As the former capital of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, along with the other coastal cities of São Paulo and Porto Alegre, was often the first point of contact for immigrants arriving from Europe across the Atlantic. However, most of the German exile artists settled there only temporarily, most returning after the end of the war to Europe. Unlike in the comparatively large German-speaking networks in other exile centres such as Paris, New York or California, noteworthy cultural activity had yet to unfold in the city of Rio. Before he moved some 60 kilometres away to Petrópolis, the Central Hotel was a second home to the writer Stefan Zweig. In this metropolis on the cusp of modernity, he was fascinated and worried about the "somewhat noisy and shaky romanticism" of the city which he saw on the wane.

Since 1942 the German language had been forbidden in Brazil and only those writers and publicists with a mastery of the Portuguese language were able to gain a professional foothold in Rio. While émigré publicists such as Ernst Feder and Frank Arnau published articles in urban newspapers, the majority of their colleagues, among them Ulrich Becher and Marte Brill, worked in private on their plays and novels. Émigré painters such as Wilhelm Wöller and Axl Leskoschek also worked in Rio de Janeiro, the latter as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts until 1948. After the war the actors Werner Hammer and Wolfgang Hoffmann-Harnisch founded a German-speaking free European art theatre.

Further reading:
Asmus, Sylvia / Eckl, Marlen (Hg.): „.... mehr vorwärts als rückwärts schauen ...“. Das deutschsprachige Exil in Brasilien 1933-1945. Berlin: Hentrich & Hentrich 2013
Hohnschopp, Christine / Wende, Frank (Bearb.): Exil in Brasilien. Die deutschsprachige Emigration 1933-1945. Frankfurt am Main: Deutsche Bibliothek 1994
Kießling, Wolfgang: Exil in Lateinamerika. Leipzig: Philipp Reclam 1980