The turning point

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The turning point. A biography is the second autobiography after Kind of this time by Klaus Mann , which, written in English, was first published in 1942 by LB Fischer Verlag, New York, under the title The Turning Point: Thirty-Five Years in this Century in the USA . The Turning Point ends with Klaus Mann's decision to join the US Army. The title refers to Mann's view that every person has the opportunity at certain points in life to decide for one or the other and thus to give his life a decisive turn. In his life it was the change from an aesthetically playful to a politically committed writer.

To the work

The reviews of Turning Point were full of praise. His friend and publisher Fritz H. Landshoff , head of the German department of the exile publishing house Querido in Amsterdam from 1933 to 1940 , co-founder of LB Fischer Verlag in 1942, asked him in 1946 to create a German version. The German version translated, edited and expanded by Mann was completed in 1949, shortly before his death. A rough translation of the first six chapters from English by Monika Mann turned out to be of little help to him. Chapters nine, ten and eleven have been considerably expanded for German readers, and the twelfth and final chapter, The Turning Point , has been completely rewritten. It consists of fictitious letters from the years 1943 to 1945. Overall, the German-language edition covers the period from his childhood to his discharge from the US Army in 1945. He made the cuts required by the Bermann-Fischer / Querido Verlag by the end of March 1949. He did not receive any more galley proofs before his death and doubted whether the volume would ever appear. The Querido Verlag was integrated into the Bermann-Fischer Verlag in 1948. Due to the strong influence of Thomas Mann on Gottfried Bermann Fischer , who was Thomas Mann's publisher, Der Wendpunkt was published posthumously in 1952. It is said that this autobiography was one of the most important and exciting contemporary documents about the literary and art scene in Germany in the 1920s and that Life of German intellectuals during exile in World War II .

A new edition was published for the author's 100th birthday in November 2006, and it was expanded to include previously unpublished texts from the estate: Drafts and variants that were deleted by Erika Mann and an editor during the editing of the German first edition because they appeared too personally or were not politically opportune.

Quote

“What kind of story is it that I have to tell? The story of an intellectual between two world wars, a man who had to spend the decisive years of his life in a social and spiritual vacuum: intimately - but unsuccessfully - trying to get connected to any society, to fit into any order: always wandering, always restless, driven, always on the lookout ...; the story of a German who wanted to become a European, a European who wanted to become a citizen of the world; the story of an individualist who dreads anarchy almost as much as it does before standardization, “conformity”, “massing”; the story of a writer whose primary interests lie in the aesthetic-religious-erotic sphere, but who, under the pressure of circumstances, has taken a politically responsible, even militant position ... [...] (The shadow of fatherly fame on my way ..., yes That belongs in it too.) “ Quotation from Der Wendpunkt, p. 581

Literature and Sources

  • Klaus Mann: The turning point, a life report , Aufbau-Verlag , Berlin and Weimar 1974
  • Klaus Mann: The turning point. A life report (= Rororo 24409). Extended new edition. Edited with text variants and drafts in the appendix and with an afterword by Fredric Kroll . Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-499-24409-8 ; New edition Rowohlt, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-499-27649-1 .
  • Uwe Naumann : Klaus Mann (= Rororo 50695 Rowohlt's monograph ). Revised new edition. Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-499-50695-5 .