Cultural transfer in Swedish exile

The Bonnier family's stake in the Bermann-Fischer publishing house

Authors

• Irene Nawrocka Austrian Academy of Sciences https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2434-6455

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30752/nj.126105

Keywords:

German-Swedish cultural transfer, Antisemitism in Germany and Sweden, German speaking authors in exile, publishing in exile

Abstract

After the death in 1934 of his father-in-law Samuel Fischer, founder of the well-known publishing house S. Fischer in Berlin, Gottfried Bermann Fischer moved to Vienna with the aim of publishing the works of prominent German-speaking Jewish and non-Jewish authors who could no longer publish in National Socialist Germany. After the ‘Anschluss’ to Nazi Germany in March 1938 he fled to Sweden with help from Karl Otto and Tor Bonnier, heads of Albert Bonniers Förlag. Eagerly observed by the Nazi authorities, Gottfried Bermann Fischer published books of well-known German, Austrian, and Swedish writers. What did this German-language publishing work look like in a foreign-language environment? Who were the employees? Where were the sales markets? Why did this cooperation between Bermann Fischer and Bonnier fail in the end? The main focus of this article is on Bermann Fischer’s efforts on behalf of German-speaking authors outside Nazi Germany, and on the resentments against a (foreign) Jewish entrepreneur and Bonniers’ engagement in this last remaining large German publishing house in exile after May 1940, even after Gottfried Bermann Fischer’s expulsion from Sweden.