| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation examines the legal status of refugees from the National Socialist (NS) regime and explores thereby the implications of statelessness for the refugee’s experience in exile, specifically his sense of belonging and place in the world, as manifest in select works of German exile literature of the period 1933-1945. The thesis pursued in this analysis is that the identity of the individual is inextricably tied to notions of time and space. The loss of the legal right to exist in a specific space at a specific time, a loss that defined the exile experience of refugees from the NS-regime, meant the expulsion of the refugee from a time-space continuum at a given moment to which he could never return. This loss calls into question the possibility of reintegration into this societal continuum, of the possibility of notions of self and place in the world independent of a legally recognized and sanctioned existence. The analysis of select German autobiographical and literary works of the NS-period evidences that the existence of the refugee in the space of the in-between, the space in which the legal, physical and socio-cultural Niemandsländer of exile overlap and coalesce, has profound implications for the refugee’s notions of identity, of his sense of belonging and place in the world. Integral to a discussion of the legality of existence in exile and its implications for identity is a comprehensive definition of identity itself. For this purpose, Richard Jenkins’ tripartite model of individual order, interaction order, and institutional order, as outlined in his work Social Identity (Third Edition), serves as a definition of identity and a foundation for the historical discussion and literary analysis of the four chapters. Chapter One, entitled “The Necessity of a Legally Documented and Sanctioned Existence: The Legal Status of German Refugees of the National Socialist Period (1933-1945),” provides a historical foundation for the subsequent three chapters in its discussion of the processes of legal erasure evident during the NS-period and the implications thereof for the legal status of the refugee in exile from the NS-regime. In the following chapters, representative works of German exile literature in which the experience of the in-between in Niemandsland proves to be of particular significance are discussed under various sub-points of analysis. Egon Schwarz’s autobiography is the focus of Chapter Two, which is titled “The Implications of Legal Otherness for the Refugee’s Notion of Identity: A Case Study of Egon Schwarz’s Keine Zeit für Eichendorff.” In this chapter Schwarz’s experiences in Niemandsland are discussed within the analytical framework of Jenkins’ tripartite model in order to determine the implications of exile and the consequent ruptures in the institutional order for Schwarz’s identity formation in the individual order, specifically his sense of personal agency in processes of identification and the interplay thereof with his notions of belonging and place in the world. Chapter Three focuses on the legal dimension of Niemandsland, specifically how statelessness affects the refugee’s sense of belonging to the national community from which he has been legally expunged. Entitled “The Interplay between Legally Sanctioned Space and Notions of Place in the World as Manifest in Select Works of German Exile Literature, 1933-1945,” this chapter explores the incongruity between legal erasure and the linguistic, cultural and historical ties that endure between the stateless individual and his national community of origin as manifest in select works. The chosen works are representative of the diversity of German writers’ responses to the experience of statelessness in exile from the NS-regime across several genres. The argumentation of the chapter is supported by the analysis of excepts from these works: non-fiction political writings and speeches by Thomas Mann, including “Schrifsteller im Exil” and Deutsche Hörer!, the novels Kind aller Länder by Irmgard Keun and Transit by Anna Seghers, the drama Jacobowsky und der Oberst by Franz Werfel, and the “dialogisierte Tagespolitik” Flüchtlingsgespräche by Bertolt Brecht (White 137). This chapter investigates how the authors of these works employ various techniques to demonstrate the ruptures in the institutional order and their implications for the individual order and identity in exile. The existing scholarship on these works is extensive, but the contribution of this dissertation lies in the fact that these works and their authors are being discussed within a unified analytical framework. In contrast to Chapters Two and Three, the analyses of which deal predominantly with the legal complications faced by the refugee of the NS-period and the implications of statelessness for processes of identification, Chapter Four, in its discussion of Mascha Kaléko’s exile poetry, focuses primarily on the devastating and irretrievable loss of home that exile represented for Kaléko. Titled “Exile in Nirgendland: The Poetry and Exile Experience of Mascha Kaléko,” this chapter explores a leitmotif in Kaléko’s poetry that the refugee is perpetually trapped in a Niemandsland, an in-between space that she refers to as Nirgendland. The four chapters of this dissertation explore the varying implications of legal erasure and statelessness for the refugee’s sense of belonging in the world, proving that the existence of the refugee in the space of the in-between, the space in which the legal, physical and socio-cultural Niemandsländer of exile overlap and coalesce, has profound implications for the refugee’s notions of identity, of his sense of belonging and place in the world. | |
