Alfred Doblin (1878-1957) composed his epic trilogy of South America under difficult circumstances of exile. It was accessible on first publication in 1937-38 only outside Germany, and for only a couple of years before war broke out. The first postwar edition, like others of Doblin's works apart from Berlin Alexanderplatz, was little noticed in a Germany traumatised by Nazism and defeat. The epic is set mainly in South America, but its true focus is Europe. The urgent guiding proposition is: The Nazis did not emerge from nowhere.