An Ambiguous Evolution

...It simply did not start out that way, and this work, appearing after many years of argument about whether any translation was appropriate, helps us understand the man, his age, his metamorphosis, and the extraordinary dimension of the battle that took place inside him It is something of a miracle that Thomas Mann managed to reject the racism, authoritarianism, contempt, and paranoid nationalism we encounter in Reflections, and to thereby escape the fate of many thinkers with similar roots We can now comprehend more fully than ever what a profound experience the change must have been, for Morns' translation reveals exactly how deep the darker sentiments ran in this great humanitarian who might have been a Nazi...

...In the light of Reflections and some earlier anti-Semitic writings-most notably a 1905 short story entitled "The Blood of the Wolsungs"-Hitler's minions had ample reason to believe Thomas could be brought back to the Aryan fold In fact, the essays are peppered with praise for such demigods of Nazism as Lagarde, Sombart and Pfitzner Mann is also outspoken in his support for World War I, the German mission to civilize a decadent Europe, the German contempt for eglitarianism, and the particular admiration of the Volk for the all-suffering national leader-a type exemplified by Frederick the Great and, of course, by another of whom Mann as yet had no knowledge...

...Mann glorifies the German race, the German mind, the German character, and the three Germans who for him represent all that is unique about the Germanic contribution to intellectual life Schopenhauer, Wagner and Nietzsche These names recur endlessly throughout the book's more than 400 pages Mann was clearly a racist, too, he exalts the "special" qualities of the German Volk and Volksgemeinschaftin a way that must certainly have warmed Dr Goebbels' heart in the 1920s and '30s No wonder the Nazis wooed Mann from 1933-36, while he lived in self-imposed exile in Switzerland Only after they became convinced that he was immovable did they classify him as a Jew and strip him of German citizenship Heinrich, by contrast, was so designated soon after the takeover in '33...

...has it-the wind out of their sails-the Republican wind...

...Reflection lions is fascinating for what it tells us about Mann, the German mind and European cultural/political life in general during the period from the Jahrhundertwende/fin de siecle to the end of The Great War We see the intellectual appeal and basis of both Fascism and Communism Mann was not alone among European thinkers in exhibiting more than passing sympathy for proto-Fascist ideas, the list of his Rightist contemporaries includes Sorel, Pound, Marinetti, Maurras, Benn, Pirandello and Heidegger, joined a bit later by Celine, Brassilach, and Dneu La Rochelle Somewhat less committed were such men of letters as Eliot, Bernanos, Yeats, and Hesse...

...Why, then, Peyre's statement, or for that matter my own assertion that Mann was a proto-Nazi7 The answers can be found in this "last hurrah" for his traditions During World War I Mann wrestled with his past, with his prejudices and his narrow-minded Teutonic neo-Romanticism Between 1915-18, he committed these internal struggles to paper, and the result was Reflections-a painfully illiberal, petty confession that spells out in detail the writer's hatred of democracy, the parliamentary process, France, and his brother Heinrich...

...An Ambiguous Evolution Reflections of a Non-Political Man By Thomas Mann Translated by Walter D Morris Ungar 435 pp $29 50 Reviewed by Sol Gittleman Academic Vice President/ Provost, Tufts University In his Introduction to this collection of thematically linked essays, Walter Morris again defends Thomas Mann from the attacks inspired by its original publication in 1919 The translator cannot understand how, as late as 1944, Yale critic Henri Peyre could write of Mann's "former pan-Germanist and pro-Nazi views " Indeed, it requires only one reading of Reflections of a Non-Political Man-the last of Mann's major works to appear in English-to understand that we are not dealing with a pro-Nazi Rather, the author was a proto-Nazi who at the turn of the century shared the spiritual and intellectual heritage that later carried many of his friends into the arms of National Socialism...

...By all indications-background, environment, training-Mann should have been on the Nazis' side Yet he detested everything Hitler stood for and was one of the very first members of the German intelligentsia to reject Nazism He became fully engaged in combatting it, emerging as Germany's most influential anti-Fascist spokesman...

...No other prominent figure, however, with the possible exception of Beneder to Croce, was to share Mann's political, ideological and humanistic evolution-a process that brought him eventually into the camp of Left-of-Center Weimar and post-Weimar liberalism The journey was very painful, and Mann never felt fully comfortable with his reformed principles Evidence of his ongoing conflicts can be found even in the 1922 dramatic essay "Concerning the German Republic," which Morris in the Introduction cites as proof positive of the author's abandonment of earlier follies His avowal of Weimar democracy, though genuine enough, concludes with the following remarks "I ask you once again, defend yourself from fear There is no reason in the world to perceive the Republic as the sole preserve of sharp Jew-boys [Judenjungens] Don't concede to them1 Take-as the current political phrase...

...After World War II as well, Mann continued to struggle with the old bigotry in his giant novel Dr Faustus His children were shocked when they read the draft because the two Jewish characters were wholly unlikeable, one was the sole Fascist in the book Mann's indirect reply, expressed in a letter to Agnes Meyer, a close family friend, on September 7, 1948, was innocent in tone "That is not to be changed The book wanted it that way ". Still, Mann kept the faith with his acquired humanitarianism From 1920 until his death, he fought all the fights for liberty and democracy He was the consummate Continental intellectual on the Left, a model for later writers like Heinrich Boll and Gunter Grass...