ABSTRACT
The specific conviction was fairly widespread that Weimar culture was irrevocably finished that it would be studied by future generations as the prelude to Nazism rather than in its own right. With the end of the Second World War it seemed as if the pessimistic appraisal of the Weimar heritage was only too justified. The cataclysmic events of the intervening years made the Weimar period appear in retrospect irrelevant, if not frivolous. If there was to be a renewal of Weimar culture it seemed far more likely at the time that it would take place in East Germany. For the year was 1948, and by that time cultural controls had become more and more stringent; within a year or two East German cultures was effectively Stalinized. The contribution of German refugee intellectuals in transplanting part of their culture abroad was recognized.
