São Paulo, Brazil)
2022-2023 Margee and Douglas Greenberg Research Fellow
(Join us in person for this lecture or attend virtually on Zoom)

Organized by the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research

As the Nazis assumed power in February 1933, many artists and intellectuals opposed to the regime saw no other option but to seek refuge in order to escape political and/or ethnic persecution. Across the Atlantic, the United States was a preferred destination, but Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina also received a high number of refugees, amounting to some of the largest German-speaking communities outside of Germany. Several anti-Nazi resistance movements were founded on the American continent, such as Das Andere Deutschland (Argentina), Movimento dos Alemães Livres (Brazil), and Freies Deutschland (Mexico). One core concept for several of these groups was “The Other Germany”. First coined by Heinrich Mann in 1934, the phrase eventually came to represent the idea that Hitler’s Third Reich did not embody the true morals and ideals of Germany.

Participants of these resistance groups sought to explain why the German people came to embrace fascism, and they sought to envision an ideal future for post-fascist Germany. Both subjects became central points of dispute among resistance groups on the American continent. These debates took place in their published newspapers and also in personal correspondence between members. Founders and leaders of these resistance groups often sought the validation and support of preeminent German artists and intellectuals in exile, such as the Mann family in Los Angeles. In this lecture, Raíssa Alonso will take a closer look at these resistance movements, the concepts that united them, and the disputes and divergences that ultimately made their dream of a united resistance front on the American continent impossible.

Lecture image: A collage of three historical anti-Nazi periodicals from the Americas: the Movimento dos Alemães Livres association in Brazil, the Das Andere Deutschland movement in Argentina, and the Freies Deutschland Magazine in Mexico.