Georg Hermann's Late Assessment of German-Jewish and Aryan-German Writers

Georg Hermann, the popular novelist and art critic, wrote a long letter in March, 1939 from his residence in exile, responding to Sol Liptzin’s queries concerning the attitudes of German-Jewish writers toward their own predicament. Hermann provided an overall assessment of the extensive and variegated Jewish contribution to German letters up through the Nazi period, as well as an explanation of the Aryan-German failure to match the German-Jewish achievement and gain the international stature won by German-Jewish writers. Hermann had always been troubled by the anti-Semitism endemic to German culture, and in his works he strived to counter anti-Semitic trends and refute anti-Semitic expressions. He realized that the complicated process of assimilation could never be entirely successful, and he concomitantly envisioned a role for Jews as international citizens of European society.