Irmgard Keun’s novel Nach Mitternacht (“After Midnight”) was published in 1937 by the Dutch publishing company Querido Verlag, based in Amsterdam. It is seen as one of the most important fictional works in the genre of exile literature. The action takes place over two days in around 1936. The event that defines the story is a forthcoming appearance by Hitler at Frankfurt’s Opernplatz. Just before midnight, 19-year-old Susanne Moder, known as Sanna, has to decide between emigration or life under a dictatorship. Keun observes everyday events in Nazi Germany through the eyes of her narrator. In doing so, she can draw on her own experiences and observations, since – unlike many of her colleagues – she did not leave her native country until May 1936 and thus experienced the first three years of the Nazi regime at first hand. During this time, she closely observed the major and minor changes in social interaction, in the way people behaved toward and talked to and about each other, unmasking with skill and subtle humour the contradictions in this new state of supposed normality.

Keun began working on the novel despite the constant threat of repression and censorship under the Nazis’ restrictive cultural policy. Her earlier novels had ended up on the list of books banned by the Nazis in 1933, and her application to join the Reichsschrifttumskammer (Reich Chamber of Literature) was ultimately rejected in 1936. She was finally able to finish the work after fleeing to the Belgian city of Ostend. It became “a really anti-Nazi novel – from bourgeois Nazi Germany,” wrote the exiled writer to her friend Arnold Strauss in June 1936.

In April 1937, Klaus Mann recommended the newly published novel in the exile journal Die neue Weltbühne (“The New World Stage”) – not least as an important contemporary document for enlightening its readership: “A talented woman comes along and tells us how matters currently stand in the country we are no longer permitted to enter. Irmgard Keun endured life in the Third Reich for a long time, she is familiar with it, and the novel she now presents to us overflows with astute observations [...] a shiver runs down the spine as we perceive and realise: yes, this is what it’s like; this is how these people live, this is their everyday life, and this is how they celebrate.”

Further reading:
Detering, Heinrich: Nachwort. In: Irmgard Keun: Nach Mitternacht. Ullstein: Berlin 2022.
Häntzschel, Hiltrud: Irmgard Keun. Rowohlt: Reinbek b. Hamburg 2021.
Irmgard Keun: Texte aus NS-Deutschland, Texte aus dem Exil: 1933–1940. [Irmgard Keun: Das Werk, Bd. 3]. Hrsg. v. Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung. Wallstein: Göttingen 2017.