Das Wort

Das Wort was launched in Moscow in 1936 following the recommendation of the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern.^[2] The first issue appeared in July 1936.^[3] Its editors were Willi Bredel, Leon Feuchtwanger, and Bertolt Brecht.^[2] Fritz Erpenbeck also briefly edited the magazine in 1936.^[4][5] Of them only Bredel was in Moscow.^[6] The goal of the magazine was to become a literary organ of German exiles who left Germany after the Nazi rule.^[2] It also attempted to support the Popular Front policy by gathering together the anti-Fascist Germans.^[3]

Maria Osten headed the Paris office of the magazine.^[1][2] Das Wort supported the concept of world literature.^[6] It focused on the debate concerning the versions of realism which were legitimate and needed to attack against Fascism.^[7] However, it did not pay attention to the discussions about the controversial forms of experimentalism common in German expressionism and early modernism.^[7] Between September 1937 and July 1938 the magazine featured various articles which contained discussions about expressionism.^[6] In these writings Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Bloch and Hanns Eisler defended expressionism against György Lukács and Mikhail Bakhtin.^[6] In the poems and fictions published in Das Wort the contributors argued that their true heimat was the Soviet Union.^[2] Some parts of Bertolt Brecht's play entitled Furcht und Elend des III were first featured in the magazine.^[7] Das Wort ceased publication in March 1939.^[3]