After Hitler came to power in 1933 Hans Friedrich Blunck was offered the presidency of the Reichsschrifttumskammer (Reich Chamber of Literature). He served in this position until 1935. This important official post linked him with the Kulturpolitik of the Third Reich. Blunck's writings dealt mainly with Germanic mythology and German historical legends and focused often on his own region of Dithmarschen in northern Germany. During the 1930s Blunck's literary work and public statements displayed an intensified nationalistic character. After World War II, he was dismissed as one of the "folkish" writers of the 1920s and 1930s, with their strong ideology of "Blut und Boden" (blood and soil) and "Heimat" (homeland). These nationalistic expressions were linked in Blunck's writings with traditional legends and an almost simplistic Christian faith.

Blunck was born in 1888 in Altona, a suburb of Hamburg. He was one of five children of a middle-class family. Blunck said that...