Strange Bird: The Albatross Press and the Third Reich

by Michele K. Troy

Overview

The first book about the Albatross Press, a Penguin precursor that entered into an uneasy relationship with the Nazi regime to keep Anglo-American literature alive under fascism

The Albatross Press was, from its beginnings in 1932, a “strange bird”: a cultural outsider to the Third Reich but an economic insider. It was funded by British-Jewish interests. Its director was rumored to work for British intelligence. A precursor to Penguin, it distributed both middlebrow fiction and works by edgier modernist authors such as D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway to eager continental readers. Yet Albatross printed and sold its paperbacks in English from the heart of Hitler’s Reich.

In her original and skillfully researched history, Michele K. Troy reveals how the Nazi regime tolerated Albatross—for both economic and propaganda gains—and how Albatross exploited its insider position to keep Anglo-American books alive under fascism. In so doing, Troy exposes the contradictions in Nazi censorship while offering an engaging detective story, a history, a nuanced analysis of men and motives, and a cautionary tale.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300215687
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	04/04/2017
Series:	New Directions in Narrative History
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Michele K. Troy is professor of English at Hillyer College at the University of Hartford. She studies Anglo-American literary modernism in continental Europe in the decades between the two world wars.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Behind the Door 1

1 Tauchnitz Has a Rival 12

2 Spies for England 33

3 Winning the Continent 52

4 Un-German Literature 63

5 Made in Britain? 79

6 The Scissors in Their Heads 90

7 A Tale of Two Publishers 103

8 The Center Will Not Hold 113

9 The Shell Game 127

10 Suspicion 139

11 Dear Reader 153

12 Allegiances 167

13 Faces of War 183

14 Enemy Books 194

15 Return and Departure 207

16 Albatross Under the Occupation 220

17 The Deutsche Tauchnitz 230

18 English Books Abroad 237

19 Rivals 254

20 When the Bombs Fell 262

21 Making Peace 277

22 Rising from the Ashes 292

23 Homecoming 309

24 Longing 322

Notes 339

Selected Bibliography 397

Chapter-Opening Illustration Credits 409

Index 411

Editorial Reviews

02/06/2017
Albatross Press, started shortly before the rise of Nazism, had a strange and perplexing business model: it was incorporated as a German firm, with an office in Paris and English financial backing. It was the purveyor of the great (and often controversial) modern authors of England and America (Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence) to an increasingly tumultuous continental Europe. In the hands of Troy, a professor of English at the University of Hartford, the story of how this English-language book publishing company survived in the heart of the Third Reich becomes an absorbing tale of economics, censorship, and literature. Troy has brilliantly pieced together the engrossing lives and corporate chess game of Albatross’s three principal players: the enigmatic and urbane John Holroyd-Reece, the company’s public face and mastermind of the German-English-French axis that made Albatross unique; passionate Max Christian Wegner, who had been abruptly dismissed from Albatross’s chief rival in the English-language continental book trade, Tauchnitz; and Kurt Enoch, who ran the main office in Hamburg and whose escape from Germany to France to the U.S. forms a gripping subplot. Troy’s riveting exploration of Albatross is a rewarding mix of publishing history, literary criticism, and biography. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

For one who has, since boyhood, regarded the second-hand bookshop as a paradise of total immersion, it is quite shocking to discover Albatross…Troy’s account is a painstaking act of exhumation… she sticks tenaciously to her unique dig, presenting us with a remarkable reconstruction.”—Duncan Fallowell, Spectator

“Strange Bird is intensely researched and eminently readable—there’s even a harrowing escape story at its center. The lingering mystery of our principal, German-born Englishman John Holroyd-Reece, who may have been a spy, adds an element of intrigue as well. Troy’s book is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in publishing history, World War II, or modern Anglo-American literature.”
—Stephen Darori, Israel Book Review   
 

“An eerie journey into a bold cosmopolitan publishing venture in defiance of the censorship rampant in Nazi Germany. . . . Wonderfully engaging history.”—Kirkus Reviews

“An absorbing tale of economics, censorship, and literature. [Michele] Troy’s riveting exploration of Albatross is a rewarding mix of publishing history, literary criticism, and biography.”—Publishers Weekly

“Intensely researched and eminently readable—there’s even a harrowing escape story at its center. . . . Troy’s book is heartily recommended for anyone with an interest in publishing history, World War II, or modern Anglo-American literature.”—Fine Books and Collections

“A valuable document of historical preservation.”—Signature Reads

“Michele K. Troy’s excellent work of scholarly investigation is a great literary yarn, and a paean to those who find a way to fight tyranny no matter the cost.”—Literary Hub

“Part business story, part literary criticism, part cultural record and part political history — but all good.”—Winnipeg Free Pres

“Thorough, meticulously researched.”—Choice

“Through thorough research and thoughtful analysis, Troy explores this bizarre contradiction: How could such a publishing company exist, and even thrive, during the Nazi era?”—Jewish Book Council

“Meticulously researched . . . beautifully written.”—Paperback Revolution blog

“Troy, a professor of English, is a gifted storyteller, and Strange Bird is a fascinating history of Albatross, the continental book market, and how individuals navigated Nazism and World War II.”—Kara Ritzheimer, Journal of Modern History

“Strange Bird reads like a highbrow thriller, where editors are double agents and all the great modern authors put in cameo appearances. That, along with Michele Troy’s engaging and personal style of writing, makes this book a page-turner.”—Jonathan Rose, author of The Literary Churchill

"Strange Bird, a scholarly book that reads like an engrossing spy novel, vividly re-creates the strangeness of the book trade during the Third Reich and is one of the most original books on the publishing industry that's appeared in years."—Greg Barnhisel, Duquesne University

"Thoroughly researched and compellingly written, this fascinating microhistory of a German-based English-language publisher adds depth and subtlety to our understanding of the cultural policy of the Third Reich."—Alan E. Steinweis, University of Vermont


"A wonderfully fine-grained narrative history of publishers, books, and readers across and within borders amid the constraint and chaos of Nazi-occupied Europe. Troy has dug deeply into the archives and the historical literature to document the cynical policy of Goebbels not only to censor but to demonstrate 'civilized' German 'tolerance' to the world."—Geoffrey Cocks, Albion College

"This beautifully crafted book is a detective novel and psychological portrait rolled into one. Troy's in-depth archival research reveals her protagonists' aspirations, and the web of political intrigues and economic imperatives in which they became entangled."—Adriaan van der Weel, Universiteit Leiden

From the Publisher

“Beautifully written, more like a novel in places, but the story the author has uncovered is almost too implausible for the plot of the novel . . . This is part history, part biography, part novel, part academic treatise, part detective story, part bibliographical research, but above all it’s a thoroughly enjoyable read.”—Paperback Revolution

Paperback Revolution

“Michele K. Troy’s excellent work of scholarly investigation is a great literary yarn, and a paean to those who find a way to fight tyranny no matter the cost.”—Literary Hub

Literary Hub

“A cuckoo in the literary Nazi nest… Strange Bird is a story of art and business, but, given its ominous setting in Auden’s ‘low dishonest decade’ it is a story of war and politics too.”—Robert Eaglestone, THES

THES - Robert Eaglestone

“A valuable document of historical preservation.”—Signature Reads

Signature Reads

“For one who has, since boyhood, regarded the second-hand bookshop as a paradise of total immersion, it is quite shocking to discover Albatross…Troy’s account is a painstaking act of exhumation… she sticks tenaciously to her unique dig, presenting us with a remarkable reconstruction.”—Duncan Fallowell, Spectator

Spectator - Duncan Fallowell

2017-02-06
An eerie journey into a bold cosmopolitan publishing venture in defiance of the censorship rampant in Nazi Germany.How did this English-language publishing house—established in Germany before the war and eventually moved to Paris—survive under Nazi surveillance from the early 1930s through the late 1940s? In an impressively thorough piece of research, Troy (English/Univ. of Hartford; co-editor: May Sinclair: Moving Towards the Modern, 2006) unearths the story of the Albatross Press, a rival to the long-running Leipzig house Tauchnitz, which had been publishing inexpensive paperbacks in English throughout continental Europe since 1841. A disgruntled, recently fired Tauchnitz editor, Max Christian Wegner, a wily, versatile German World War I vet, channeled his ambition into the new enterprise with another brilliant polyglot, John Holroyd-Reece, and Hamburg Jewish publishing scion Kurt Enoch to bring out modern Anglo-American writers (James Joyce, John Steinbeck, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, and others) in a distinctive, framed format. The press was a hit, so much so that the Nazis, recently come to power by 1933, allowed the press to slip through "the level of scrutiny and penalty that hailed down on other German publishers" for frankly economic reasons—the regime was frantic for foreign currency. The strange protection the press garnered allowed it to swallow its rival Tauchnitz, until the Nazi Aryanization policy forced Enoch to flee Germany and occupation spurred Holroyd-Reece to run Albatross from London. The Paris arm was transformed into Deutsche Tauchnitz, specializing in "modern German novels" approved by the Nazi censors. The war also allowed Albatross-Tauchnitz's rivals to poach other publishers, including Allen Lane's Penguin Books in London (which had hired none other than Enoch). Largely from tracing correspondence, Troy follows the trajectory of the press and its operators, maintaining that Albatross "became one of the last voices for Anglo-American culture in Nazi-occupied Europe." Wonderfully engaging history for bibliophiles.

Kirkus Reviews