Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

European and Latin American Social Scientists as Refugees, Émigrés and Return‐Migrants pp 181–203Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

International Rescue of Academics, Intellectuals and Artists from Nazism During the Second World War: The Experience of Mexico

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to analyze Mexico ’s experience in the rescue of academics, intellectuals, and artists from Nazism during the Second World War. Despite the fact that various prominent figures arrived as part of the group of German-speaking exiles that came to Mexico, there was no official policy to attract talented individuals. Getting visas for these persons was much more complicated than what the historiography on the subject usually portrays and it required the coordinated work of various rescue groups within and outside of Mexico . Once in the country, the well-known members of this group of exiles enjoyed many liberties and even a degree of governmental support, but they were shadowed by the secret service of Mexico and the United States, and in general, they had serious difficulties in finding stable work and in making a living. This contradicts the prevailing idea in the historiography that the country was an idyllic place of refuge for German-speaking exiles.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Acle-Kreysing, A. (2016). Antifascismo: un espacio de encuentro entre el exilio y la política nacional. El caso de Vicente Lombardo Toledano en México (1936–1945). Revista de Indias, 267, 573–609.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), PLC, exp. 549.2/18. (1940, August 7). Lázaro Cárdenas to Silvestre Revueltas, Vicente Lombardo Toledano, Gabriel Fernández Ledesma and other signatories, Mexico City.

    Google Scholar 

  • AGN, MAC, file 546.6/17. (1942, August 29). Telegram from Barsky to Ávila Camacho, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archivo Histórico del Instituto Nacional de Migración (AHINM), file 4-350-2-1933-54.

    Google Scholar 

  • AHINM, file 4-351-8-1941-6359.

    Google Scholar 

  • AHINM, file 4-351-8-1942-7180. (1942, July 2). Letter sent by Lic. Carmen Otero y Gama to the Minister of the Interior, Mexico City.

    Google Scholar 

  • Albertani C. De exilio en exilio. Victor Serge en la Ciudad de México (1941–1947), manuscript.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archivo Vicente Lombardo Toledano, file 417–23298. (1941, March 21). Carmen Otero y Gama to Rogelio de la Selva, Private Secretary of the Minister of the Interior, Mexico City.

    Google Scholar 

  • Avni, H. (1992). Cárdenas, México y los refugiados: 1938–1940. EIAL, 3(1), 5–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bankier, D. (1988). Los exiliados alemanes en México y sus vínculos con la comunidad judía (1942–1945). Judaica Latinoamericana, 1 (p. 83), Jerusalem: Amilat.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cañadas, T. (2013). La huella de la cultura en lengua alemana en México a partir del exilio de 1939–1945. Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chametzky, P. (2001). Paul Westheim in Mexico: A Cosmopolitan Man Contemplating the Heavens. Oxford Art Journal, 24(1), 25–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • El Nacional. (1938, December 17). Discurso inaugural de la Primera Quincena Pro-Población. Speech given by the Minister of the Interior Ignacio García Téllez.

    Google Scholar 

  • Franklin, R. (2016, October 25). Hannes Meyer in Mexico: Between the Lines. Paper, Weimar: Bauhaus-Universität. http://weimarer-kontroversen.de/files/franklin_hannes_meyer_in_mexico.pdf.

  • Gleizer, D. (2014). Unwelcome Exiles: Mexico and the Jewish Refugees from Nazism. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gleizer, D. (2015). Gilberto Bosques y el consulado de México en Marsella (1940–1942). La burocracia en tiempos de Guerra. Estudios de Historia Moderna y Contemporánea de México, 49, 54–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herf, J. (1997). Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (p. 40). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hülsmann, J. G. (2007). Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism. Auburn: Ludwig von Mises Institute. In Romero, Orígenes del neoliberalismo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacinto, L. (2014). Desde la otra orilla: Alice Rühle-Gerstel y Otto Rühle. La experiencia del exilio político de izquierda en México 1935–1943. Historia Mexicana, 64(1), 159–242.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacoby. (2014). Otto Rühle: Kurzer Abriss seines Lebens. In L. Jacinto, Desde la otra orilla: Alice Rühle-Gerstel y Otto Rühle. La experiencia del exilio político de izquierda en México 1935–1943. Historia Mexicana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jewish Telegraphic Agency. (1938, July 14). Mexico Inviting Technicians from Reich: Cardenas Denies Anti-semitism.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, F. (2002). El exilio centroeuropeo. Una mirada autobiográfica. In P. Yankelevich (Ed.), México, país refugio. La experiencia de los exilios en el siglo XX (pp. 43–44). Mexico City: INAH – Plaza y Valdés.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kiessling, W. (1980). Exil in Lateinamerika. Leipzig: Reclam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, A. (1998). Conscience, Conflict and Politics: The Rescue of Political Refugees from Southern France to the United States, 1940–1942. The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 43(1), 306.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krauze, E. (1980). Daniel Cosío Villegas: una biografía intelectual. Mexico City: Mortiz.

    Google Scholar 

  • La Prensa. (1939, April 4). 115.000 alemanes vendrán a México. In T. P. Vejo (2009), El exilio republicano español y la imagen de España en México. Una aproximación desde la larga duración histórica. Casa del Tiempo, 120.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leidenberger, G. (2014). Todo aquí es vulkanisch. El arquitecto Hannes Meyer en México, 1938 a 1949. In L. Rojas & S. Deeds (Eds.), México a la luz de sus revoluciones (Vol. 2, pp. 499–501). Mexico City: El Colegio de México.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leidenberger G. Hannes Meyer and the Communist Exile Community in Mexico (manuscript).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewin Sime, R. (2013, March). Marietta Blau: Pioneer of Photographic Nuclear Emulsions and Particle Physics. Physics in Perspective, 15(1), 3–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lida, C. (1988). La Casa de España en México. Mexico City: El Colegio de México.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Matesanz, J. A. (1999). Las raíces del exilio: México ante la guerra civil española, 1936–1939. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, UNAM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmier, J. M. (2006). Weimar in Exile: The Antifascist Emigration in Europe and America. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pohle, F. (1986). Das mexikanische Exil: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politisch-kulturellen Emigration aus Deutschland, 1937–1946. Stuttgart: Metzler.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Preston, P. (2001). Palomas de guerra. Cinco mujeres marcadas por el enfrentamiento bélico. Barcelona: Plaza y Janés.

    Google Scholar 

  • Romero, M. E. (2016). Los orígenes del neoliberalismo en México. La escuela austríaca. Mexico City: FCE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ségota, D. (2001). Paul Westheim (1886–1963). Expresionismo, un potencial universal. In R. Eder (Ed.), El arte en México: autores, temas, problemas. Mexico City: FCE, Lotería Nacional, CONACULTA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Senkman, L. (2003). La cuestión de los refugiados judíos en Argentina y Brasil: la perspectiva de la política internacional y el neutralismo, 1938–1942. In A. Milgram (Ed.), Entre la aceptación y el rechazo. América Latina y los refugiados judíos del nazismo. Jerusalem: Instituto Internacional de Investigación del Holocausto Yad Vashem.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spenser, D. (2018). En combate. La vida de Lombardo Toledano. Mexico City: Penguin Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephan, A. (2000). Communazis: FBI Surveillance of German Émigré Writers. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Mises, M. (1976). My Years with Ludwig von Mises. Center for Futures Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Mentz, B., et al. (1984). Fascismo y antifascismo en América Latina y México (Apuntes Históricos) (p. 48). Mexico City: CIESAS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westheim, P. (1997). Pensamiento crítico y creación, ayer y hoy. Mexico City: Siglo XXI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zogbaum, H. (2012a). Encounters in Exile. In G. Dammann (Ed.), B. Traven: Autor-Werk-Werkgeschichte. Würzburg: Könighausen & Neumann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zogbaum, H. (2012b). Vicente Lombardo Toledano and the German communist exile in Mexico, 1940–1947. Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 11(2), 1–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico

    Daniela Gleizer

Authors
  1. Daniela Gleizer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ruhr-Universität Bochum , Bochum, Germany

    Ludger Pries

  2. El Colegio de México, Mexico City, Mexico

    Pablo Yankelevich

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Gleizer, D. (2019). International Rescue of Academics, Intellectuals and Artists from Nazism During the Second World War: The Experience of Mexico. In: Pries, L., Yankelevich, P. (eds) European and Latin American Social Scientists as Refugees, Émigrés and Return‐Migrants. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99265-5_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99265-5_8

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-99264-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-99265-5

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation