The story
Weimar Republic
The German branch of International PEN was founded in 1924 under the direction of Ludwig Fulda. This was supported by the founding president of PEN, John Galsworthy. PEN Centre Germany arranged its first international conference in Berlin in 1926 and the organisation flourished until the rise of Nazism.
Under Nazism
In 1933 the then president, Alfred Kerr fled into exile as soon as the Nazis took power and in January 1935, under difficult political circumstances, PEN Centre Germany became known as the Union of National Writers. This organisation was supportive of Nazism and heavily criticised by PEN International for its failure to condemn the burning of books by the Nazis in 1933. In response to these circumstances, in 1934 a PEN centre was set up for German writers in exile based in London, with Heinrich Mann as president.
After World War II
In 1948 PEN Centre Germany was re-founded in Göttingen. Soon afterwards, when East and West Germany were created as separate states in 1949, PEN split into two organisations to reflect the new political reality. This split continued until after German reunification and a united PEN Centre Germany was finally established in 1998.
From Wikipedia’s article on PEN Centre Germany, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5