Product Description

The Hitler Emigres is the story of those Central Europeans, many of them Jewish, who escaped the shadow of Nazism, found refuge in Britain and made a lasting mark on the nation's intellectual and cultural life. The book features colourful portraits of some of Britain's most celebrated artists, architects, musicians, choreographers, film makers, historians, philosophers, scientists, writers, broadcasters and publishers - all skilfully woven into the wider context of British cultural history from the 1930s to the present. Emigres helped create the Glyndebourne and Edinburgh Festivals, the magazine Picture Post, films like The Red Shoes, the Royal Festival Hall and the cartoon character 'Supermac'. The founders of the publishing companies Phaidon and Thames & Hudson were emigres, as were Ernst Gombrich (author of The Story of Art), Nikolaus Pevsner (who documented 'The Buildings of England') and such key intellectual figures as the philosopher Karl Popper, the biochemist Max Perutz and the historians Eric Hobsbawm and Geoffrey Elton. Daniel Snowman considers the irony that many refugees (including three quarters of the future Amadeus Quartet) were interned by the British authorities as 'enemy aliens' - and some of them deported to Canada and Australia. And he writes of the mordant humour of George Mikes, 'Vicky' and Hoffnung, the entrepreneurial skills of Claus Moser and George Weidenfeld - and the sheer magnetism of such forceful personalities as Arthur Koestler and the musician and broadcaster Hans Keller. Many of the Hitler emigres became natural bridge-builders who helped enrich their new homeland with fresh insights from continental Europe. A number moved on to North America and elsewhere. Thus, Hitler, far from eliminating the cosmopolitan culture he so abhorred, helped spread it throughout the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #392961 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Philip Henscher, Spectator
‘A wonderful, inspiring story…Daniel Snowman has told the extraordinarily moving story very well.’

From the Publisher
'A wonderful, inspiring story-Daniel Snowman has told the extraordinarily moving story very well.' Philip Henscher, Spectator

About the Author
Daniel Snowman was born in London in 1938. He has degrees from Cambridge and Cornell, and at the age of 24 became a Lecturer at the University of Sussex. He has spent much of his professional life at the BBC where, as Chief Producer, Features (Radio), he was responsible for a wide range of projects on cultural and historical subjects. His previous books include Fins de Siecle: How Centuries End 1400-2000 (with Asa Briggs), and, most recently, Pastmasters: The Best of History

Customer Reviews

Highly readable, comprehensive and thorough.
Snowman's book offers a virtually complete cultural history of the Twentieth century in Europe beginning with German and Austrian society, particularly its educational and academic features at the start of the century. He continues with a comprehensive survey of what it felt like to live in increasingly threatening times during the rise of Nazism. He illustrates his themes with vivid pen portraits of significant individuals, artists, scientists, writers, and others, usually accompanied by extensive quotes from the actual words of those people. The impact on the cultural life of both Britain and America of the thousands who were forced to flee Europe in the 1930's is fully explored in the second half of the book. One is left in no doubt that, despite the immense cultural richness which arose from that mass, forced emigration, there remains a tragedy of incalculable proportions. Snowman's account is full of anecdotes that are sometimes chilling, sometimes hilarious, and occasionally both. A great book.