The Castle of Writers

 

So many decades afterwards, there is still so much to be said about the post-war Germany and especially those who were part of the so-called ´new beginnings´. Nürnberg trials, aimed at bringing to justice the war criminals of Nazi Germany, were an important stage into trying to breaking out with the past, at least by forcing the society to face the horrors they tolerated and often encouraged.

Das Schloss der Schrifsteller by German researcher and writer Uwe Neumahr is an important contribution to the story of those trials, as it features - for the first time as far as I know - the people who reported about the proceedings. Those journalists were important personalities of the written world, writers, journalists and former Resistance fighters - sometimes all at once. The end of the horrors of Nazi Germany were documented and reported to the world from the place that once was used to show the power of a monstrosity in the making. Symbolically, Nürnberg was aimed to display the failure of a criminal plan.

Headquarterted in the Faber-Castell castle, belonging to the family owning the famous pencils company created in the 18th century, the media representatives gathered people that were themselves part of history: the Balkans chronicler Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, John Dos Passos, Elsa Triolet, Erika and Golo Mann - Thomas Mann´s children, so different in their mindsets though -, Willy Brandt - the soon to be cancellor, registered as a ´war correspondent´ for the Norwegian media, Markus Wolf - soon to be the chief of the DDR intelligence, and who later will successfully spy on Brandt. 

In addition to adding various stories and literary references, the research often takes a psychological turn - for instance, assuming that Rebecca West reports who had an affair, among others, with one of the American judges, out of sexual frustration were ´sexualized´ - that seems limitative. I would have been also curious about writing more about the translators - it´s only one mention which noteworthy includes references about the hardship of being a simultaneous translator from and into German - but definitely it is not enough.

As a first attempt to feature the times and society of the post-war Germany, Das Schloss der Schrifsteller is definitely a first important step, which shows how much is still to be done academically in this respect.

Rating: 3.5 stars