WITH A SUBSTANTIAL oeuvre consisting of almost 1,200 books and articles, the Catholic writer, poet, and historian Reinhold Schneider was a significant nonconformist figure under National Socialism. He was also one of the few former inner emigrants to play a major public role after 1945 when, owing to his antinuclear stance and his peace-related work, he became an object of hate for sections of the West German establishment. More than any other nonconformist writer, with the possible exception of Ernst Wiechert, Schneider's thinking and work developed considerably over the period from 1928 to the late 1930s and the discussion in the first part of this chapter necessarily concentrates on his writing prior to the appearance in 1938 of his landmark story Las Casas vor Karl V.: Szenen aus der Konquistadorenzeit (Las Casas before Charles V: Scenes from the time of the conquistadors, 1938, English translation Imperial Mission, 1948).

From Despair to Christian Utopia and Renewed Disillusionment

Schneider was born in Baden-Baden in 1903. His childhood in his parents’ international hotel lacked security and a sense of belonging, while his youth was characterized by melancholy and depression. His father was a Protestant, his mother a Catholic; he too was brought up as a Catholic but soon lost his faith. Following his Abitur in 1921, instead of going to university, the young Schneider embarked on a short-lived agricultural training course before taking up a post in a printing works in Dresden. In April 1922 his father committed suicide after the family's business and wealth had been destroyed by inflation. Following his own personal crisis and suicide attempt a few days later, Schneider was helped through this period by his burgeoning relationship with the forty-one-year-old Anna-Maria Baumgarten. This was to become a long-lasting liaison, with Schneider entrusting over the years many of his innermost thoughts to the older woman. The years in Dresden from 1921 to 1928 were a period in which, alongside his unrewarding office work in a printing firm, he devoted himself to language learning, philosophy, and literature, and developed a strong interest in history, especially of the Iberian peninsula. In 1928 he resigned his post and embarked on a nearly eight-month trip to Spain and Portugal, after which he returned to Dresden and sought to establish himself as a writer.