Langer, Robert: The German Book and the Wendish Pamphlet. The Role of the State District Office for Libraries in Bautzen in the Repression of Wendish
in Upper Lusatia During the National Socialist Period
Lětopis Abstract 2016 1: Langer, Robert: The German Book and the Wendish Pamphlet. The Role of the State District Office for Libraries in
Bautzen in the Repression of Wendish in Upper Lusatia During the National Socialist Period
The history of the State District Office for Libraries in Bautzen (1928-1946) clearly reflects the regional political events of the first part of the
20th Century. The German Reich possessed with Upper Lusatia an external frontier to Czechoslovakia and an internal frontier to the Wendish area, still
today a bilingual area of Lusatia, and was therefore in two senses frontier territory. The official task and personal ambition of the head of the
district office, Kurt Marx, was to promote the German language and cultural heritage in the Wendish villages of the district of Bautzen; this aim was
of necessity accompanied by the repression of the Wendish language. He ensured that during the Nazi period all Wendish/Sorbian literature was removed
from the school and local libraries of Saxon Upper Lusatia, along with all officially banned literature. Marx saw this as an important step in the
battle for a German culture, which would only tolerate the Wends, if they declared themselves to be loyal citizens of the German state and its
culture. He regarded state education as a means to force Wends to become part of the nation, by which he meant the German nation. He used state funds
to build up the libraries and contacts to the state administration with its ‘Wend Department’ to achieve his goal at an official level. As a result,
the battle for the German book turned into a battle against Wendish.
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