After the Nazis' rise to power, numerous writers left Germany and went into exile. But in the subsequent decades literature in German was not only marked by the political commitment of prominent refugees. Away from the domain of public discourse there was also a great deal of reflection on the 'aesthetic' consequences of National Socialism for modern culture. In the writings on literary theory produced by authors in exile, the cultural aporias of the age were translated into an epistemological poetology bodied forth in novels by well-known and forgotten authors. The fictional designs of the exiled authors generate complex imaginary worlds pitted against a reality turned specious. As such, these works represent a dynamic enrichment of the aesthetic of modernity.