Abstract
What went on in the fields of art, culture and politics during the Wilhelmine, Weimar and Nazi periods is generally well known, but the contributions made by German-speaking women journalists to these fields are now comparatively obscure. The long-held assumption that such contributions were minimal was erroneous, yet the neglect of these women has continued. This welcome book should help turn that around. Women participated in the press in a range of ways and published both within and outside the periodicals of women’s organisations and women’s magazines. The book abounds in interesting characters such as Grete Meisel-Hess, an Austrian–Jewish feminist, who radically attacked conventional sexual morality and strongly advocated the rights of women. Following the first wave of German feminism, new possibilities for women opened up during the roaring 1920s, key examples being photojournalism alongside greater participation in traditional feuilleton production. The work of Margarete Susman and Doris Wittner is notable in relation to such production, and each received individual treatment. Work in photojournalism is represented by a chapter on the Swiss ‘New Woman’ photojournalist, Annemarie Schwarzenbach. The journalism of Thomas Mann’s eldest daughter, Erika Mann, grew steadily more political; unsurprisingly, she lived in exile in the United States from 1937 to 1952, although she worked as a London correspondent for the BBC in 1940. As well as a separate chapter being devoted to her, the volume ends with her autobiographical fragment, ‘I, of All People’, published here in its original English for the first time. There is a wealth of detail in this collection, and much to discover. It is an important addition to the Women in German Literature series edited by Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly, and a fascinating contribution to European press history. Its most significant value lies in restoring these women journalists to the light of historical knowledge.