Stephen Spender Research Seminar

Institute of English Studies

Stephen Spender in Germany, 1945.

In 1945 Stephen Spender spent six months in occupied Germany helping with the reconstruction of universities and libraries. His mission was partly political (he wanted to mediate between German and British culture at a time when the British government thought the Germans were incapable of cultural renewal), partly literary (he was keen to experience the extraordinary landscape of ruined Germany first hand) and partly personal (he wanted to make contact with ER Curtius, his mentor from before the war). The trips resulted in his Rhineland Journal, published in Horizon, and in European Witness (1946), one of the first and still one of the most eloquent accounts of the German landscape, society and culture in the immediate postwar period.

Lara Feigel (co-editor of the New Selected Journals of Stephen Spender), Elaine Morley (an expert on Anglo-German literary networks) and Matthew Spender (the poet's son, who has recently uncovered new material on Spender's time in Germany in the National Archives) will discuss Spender, European Witness and German reconstruction.