German speech

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas Mann, 1929

German speech. An appeal to reason is the title of a speech by Thomas Mann that he gave on October 17, 1930 in the Beethoven Hall in Berlin . With her he responded to the Reichstag elections in September 1930 , in which the NSDAP increased its share of the vote sevenfold with 18.3 percent and was the second largest parliamentary group after the SPD.

The speech, which was disturbed by heckling from SA people and the police officers arriving, generated clear press coverage and marked the beginning of a phase of increased political commitment by Thomas Mann. It is one of his most well-founded and most important works that arose during these years.

Compared to other works, the lecture is based less on intellectual historical authorities than on the analysis of concrete political events. With unusual clarity, Mann took a political stance and overcame the artist's cautious hints , which had previously been working with quotations, references and educational fragments .

content

With his lecture, which he gave at the same place as his Republic speech in 1922, Thomas Mann wanted to “ explain the origins of the National Socialist wave to the bourgeoisie , which seemed to be about to sweep everything away with it.” He analyzed the domestic and foreign political situation in Germany and called on the bourgeoisie to stand on the side of social democracy against National Socialism .

Right at the beginning he explained how the circumstances would compel him to leave the aesthetic, general-human sphere of pure artistry, in which his work otherwise moves. He is not a "supporter of relentless social activism , does not want to see an individualistic idleness in art, in the uselessly beautiful", the outmodedness of which assigns him "almost to the category of the criminal", although the epoch of "pure play" Schiller , of aesthetic idealism is over.

He affirmed that he did not want to play a new spruce tree and that he did not want to take the position of praeceptor patriae (“teacher of the fatherland”), but asked himself whether and how it was possible and justifiable “under the current circumstances to read from a chapter of a novel and ... to go home again '. "

For Thomas Mann there were “hours, moments ... in which the artist ... can't go on because ... a critical affliction of the general public shakes him in a way that the playful, passionate immersion into the eternally human, which is called art, becomes a spiritual one Impossibility becomes. "

The outcome of the election could not only be interpreted economically, because at best one could explain the growth of communism (the KPD became the third-strongest faction with 13.1%), but not the rapid influx of the NSDAP, which "in the most militant and screamingly effective way I seek to combine the national idea with the social one. "

The Versailles Peace Treaty was also responsible for the misery, because it "held down the vital force of a major European people ..." so that the people felt themselves to be the main victims of a nonsense, irritation and suffering, which, even without much psychological art, were the causes Election outcomes could be viewed. This motive of suffering makes use of “a glaringly placarded offer to express his feelings” within a movement which, as “mass-feeling-conviction, could not have gained power” if it had not been helped from unconscious spiritual sources.

A natural religion , elements of the extravagant and orgiastic, the romantic barbarism , as explained later in the great speech on Germany , the connection between romanticizing philosophy and nationalism - all these motifs are unmistakable. And yet he asked himself whether it was really German to make politics the “mass opiate of the Third Reich ”, “Booth bells, hallelujah , dervish-like repetition of monotonous cues.” Fanaticism and the orgiastic denial of reason are in the deeper layer of being of Germanness probably not at home. The difficulty in finding a synthesis of the seemingly conflicting forces within Germany can also be explained for Thomas Mann by fear of the specter of Marxism . However, there is no deeper contrast than that between German social democracy and “ orthodox Marxism with a Muscovite- Communist character”.

Not only Germany, but also the authors of the Versailles Treaty, which is seen as the basis of peace, wished to escape its spell and would associate hopes and expectations with Germany. In this context, Mann praised Gustav Stresemann's policy , which made Germany stronger and Europe more peaceful, and at the end of which there was a revision of the treaty with France's consent - as the foundation of the peaceful construction of Europe. The place of the German bourgeoisie is on the side of social democracy.

background

Original cover of the first edition

The speech was accompanied by disturbances from the SA . Although the organizers, who had expected difficulties, had set them up at short notice, a group of troublemakers led by Arnolt Bronnen managed to get into the hall. Among them were Ernst and Friedrich Georg Jünger , Edmund Schultz and Veit Rosenkopf. To support them, Joseph Goebbels had ordered twenty SA men who had borrowed tuxedos into the hall. As Bronnen later stated, the disturbance was initially limited to a few heckling calls before the police caused a general commotion. It is thanks to the incident that the National Socialist press got its headlines. In the Völkischer Beobachter there was talk of Thomas Mann's alleged swinging over to social democracy, and the lecture was a Marxist advertising speech.

Arnolt Bronnen, a former author who published at S. Fischer and who used to wear sunglasses on such occasions, had once been a friend of Bertolt Brecht . Later he moved far to the right, worked closely with Goebbels, then turned back to the Communists and moved to the GDR . Thomas Mann had severely criticized him for denouncing a judicial officer, called him “talentless” and “misanthropic” and allowed himself to be carried away to say: “The animal is so cheeky and suspicious.” Now Bronnen wanted to take revenge and sabotaged the lecture with roaring Tirades. Ultimately, the disturbances failed due to the constant applause of the predominantly republican and social democratic audience. Thomas Mann himself reacted quite calmly to the spectacle and was not deterred when Hedwig Fischer, the wife of his publisher, gestured to him that he should be brief. At the end of the speech, however, he immediately left the hall and followed Bruno Walter to the nearby Philharmonie, from where he was brought to safety in the conductor's car.

The speech marks a phase of heightened political commitment. Thomas Mann reconsidered his distance from politics, questioned his own aesthetic point of view and confessed that the playful immersion into the eternal of art sometimes becomes an emotional impossibility.

Even his master novella Mario und der Zauberer, published in the same year and highly praised for its formal advantages and depth of content, shows the concern that Germany could entrust itself to a “magician” like Cipolla - in the novella Mario kills the seducer -, Mann speaks here in a direct political way Recommendations.

He had called it an appeal to reason when he, overcoming his nature, stepped into the political arena, although it was merely an “appeal to all better Germans”, as he said in one of the radio speeches in November 1941, German listener! stressed. This act would calm his conscience more deeply than his actual literary work, which under happier circumstances would arise from the individual artistic conscience and with which he did not want to increase the fame of his people. With his address he warned his compatriots when it was not too late and pointed to the "rejected powers in whose yoke they are now harnessed" and which would drag them into an unimaginable ruin through a thousand misdeeds.

development

At first, Thomas Mann was not worried about the enormous number of votes the National Socialists had gained. For example, he wrote to the Nuremberg bookseller Ida Herz, who admired him very much and who later found herself portrayed in Doctor Faustus , that one could hope for “the healthy spirit of the German people” because “so-called national socialism” was “a colossus of clay Feet ”.

On the other hand, after a visit in October 1930, Ernst Bertram noticed that the Mann house had been violently outraged by Adolf Hitler . Following an invitation from the Reich Foreign Minister Julius Curtius , Thomas Mann had told members of the League of Nations a few days earlier that one could rest assured that nothing would change in Germany's foreign policy. The League of Nations, which had come together again in September 1930 to discuss the Briand-Kellogg Pact to outlaw war, was very concerned about the results of the Reichstag elections.

Thomas Mann's development as a political writer was marked by hesitation and doubts and unfolded over several stages, starting from his conservative-monarchist phase, in which the considerations of a non-political fall. In contrast to other authors and his brother Heinrich, he had committed himself to the Weimar Republic and democracy relatively late , but then appeared as its public advocate and criticized efforts that ran counter to the republican-democratic order. In contrast to his brother, he dealt only little with political issues and concentrated on his literary work. Only occasionally did he fulfill representative duties, such as those resulting from the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature or the establishment of the Poetry Section .

reception

The address is one of Thomas Mann's most important political statements.

For Peter de Mendelssohn , who was among the audience, the lecture was very long, mentally and linguistically too demanding and in some places over the head, while the biographer Klaus Harpprecht rated it as a courageous step. The author stepped forward with a clarity that is unprecedented in the tradition of “German spirituality”. However, Thomas Mann overestimated the willingness of the Democrats to break free from party-strategic and ideological shackles in the face of the looming danger of National Socialism. He points out that after the first, exuberant discussion in the SPD newspaper Vorwärts, a functionary reported and believed that he had to defend the Marxist faith from the writer under the title Social Democracy and Bourgeoisie , because it was always “about them Preparation and exposure of a new humanity ”. If it were different, one would have no right to call oneself a socialist, but would be a "bourgeois liberal, the end of which we have just announced".

Also Hermann Kurzke praised the speech, highlighting their clarity and the courage of the author. The author would no longer hide behind quotes from the Olympians or want to shine rhetorically with elegant superiority as he did in the considerations of a non-political , but rather analyze coolly and intelligently, show his colors and give practical advice. He is no longer the artist who traces the political back to the aesthetic, but a political thinker who already separates the political from the aesthetic sphere in the introduction to the essay. The lecture examines the NSDAP and self-critically does not disregard the spiritual help from the bourgeois camp. It is not Marxist, but social.

literature

Text output

  • Thomas Mann: An Appeal to Reason , Essays, Volume 3, Fischer, Frankfurt 1994, pp. 259-279.

Secondary literature

  • Klaus Harpprecht: Thomas Mann, a biography , Chapter 46, Sturmzeichen, Rowohlt, 1995, pp. 664–668.
  • Manfred Görtemaker: Thomas Mann und die Politik , Vernunftrepublikaner, Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, pp. 60–62.

Individual evidence

  1. Thomas Mann, German address , in: Essays, Volume 3, An Appell to Reason, Fischer, Frankfurt 1994, p. 259.
  2. Thomas Mann, German address , in: Essays, Volume 3, An Appell to Reason, Fischer, Frankfurt 1994, p. 259.
  3. Thomas Mann, German address , in: Essays, Volume 3, An Appell to Reason, Fischer, Frankfurt 1994, pp. 264–265.
  4. Thomas Mann, German address , in: Essays, Volume 3, An Appell to Reason, Fischer, Frankfurt 1994, p. 269.
  5. Thomas Mann, German address , in: Essays, Volume 3, An Appell to Reason, Fischer, Frankfurt 1994, p. 271.
  6. Thomas Mann, German speech , p. 259, in: Essays, Volume 3, An Appell to Reason, Fischer, Frankfurt 1994, p. 278.
  7. Quoted from: Manfred Görtemaker , Thomas Mann und die Politik, Vernunftrepublikaner, Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, p. 61.
  8. Quoted from: Klaus Harpprecht, Thomas Mann, Eine Biographie, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995, p. 665.
  9. Klaus Harpprecht, Thomas Mann, Eine Biographie, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995, p. 665.
  10. Manfred Görtemaker: Thomas Mann and politics , Vernunftrepublikaner, Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, p. 60.
  11. Hans R. Vaget, Mario and the Magician, in: Thomas-Mann-Handbuch, Fischer, Stuttgart 2001, p. 597.
  12. Quoted from: Klaus Harpprecht , Thomas Mann, Eine Biographie, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995, p. 664.
  13. ^ Manfred Görtemaker, Thomas Mann und die Politik, Vernunftrepublikaner, Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, pp. 55–56.
  14. Klaus Harpprecht, Thomas Mann, Eine Biographie, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995, p. 668.
  15. Hermann Kurzke , in: Thomas Mann Handbuch, Politische Essayistik, Fischer, Stuttgart 2001, p. 700.