This volume examines the genesis and effects of totalitarian ways of thinking in the German literature of the time and asks about the conditions under which literature was created under totalitarianism, its pioneering role and the significance of literary agitation. Censorship mechanisms and reprisals are dealt with as well as strategies for reacting promptly in resistance and exile and coping attempts after the "new beginning" in 1945. The analyzes are supplemented by case studies on works by Johannes R. Becher, Bertolt Brecht, Hermann Broch, Thomas Mann, Ernst Jünger, Christoph Hein and Christa Wolf.