Comrades, Friends and Companions provides the first critical analysis of classic German novels for young people of the late Weimar Republic. The author reveals how purportedly realistic portrayals of youth in groups projected a "better world" in the years of social and political crisis. These alternative realities in the German adolescent novel of the time evince the pedagogical and ideological struggles that were endemic in Weimar Culture. This study also confronts the early work of Erich Kästner and his restructuring of authority in the Enlightenment pattern of the "model child".
"Springmans Untersuchung der Jugendliteratur der Weimarer Republik ist spannende Lektüre; die Randposition dieser Art von Literatur und ihre Abhängigkeit von wirtschaftlichen Erwägungen läßt ... sonst kaum wahrnehmbare Perspektiven zu. ... Jedenfalls sollte dieses Buch in jeder Bibliographie einer Lehrveranstaltung zu finden sein, die sich mit der Literatur der Weimarer Republik befaßt." (Fritz H. König, German Studies Review)
"In its organization and in its conception this is an excellent study. It not only expands our knowledge of Weimar culture and of the social forces that identified that critical period in German history, but also documents little known efforts to make the genre of adolescent literature an authentic and critical tool for utopian thinking and actions." (Peter Ruppert, Utopian Studies)
"In its organization and in its conception this is an excellent study. It not only expands our knowledge of Weimar culture and of the social forces that identified that critical period in German history, but also documents little known efforts to make the genre of adolescent literature an authentic and critical tool for utopian thinking and actions." (Peter Ruppert, Utopian Studies)