Siegfried Unseld: The Suhrkamp publisher and his dark secret

Siegfried Unseld: The Suhrkamp publisher and his dark secret

Vienna, Österreich - The Suhrkamp Verlag, one of the most important institutions in German literature, is faced with an explosive unveiling. The former publisher Siegfried Unseld, who headed the publisher's fortunes from 1959 to 2002, was a member of the NSDAP. This information comes from the research of the historian Thomas Gruber, who discovered the Unseld membership card in the German Federal Archives. This reports vienna.at .

Unseld in 1942, at the age of 17, and applied for his party book on June 8, 1942, shortly before he went to the front as a soldier. It is remarkable that his father has been a member of the NSDAP since 1933 and entered the SA. Unseld's mother was also active in Nazi women. Historian Gruber considers it unlikely that Unseld's membership came about without his knowledge, since the party bureaucracy was fully functional at that time.

public silence and historical classification

The question of unseld's motivation to membership remains unanswered. In the past, prominent intellectuals were often relieved of such memberships by the argument of ignorance. Gruber contradicts this approach and describes the transfer of young people from the HJ to the NSDAP as an individual decision and not as a collective act.

The public silence of his NSDAP membership is particularly critical in reporting. The newspaper The time can be regarded that this silence can be considered misleading. In contrast, in literature history, many other post -war intellectuals, such as Walter Jens and Martin Walser, have been faced with similar allegations.

literary heritage and post -war Germany

Siegfried Unseld is seen as a formative figure of the German contemporary literature. Under his direction, Suhrkamp Verlag published works by important authors such as Bertolt Brecht, Hermann Hesse, Theodor W. Adorno and Ingeborg Bachmann. These authors contributed to a politically purified, anti -fascist Germany, which reinforces the irony of the situation.

The revelations about Unseld's membership throw a shadow on his inheritance and the role of Suhrkamp Verlag in the social examination of the National Socialist past. The FAZ emphasizes that despite the membership, no immediate crimes are known to be connected to us. Nevertheless, the entanglement in the Nazi system and the intellectual attempt to make amends in German society after 1945 is discussed.