Although a great number of German and Austrian writers found asylum in the United States than in any other country, the difficulties they faced in continuing to publish in their mother tongue were the most difficult here. The reason for this is that although America has a widespread German press corps, there are no German publishing houses here. The main reason for this is that almost everyone who can speak German can also speak English. And English book production is, of course, much more effective than any German publisher could be, since its market far exceeds one hundred million readers.

Prominent writers thus had their work translated into English, although only a few actually wrote in English.

Yet publishing in one's original language is dear to every author's heart, and especially to those who are conscious of the abyss created by the oppression of free literature in Hitler's Germany; their most important task is to fill it. The great humanistic literary tradition in Germany, personified by writers such as Lessing, Goethe, Kant, and Heine, had to survive the war. But already during the war it was clear that one day [we] would be confronted with the task of clearing out the rubbish left in readers' heads by the Nazis.