Fleeing from the National Socialists in Germany, Japan was to be the first stop on a trip around the world. But instead of being able to travel on to the USA, Bruno Taut and his partner Erica remained in Japan involuntarily for three and a half years. The diary of the first six months reflects how the euphoric spirit of a traveler gives way to the worries and living conditions of an exile.Everyday scenes and celebrations, lighting moods and landscapes, streets lit up in the evening and visits to restaurants, but also the great sights of the country such as imperial palaces and Mount Fuji: Taut absorbs all this with fascination. His diary meticulously notes observations and encounters, judgments about art and religion, about old and new architecture. The connoisseur soon became a participating critic and co-designer in architecture and arts and crafts, not least out of necessity to make a living. Impressions and thoughts are deposited in a very fresh state in the almost daily journal of his experiences, which is being published in German for the first time. An overflowing, telegram-style is at the same time evidence of overwhelmingness and efforts to keep things in order. What he wrote also served him as a report for relatives and colleagues in Germany. It is an excellent document of the situation in Japan in the early 1930s. The first volume will cover the year 1933, richly illustrated with Taut's sketches and photographs. Volume 2 will contain the year 1934, Volume 3 the years 1935 and 1936.