Thomas Mann and Judaism

Thomas Mann in the Hotel Adlon , 1929

Thomas Mann , who played an important role as a politically engaged author in exile during the Nazi era , referred to himself several times as a philosemite , fought for the recognition of the discriminated Jewish minority and dealt with a number of Jewish intellectuals whom he held in high regard; His publisher Samuel Fischer , but above all his wife Katia, were of Jewish origin.

His relationship to Judaism , however, was ambivalent and not without certain reservations. It was also influenced by feuds he had with Alfred Kerr and Theodor Lessing . With all the high esteem in particular for the intellectual achievements of Judaism, according to some researchers, diffuse anti-Jewish accents and dispositions emerge, which can be observed especially in his early and middle creative years.

On the other hand, Judaism played a decisive role in his narrative and essay writing . While he designed the characters - from the Buddenbrooks to the Zauberberg , the Joseph tetralogy to Doctor Faustus - according to the respective requirements of the work, a development can be recorded in the essays that of certain clichés and prejudices as well as contributions to the anti-Semitic Journal The twentieth century to reach the rejection of National Socialist Germany. From now on he moved the fight against anti-Semitism under the “foundations of occidental morality” and placed it at the center of his publications, which were driven by seriousness and pathos.

background

ambivalence

The ambivalent attitude of Thomas Mann to Judaism is still in the focus of literature whose priorities have shifted since 1980. After historical research and media processing had gradually grasped the dimension of the Holocaust and assessed it largely as a key world historical event, new approaches to reception emerged. In the course of time, the victims' side increasingly became the focus of interest, which for the Federal Republic of Germany also has to do with the recording of the television series Holocaust - The History of the Weiss Family , an event with a great response.

Gradually, science saw identity as a central problem for Thomas Mann, which affected the areas of language and politics, sexuality and psychology. It could be observed that the author wanted to heal damaged identities, but always remained ambivalent, which had an impact on the subject of Judaism that he dealt with: On the one hand, Jewish figures offer themselves as projection surfaces for the outsider, on the other hand they threaten his self-conception. In addition, research increasingly understands the poet's work and person as an element of German modernism in which both beneficial and pernicious tendencies of the time come together.

Many contradictions are rooted in the personal and suggest psychological interpretations that deal with the artist's self-image. So common anti-Jewish set pieces can be found in the drawing of the figures from the beginnings to the mature works. The role of the Hagenström family is thus integrated into the scapegoat mechanism , blaming the Jewish competition for the decline of the traditional family. If Hermann Hagenström from Buddenbrooks wants in vain to buy Tony's kiss with a lemon roll, Saul Fitelberg offers the clay composer Adrian Leverkühn the opportunity to market his art. In contrast, other authors refer to Thomas Mann's narrative considerations, consciously choosing stereotypical drawings and using other clichés in order to depict his characters with the names that often speak as vividly as possible. In spite of differing assessments of partial aspects, many authors assume that Mann raised the “Jewish question” like a projection, primarily within himself. He rejected many aspects of himself that he did not like in Jews, so his criticism often hit him himself.

The solution to the Jewish question

Your Royal Highness, first edition 1909 cover

Above all, the early and short essay with the misleading, now impossible title The solution to the Jewish question with its stereotypes is problematic despite all the time constraints and is still in the focus of research. Heinrich Detering, for example, points to tensions and contradictions. Thomas Mann initially described himself as a philosopher and characterized the “exodus” called for by “Zionists of strict observance” as the greatest misfortune that could happen to the continent because of the “indispensable ... cultural stimulus” for Europe. A few lines later, however, according to Detering, Thomas Mann contradicts what has been categorically explained, while his words imperceptibly slide into hostility. As if it were a matter of course, he spoke of the "degenerate and most impoverished races in the ghetto". The "ghetto" is still "deep in the soul of the Jews today". When the author patronizingly restricts that “the Jew” does not have to keep “crooked legs and red mumbling hands”, he repeats exactly the aspects that he had previously wanted to invalidate.

The discrepancy between the philosemitic rejection of the cliché and its actually anti-Semitic repetition should not be put into perspective too quickly, for example with the frequently cited reference to interpretative differences before and after the Nazi era .

Because of the contradictions between philo- and anti-Semitic interpretation, Detering questioned the process of searching Thomas Mann's texts for relevant references and questioning them from the point of view of anti-Semitism or philosemitism. In this context, it is informative for him how Dr. Sammet, the Jewish doctor from the novel Royal Highness , reacts to the question of his Judaism and possible obstacles to his life that may result from it. He emphasizes how the “outsider” is not an obstacle, but rather represents a “cause for more unusual achievements” compared to the “regular and therefore comfortable plural”, an answer that corresponds in content to the essay in which the man calls it had formulated his own conviction. The stigmatization and distinction of those who have the “pathos of exception in their hearts” are therefore in a special relationship. The fact that a Jewish figure answers the “Jewish question” in the same way as the author of an essay who is determined not to write as a Jew shows how his self-image of the special, “unfit for life” outsider can lead to an ambiguous identification with Judaism.

Hermann Kurzke, on the other hand, contradicts the argument that Thomas Mann's philosemitic expressions - for example in the essay - should be interpreted as repressed anti-Semitism. At best, this psychological interpretation would be correct if anti-Semitism had not been “open to the public” at the time or if the writer were relocated to the present day. In that phase, however, it was not necessary to suppress any impulses, since openly expressed anti-Semitism was not outlawed. Such statements would have brought him "who had the reputation of intellectualism and internationalism, the German average" closer. While suppressed homoeroticism can be found in numerous parts of his work, his diary entries and the autobiographical subtext, a corresponding search remains inconclusive.

Contributions to the magazine The Twentieth Century

Heinrich and Thomas Mann around 1902

Like his brother Heinrich , Thomas also wrote articles for the magazine The Twentieth Century . It is true that these are not determined by the aggressive anti-Semitic rhetoric that is noticeable in his brother; The review of the "Ostmarkklänge", a collection of poems by the volkish poet Theodor Hutter , shows, in Rolf Thiedes' view, certain anti-Semitic dispositions, even if these only come to light in quotations. Instead of the commentaries, this can be inferred from the preference of those poems that Thomas Mann classified as worth discussing.

Heinrich Mann had spoken of Jews as "a tiny clique of a new aristocracy of upstart" who had seized the leadership everywhere. Anti-Semitism is a “deep and powerful popular movement” with which the degeneration of capitalism and liberalism can be suddenly cured and the decline of the middle class can be stopped. The Jews are persecuted not because of their religion or their nationality, but "because they are the embodied negation of both", the "most visible evidence of what destroys and lowers".

Now, according to Stefan Breuer , Thomas Mann did not distance himself from it and wrote to his childhood friend Otto Grautoff how “eagerly” he was helping his brother to edit the paper. But one can acknowledge that his tone was much more moderate. Although he expresses certain anti-Jewish stereotypes, he is nowhere near as violent as his brother. His conviction of the superiority of German culture in Europe was indeed German national, but remained below the exaltations that could otherwise be found in the paper.

The anti-Jewish tendencies in Thomas Mann's early phase resulted partly from his psychological condition, partly from the influence of a bourgeois urban milieu. This background had been characterized by a high degree of willingness to discriminate since the Napoleonic Wars. According to Reinhard Rürup and Johannes Heil , anti-Semitism can not yet be spoken of in the simple bundling of anti-Jewish stereotypes, but only when these are shaped into a doctrine and post-religious worldview with which the misunderstood tendencies of bourgeois society can be explained in a model manner .

Conflict with Theodor Lessing

Theodor Lessing between 1925 and 1930 on a photograph by Nicola Perscheid

Since some of the problematic reservations are anchored in Thomas Mann's biography, it makes sense to look at the conflict with Theodor Lessing . Here it becomes clear that his ambivalence is rooted in the personal and he traces disputes back to the perceived otherness, which also applies to his positive experiences.

Thomas Mann responded with an unusually sharp and personal essay: "The Doctor Lessing" to a satire by the author with the title "Samuel takes stock", which was directed against Samuel Lublinski and described him as a "greasy little synagogue". A man who felt obliged to Lublinski accused the author not only of attempting a bumbling imitation of Heine , but of trying to discredit the criticized by unfair means. If one were to forgive the techniques “a demon of malice and the art of language with reluctant delight”, Lessing would use them in his work “with a boldness” that is disproportionate to his ability. If one can regretfully overlook his lack of talent, his impertinence calls for public contradiction. The pamphlet, which testifies to a lack of expertise and self-overestimation, paints a slanderous caricature that Lublinski mocks.

By advocating for Lublinski, Thomas Mann was not only defending a critic he liked, but also a Galician Jews who tried to assimilate against an anti-Semitic provocation that also came from the Jewish side. With the double caricature as “ Talmud- born” and “German literary fountain” Lessing Lublinski aggressively recalled his origins and what Lessing considered to be “his true nature”.

However, Thomas Mann, who intended to "drive the insolent dwarf ... appropriately over the mouth", used certain anti-Semitic phrases in his reaction.

After Thomas Mann had not accepted a duel offered by Lessing , the latter published several polemical articles “against Thomas Mann”, some of which appeared in private print. Here he alluded to the “masculine femininity” of Thomas Mann, apostrophized him as a “feminine, decadent patrician son” and made fun of his “solid prose”.

The attacked considered writing a novella entitled Ein Elender , the main character of which was supposed to bear essential traits of Lessing and Alfred Kerr, a project that was never realized, but played a role as the title in Mann's novella Death in Venice . Thomas Mann also dealt with the conflicts with Lessing in his polemics against the “civilization literati” in the considerations of a non-political .

In a diary entry dated November 5, 1918, he described "the Jews Kerr and Lessing" as his "born enemies" and "scorners" of his existence. That Lessing polemicized against the Reich President Paul von Hindenburg and the secret armament of the Reichswehr and later paid for it with his life, Thomas Mann did not soften. After Lessing had been murdered by National Socialist thugs in the summer of 1933, Mann responded with a cold and vain diary note: He was dreading this end, but not “because it was the end, but because it was so miserable and might be a Lessing thing, but not me". In another diary entry from July 15, 1934, he attributed a large share to the Jews “in the spiritual things” which were expressed “grimly” in the political system. They are "to be seen to a large extent as pioneers of the anti-liberal turn".

Fight against anti-Semitism and National Socialism

During the time of National Socialism , Thomas Mann was considered the best-known representative of German literature and placed the fight against anti-Semitism at the center of his political and journalistic work.

Let " fascism be the socialism of stupid people", then "anti-Semitism the aristocracy of the mob". The aristocratism of the spirit, on the other hand, is a necessity and more legitimate than the “poor need for refinement” expressed, among other things, in anti-Semitism. It is an "accessory and password of all murky, confused and mass humanity and mass mysticism mixed with a lot of bestiality ".

Other admonishing essays, which gain in drama against the background of the Nazi persecution of the Jews, are “Save the Jews of Europe” and “A persistent people”. In this late treatise, Mann tries to make an overall assessment of the Jewish national character. Quoting Goethe as an informant, he speaks of the Jews as an independent, brave and tough people. To make it clear that “the Jewish people” are characterized by “special gifts” (for medicine and music), he mentioned Paul Ehrlich and August von Wassermann as well as Yehudi Menuhin and Vladimir Horowitz , Jascha Heifetz and the “happy virtuoso” Arthur Rubinstein ; next to him the "greatest theoretical physicist of our time: Albert Einstein ". No human being “who was at home in the realm of the spirit” could ever be an anti-Semite.

Thomas Mann and politics

Mann's relationship with politics was not an easy one, so that he entered the political arena with reservations. In contrast to other contemporaries, he had - not yet completely detached from the ideas of the Conservative Revolution - seen the political danger of National Socialism looming and tried to analyze its complex causes in a number of writings. In his 1915 to 1918 book, parallel to the novel The Magic Mountain , Considerations of an Unpolitical Man , he commented positively on Germany's participation in the First World War and reflected on the relationship between politics and aestheticism .

In his essay Goethe and Tolstoy , a work that reveals the spiritual proximity to the considerations of an apolitical , he described the essence of the movement as "folk paganism" and "romantic barbarism", with terms that are used in his later speech Germany and let the Germans find them again. It is romantic because it is looking for lost irrationality, and barbaric because it undermines the level of development of the spirit and, if violent, results in the return of myth . The "swastika nonsense", as he explained in his essay On the Jewish Question , is a moment of cultural reaction.

In Germany and democracy , he dealt with the traumatic defeat of the First World War as well as the stab in the back legend and the war guilt thesis of the Versailles Treaty , elements that are partly responsible for the wave of political irrationalism that is breaking through Germany and, to an increasing extent, political awareness many Germans are numb. After initial praise for Oswald Spengler , whose stylistic gifts he certainly appreciated, he turned against him in his essay On Spengler's Doctrine and rejected the tendency of his work The Downfall of the West .

After 1933

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, Thomas Mann did not initially think of an immediate emigration . After he had given his great, for him momentous, speech about the suffering and greatness of Richard Wagner in the Auditorium Maximum of the University of Munich on February 10, 1933 , which led to targeted protests by the Richard Wagner City of Munich and a protective custody warrant was issued, he returned did not return to Germany after a lecture tour and initially stayed in Switzerland .

Under the influence of these new experiences and the influence of his daughter Erika , he came through relatively late in 1936 to a clear position and condemned the regime in various writings. He rejected National Socialism using theological terms as absolutely evil and utterly absurd .

Especially in the rhetorically brilliant speeches German listeners! From 1940 to 1945 he passionately addressed the German public to warn them of the rejected powers to which they were at the mercy. Here he also addressed the escalation stages of the Holocaust. For him his voice was that of "a Germany that showed the world and will show another face than the hideous Medusa mask that Hitlerism impressed on it".

Representation of the Jewish world

The origin of mankind

Joseph the breadwinner, cover ( Hugo Steiner-Prag ) of the first printing in 1943

In his large cycle of novels Joseph and his brothers and the short story The Law , Thomas Mann sketched the history of the origins of the Jewish religion and history.

The fact that the great novel was written between 1926 and 1942 can be explained not only by the difficult fate of the emigrants and the work on the Goethe novel Lotte in Weimar , which the author inserted between the third and last volume, but also because of a change and deepening his intentions, which are related to the step from the “bourgeois-individual to the mythical-typical”, in order to fathom the depth of time with the plumb line and to look for the origins where “the myth is at home and the primordial norms, archetypes of life are founded “As he explained Freud and the future in his lecture rich in relationships .

Hans Castorp's weakness for the Chaldeans had already shown itself in the Zauberberg . The author continued to occupy himself with the secret of man and his beginnings, around which his snow dream of homo dei also revolves. The continuing interest in the archaic and primeval led him back to the early childhood history of mankind and the source of Western culture and civilization.

As Thomas Mann himself wrote, between the conclusion of the Zauberberg in Munich in 1924 and “the day on which I found the courage to write down the first movement of the overture known as Hell's Descent […] 'Deep is the well of the past'”, his story Disorder and early suffering .

Moses smashes the tablets of the law by Rembrandt van Rijn (1659)

The old biblical saga of Joseph from the 1st book of Moses , of which Goethe had already written in his work Poetry and Truth , that it was "most graceful", but appears too short, so that one "feels called to it to paint individual ones ”, initially functions as a model of an original humanity on which the western world, which is in cultural unease , is based. For a long time Thomas Mann had dealt with Goethe's suggestion and considered how he could implement it productively. The ever deeper and more urgent look into the well of the past wants to ascertain itself and its origins and thus not escape the present (escapistically), but rather react directly to a need for time. The author dealt with the Old Testament and Talmudic source material quite freely, because he ultimately wanted to use the example of the development of the people of Israel to exemplify the development of humanity . He not only expanded the legendary Joseph story with illusionistic fabulous skills and narrative fantasy, but also interspersed it with a number of essayistic, myth-comparing and religious-historical additions. The narrative accuracy as well as the scientific appearance determine the ironic-humorous basis, after all, the "scientific, applied to the completely unscientific and fairytale-like, pure irony", as it is called in the novel itself.

So he rejected a religious interpretation of the novel and declared that it was not a "Jewish novel", but rather "a cheerful and serious song by people", even if this work shows how intensely he deals with the Jewish world and culture. It shows the slow development of the patriarchal fathers ' search for God and God-shaping , until Joseph - as already indicated with his father Jaakob - loses the unchangeable myth and he goes into the service of humanity, a development that the title of the latter also reflects Ribbon pointing out Joseph the breadwinner . Despite his narrative freedom and the usual critical and humorous look, he did not lose sight of Israel's merit for having helped create and spread monotheism .

This also plays a central role in his story The Law , which shows a similar approach by the author. Here he describes the career of Moses from his “disorderly birth” to the legislation on Sinai in a way that deviates from the representation in the Tanach and tradition. The Jewish world is being secularized and demythed, as Thomas Mann repeatedly uses an ironic, benevolent and anachronizing style when describing certain peculiarities of the proclaimer of the law and his followers. The author himself characterized his story as a "defense of human morality directed against Nazism".

Motivations

The long development process of the Joseph cycle naturally meant that current developments in contemporary history could change the original conception of the novel. The years 1924 to 1929, which were significant for the creation of the cycle, fell into a phase of relative stability in the Weimar Republic , but were also marked by an increase in publications hostile to Jews.

These include the works of Theodor Fritsch's Hammer Verlag , such as the translation of the anti-Semitic pamphlet of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion , a work that has influenced the thinking of numerous conspiracy theorists . This and the activities of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund did not trigger a scandal, but rather led to a habituation effect and a tendency to trivialize the impending disaster.

Abraham in the painting The Angel prevents the sacrifice of Isaac by Rembrandt

According to Thomas Mann, the visible, even rampant anti-Semitism was not decisive for the choice of the novel. His long reluctance to deal with the subject becomes more understandable when one considers the embarrassments and problems associated with the scandal-riddled story Wälsungenblut .

At a conference on anti-Semitism in 1937 he stated that he did not want to protest against certain tendencies of the time and demonstrate with his cycle or to formulate “an apology by Judaism against anti-Semitism”. However, he has nothing against the opposing role into which the work "got itself through the development of external things". This is "even very dear and welcome" to him. However, this meaning was not originally intended for the book, which was not supposed to be a “Jewish epic, but an epic of humanity”.

During this time, too, Thomas Mann assumed the differences and specific characteristics of certain peoples and human species and worked with thought patterns that he transferred with aesthetic pleasure to his surroundings, as if the world only got its characteristic color through this perspective. This tendency increased his long-standing interest in the "phenomenon of the Jewish fellow man," as he put it in 1921.

The aura of the strangely mysterious, the poetic and the biblical had already appealed to the boy and inspired his imagination. The Jews were pilgrims to him through space and time, messengers of old traditions, which embodied the eternal return in constant change. They enabled the writer to advance from the individual to the mythical. In the prelude to the first volume of his Joseph novel, he depicts how God himself goes to earth "for the bloodful and carnal existence as a divine people's body" in order to become god of the world and of tribes. The Jewish people and especially their offspring Joseph appear like a kind of fist . The spiritual restlessness, the struggle and constant search of the Hebrews document the path of the spirit through history and show how humanity arises in its origins and how religion and morality develop.

Oskar Goldberg

In numerous passages of the novel, Thomas Mann takes up the Jewish religious philosopher Oskar Goldberg , whose work is best known through the treatment and reference in the Joseph novels and Doctor Faustus. Thomas Mann's attitude towards Goldberg remained negative until the end of the contemporary novel, even if he owed him numerous suggestions for his work. According to Manfred Voigt, his Goldberg caricature in the figure of Breisacher contributed to the negative assessment of the religious scholar.

The reality of the Hebrews

Satan before the Lord, painting by Corrado Giaquinto

In the prologue to the last volume Joseph, the breadwinner , he lets the apostate angel Samael appear, who advises God to create beings in his own image in addition to the fertile animals, in which divinity and fertility would be united, the creatures with whom " evil " is ultimately came into the world. These people, as the “embodiment of the Most High”, should be “an electoral people following the pattern of the other magically powerful and carnal and vital folk and tribal deities of this earth”. Samael's proposals are ironic adoptions from Goldberg's The Reality of the Hebrews , a book that Thomas Mann read in 1927, first admired, but then doubted.

Goldberg's interpretation of the Torah , according to which there are numerous gods who are members of the people "for every god development opportunities" and the people "instrument of divine power" through which the god descends into matter, amounts to a monolatry . The earth appears as a stage for divine power games, the gods themselves are biological energy units. Behind Satan's proposal that God should educate Israel as an electorate on the model of other tribal deities on earth, Goldberg's metaphysics is hidden - in a devilish form.

Thomas Mann supplemented Goldberg's ideas with elements of Freudian psychoanalysis and drive theory . While Goldberg speaks of the original tribal god Ur-Elohim , the ruthless desert god Jahu appears in the novel. In the fight against the "goblin", who has more demonic than divine traits, the spiritual resistance to hidden powers of unconscious instincts is shown. This controversy illustrates the purifying process of civilization, conflicting forces of nature and the forces of time to curb. For Samael, who advises God to conduct his daring experiment and is already looking forward to the inevitable disappointments and bitterness that will inevitably follow, the Hebrew people are not particularly suitable for gaining power and fame; there is not “much government to be made” with them. With this play on words, Thomas Mann refers to a statement by Goethe, who, however, referred more to the political abilities of the Hebrews, while Thomas Mann's Satan also means other awkwardnesses that make it difficult for God to connect with his people.

For Goldberg, the myth describes a reciprocal dependent relationship between a god and his people, in which he becomes effective and can develop, a process that also takes place in other peoples. According to this basically polytheistic view, in the course of history there was a victory for God, whose people were able to assert themselves through war against others . In the conflict between the peoples, a war between the Elohim takes place at the same time. Every god tries to "gain a firm foothold in the world" in order to create opportunities for development. While he has to be embodied in a certain group , the people are in turn dependent on the close relationship with their divine power center in order to be able to develop. What is unusual about Goldberg's interpretation is the extent to which he emphasizes the dependence of a god on a people, thus reversing the current relationship and turning against traditional devotion: “This view is in contrast to any theological view of devotion, humility and fatalism. It is about the autonomy of the people towards God. "

National Socialist persecution of the Jews

Christian Hülshörster traces Thomas Mann's Goldberg reading, which mainly concentrated on the first part ( The Basic Concepts ) of the main work and underlined many passages in its edition. Mann emphasizes Goldberg's assessment that “the concept of God is not closely linked to that of mankind, but that of the people”, which is followed by the conviction that YHWH is not the “only Elohim.” In his study of Goldberg's In the text, Thomas Mann concentrated primarily on the nature of the relationship with God and the negative assessment of the development as a history of decline.

On May 1, 1942, he described The Reality of the Hebrews as a "downright fascist book". In connection with the worsening persecution of the Jews at the end of 1941, Goldberg's approach of questioning the right to exist of the Jewish people confirmed Thomas Mann's negative assessment. Clear parallels can be found between the National Socialist extermination policy and the theses that the Jews "had to reckon with the 'elimination' because of their negligence."

Attempts have often been made to justify the persecution of the Jews as a result of world history, their own Jewish failure or even incitement to war, as Adolf Hitler did with strikingly drastic frankness in his speech to the Reichstag on January 30, 1939, when he spoke of “the Extermination of the Jewish Race in Europe ”spoke. In January 1942, Thomas Mann rejected Deutsche Hörer! In one of his radio programs. already pointed out details of the Holocaust.

Goldberg, for his part, took a hostile and negative attitude towards Thomas Mann during his years in exile in America and tried to discredit him with allegations of plagiarism. Thomas Mann had influenced the reality of the Hebrews in such a way “that he decided to return to the Bible.” He was “a child of the shallowest enlightenment”, could not detach himself from his book and was “bribed and hypnotized by the overwhelming amount of details ", Whose theoretical basis he has distorted," so that they fit into his worldview. "

Classification, historical references

Sale of Joseph to Egyptian dealers , Friedrich Overbeck , Casa Bartholdy fresco cycle, Berlin , Alte Nationalgalerie (1816–17)

Thomas Mann paints a materialism of the Hebrews characterized by numerous clichés . The covenant of God, which is supposed to promote prosperity, wealth and offspring, is reminiscent of a trade agreement. In the depicted development of religion towards bartering, there are also influences from Werner Sombart , according to which the covenant is like a “sophisticated balancing” and a “current account with God”, a contract that regulates the relationship between YHWH and Israel.

It is noticeable that the novel brightly illuminates the tricks and creeps of the Hebrews, which at times seem funny like in a picaresque novel. While the biblical model only suggests cautiously and does not judge people or deeds, Thomas Mann's paraphrases paint out the reprehensible pages vividly.

If one looks at the presented patriarchs, only Abraham appears as a radiantly pure figure, while the others have human-all-too-human traits, a tendency that can be seen in the external drawing of the figures. Jacob's theatrical-sentimental gestures, his grandiloquent, pathetic talk are just as noticeable as Joseph's sense of the worldly and state, even pompous and his talkative, familiar tongue. While the ambitious young man is captivatingly beautiful, Esau with his “pointed ears” and “nose lying flat on the bare upper lip” or Ruben with his blunt profile stand out. Jacob's questionable sides are also broadly painted, such as his hypocritical dealings with Esau, his inability to prevent the brutal excesses of his sons, and his cowardice towards Eliphas.

The contradiction between the radiant image of the people of the spirit on the one hand and the behavior of the Hebrews on the other leads to different patterns of interpretation. Thomas Mann himself drew a parallel to his Buddenbrooks , in that his Joseph tetralogy was about decay, a process of refinement not on a bourgeois but “human level”. Jacques Darmaun tries to explain the contrast dialectically . Thomas Mann understood God in his development, he was “after all not always who he was”, and the violent customs of Yahu appear as relics of earlier states of the incarnate God.

Pyramids of Giza

The novel also shows clear references to the present, especially to the development of Germany. This is especially true for Joseph's stay in Egypt , which, in its combination of brutality and sensitivity, is an image of Germany even during the time of National Socialism . It looks contemptuously and contemptuously at the human life that is consumed in building the pyramids . So this Egypt is the paradoxically illuminated symbol of a high culture, which has reached the peak of cultivated refinement, but cannot hide the fact that it is being hollowed out from within. The sensitive Akhenaten, for example, who adheres to the gentle Aton religion, takes refuge in a spiritual sphere and does not notice the hostile powers to which he is at the mercy. The Egypt described in this way is shaped by the death cult of a frozen society and is exhausted by simply repeating the old without power. Like Gustav von Aschenbach from death in Venice , it can literally fall into the abyss. In order to become fruitful again, to overcome narrow-mindedness and anti-Semitism, Egypt - and thus Germany - must open to the spirit. This influence through Jewish culture should correspond for Germany to what Joseph represents for Egypt, a spiritual and cultural enrichment on the way to humanity.

Even if the Jewish leitmotif in the epic of mankind unfolds enormous scope and complex depth, it was criticized that Thomas Mann used the Hebrews of all people to draw attention to the danger of völkisch arrogance, especially in the phase of aggressively increasing anti-Semitism. As Jacques Darmaun states, Thomas Mann himself wore the “Jewish mask” while he was writing, directing the “mischievous intelligence of the Hebrews” against the “Germanic clumsiness”, understanding Jacob as a counter-figure of Siegfried and countering the madness and chthonism of Joseph who knows that "reason must be filled with soul and soul with reason".

Jewish psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud, Stanley Hall, Carl Gustav Jung, Abraham Arden

Like other writers, Thomas Mann also recognized the importance of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis and was able to use it in a variety of ways for his work. In the psychoanalytic interpretation of many of his works, ( sublimated ) homoeroticism was not the only motif, but it was an extremely important and dynamically grateful motif.

Manfred Dierks examines Mann's relationship to Jewish psychoanalysis and also goes into the renegade Carl Gustav Jung and statements that were classified as anti-Semitic.

development

Many of Freud's collaborators, such as Josef Breuer , Hanns Sachs , Karl Abraham and Sabina Spielrein, were Jews and hoped for an unprejudiced science, which seemed of great importance in a city like Vienna , which was characterized by an anti-Semitic atmosphere. Their opposition and outsider role was not alien to the staff; it strengthened the inner cohesion and helped to implement a new idea.

Freud went even further in this attitude and even covered up differences that existed with C. G Jung. As a talented speaker and profound theoretician, the Swiss man was able to successfully campaign for psychoanalysis at international congresses and soon seemed to be one of its most important representatives until the split in 1912. As early as May 1908, Freud had to reassure Karl Abraham, who had criticized Jung's unorthodox views. Freud asked for understanding and asked Abraham to be tolerant and not to overlook the fact that he actually had it easier than Jung, he was independent and was closer to Freud's “intellectual constitution through racial affinity”, while Jung “as a Christian and pastor's son only find the way to him against great internal resistance. For this reason, Jung's contribution to the psychoanalytic movement is all the more valuable, and one could almost say "that it was only his appearance that removed psychoanalysis from the danger of becoming a Jewish national matter."

Mann's early work, which was shaped by psychology, arose during the development of Freud's teaching. The novella Der kleine Herr Friedemann and the studies on hysteria written by Freud and Breuer in 1895 tell in a sense the same story for Manfred Dierks - that of repulsed sexuality and the threatening return of the repressed . Displaces the patient Miss Lucy her love for her employer, who then as a physical symptom returns, the misshapen suppressed Herr Friedemann his need for human love , as he withdraws into his art and book world until it in the form of lush wife Rinnlingen with deadly violence returns: he rejects his aesthetic existence and drowns himself in narcissistic aggression against himself.

Despite these parallels, a direct confrontation with Freud can only be proven more than ten years later: In connection with his novella Death in Venice , in 1911 he read Freud's texts that dealt with the problem of repression. According to Manfred Dierks, the reading helped him to clarify his own agonizing question and could even have led to a self-analysis .

In the context of the novel The Magic Mountain, he immersed himself again in Freud's work around 1919 and brought Hans Castorp closer to his forgotten childhood love Přibislav Hippe, a figure that goes back to Williram Timpe from Thomas Mann's school days, through the symbol of the borrowed pencil with psychoanalytic memory steps.

By 1926 at the latest, Freud's ideas were of central importance to him, as can be seen in his Joseph tetralogy, for example in the repressed urges of Potiphar's desperate wife .

Freud and the future

In his Miszelle My Relationship to Psychoanalysis , probably written in the early summer of 1925 , Thomas Mann pointed out the importance of psychoanalysis, the essence of which is "melancholy knowledge", and described it as a "strange growth of scientific and civilizing spirit". In 1929 the much more extensive essay Freud's position in modern intellectual history appeared as the introduction to the first issue of the journal Die Psychoanalytische Movement and was given as a lecture on May 16, 1929 at the invitation of the “Club of Democratic Students” in the Auditorium Maximum of the University of Munich .

In his celebratory speech Freud and the Future , he used parts of this essay, addressed Friedrich Nietzsche and worked out the importance of Arthur Schopenhauer's metaphysics for the development of drive theory . Freud's teaching entered his Joseph novels, with which he wanted to give a psychology of the God's covenant .

For Manfred Dierks Freud and the Future is one of the “most impressive lectures” of Thomas Mann, but he moves away from the enlightenment nature of psychoanalysis by leading it into the metaphysical realms of Schopenhauer. He also made the faux pas of trying CG Jung of all people to explain the supposedly mystical core of his own teaching to the father of psychoanalysis . This failure is all the more serious as Jung expressed anti-Semitic against “Jewish psychoanalysis ” in his essay on the current situation of psychotherapy , assumed a Jewish desire for validity and covetousness as well as the lack of individual cultural forms and distinguished an “ Aryan ” from a “Jewish unconscious” what Thomas Mann had known.

Although Freud had the power of it worked out, but this associated with the Enlightenment hope the unconscious to raise awareness ( Where It was, I should be ), not to leave them fatalistically to give people the darkness of his soul depth. Taking up this progressive thought, Thomas Mann was able to use psychoanalysis in dealing with National Socialism. His ambivalence was evident in his tendency towards Jung, who in the essay had settled with Jewish psychoanalysis and served the clichés propagated by the National Socialists with ratings such as “craving for validity”, “lack of culture” and “soulless rationalism”.

Representation of Jewish characters

Some descriptions that accompany certain Jewish figures almost as a leitmotif turn out to be problematic from today's perspective and after research approaches on literary anti-Semitism . The anti-Jewish stereotypes can be assigned to three categories: physical, mental and social.

In works like Buddenbrooks and Gladius Dei , Wälsungenblut and Tristan , Thomas Mann avoids explicitly designating certain characters as Jews; Her Judaism results here from the context of stereotypical drawing. For Yahya Elsaghe , this is to avoid and cover up the actual stigma . The text thus appeals to a specific readership and encourages them to bring the stigmatizing vocabulary into the text themselves.

The figures, already marked by their appearance as outsiders, have a special position for good and bad, which was partly forced externally, partly internalized , which applies to the stories as well as the essay writing. The Jews mark something that makes them “appear more alien” than their nose. It is the "love of the spirit" which has not "seldom made them leaders ... of humanity", "but which will always make them ... the artists, the poets and writers into debtors and strangers".

Especially in the early work there are numerous figures who are shaped by clichés of bourgeois anti-Semitism. While many of the young writer's non-Jewish figures often belong to the upper middle class, from which he himself came and which he knew from personal experience, Jewish circles were alien to him. This ignorance is seen as one reason why many of his Jewish characters tend towards stereotyped caricatures and caricatures of rich upstart, merchants and businessmen.

The appearance of the male characters, either inconspicuous or exotic-oriental, tending towards ugliness, is just as noticeable as the often unsightly, vulgarly diamond-adorned female figures. The sometimes repulsive attributes that can be recognized in the essays can be found in the will to happiness , the scandal- ridden Wälsungenblut and the short story Gladius Dei .

In addition to the wife of Baron von Steins, there are “negative” characters such as Leo Naphta from the Zauberberg and the Jewish National Socialist Chaim Breisacher or the music impresario Saul Fitelberg from Doctor Faustus , who pinches the girls on the cheek , who complete the cabinet of questionable Jewish figures.

On the other hand, Thomas Klugkist, for example, emphasizes that working with stereotypes was one of Thomas Mann's most important tools, not only for the “blond and blue-eyed” figures of his early years (e.g. Inge and Hans Hansen in Tonio Kröger ), but also for the symbolically and mythically exaggerated of the following works apply. In addition to the satirically alienated French, German and Russian characters, Jews who were obviously portrayed positively had a partisan effect and thus violated the dictates of poetic justice.

Wolfgang Schneider also points out in this context that Thomas Mann usually designed the secondary characters in his early works as caricatures and consciously chose stereotypical representations, regardless of whether they were job profiles, social classes or nationalities. The plasticity of the figures is due to this typification. Isolating the representation of Jewish characters and neglecting the narrative requirements of three-dimensional character drawing lead to distorted assessments. Other non-Jewish characters like Christian or Tony Buddenbrook would also be “discredited” in this sense. The opponent Detlev Spinell's Klöterjahn is a booming narrow-minded businessman who looks even more ridiculous than the Jewish writer.

Hermann Kurzke initially admits that Jewish characters appear in many of Mann's larger works and that they often have certain mental and physical characteristics, as if he wanted to use a cliché. The words of the Jewish doctor Dr. Collectively from the novel Royal Highness , the "award-winning" will do you good, "to see the essentials in the award and in any case to derive an extraordinary obligation from it" reflect Thomas Mann's own position, in his opinion, who especially feels connected to Judaism as an artist as he had put it in a comparable way in the essay. The artist in particular is “inclined ... to see his brothers in all of them, whom the people believe it is necessary to emphasize that they are 'ultimately - also' people. For the sake of this relationship he will love her ... "

Ultimately, the attempt to “accuse” Thomas Mann of subliminal anti-Semitism is based on a rather fragmentary selection of certain passages in his work, problematic diary notes and “misleading” phrases in his theoretical writings. This approach does not take into account his philosemitic remarks, nor his decision to marry into a Jewish family. The repugnance of questionable formulations (as in his essay) is due to a feeling for language that “only emerged after Auschwitz”. Today's reader associates with the title (not by Thomas Mann) “The solution of the Jewish question” with the “ final solution of the Jewish question ” and the Wannsee Conference , while these questions were discussed by many at the time. The three suggested responses, which went from “assimilation” to the establishment of an independent Jewish state in Palestine, were just as little anti-Semitic as Mann's answer to further Europeanization of Judaism.

According to Wolfgang Schneider, the problem disappears in Kurzke's presentation "into the philosophical". You can feel that he wants to describe Thomas Mann as a philosemite.

The will to happiness

In this early narrative, Thomas Mann picks up on some traditional set pieces, a popular material that he also used in other works of this time and shaped for literary purposes. The stereotypes are not aggressively spread for their own sake, but they are not called into question either. Physiognomically the figures are drawn similarly, as a rule small and unsightly, stocky and stocky, with black eyes, bulging lips and a prominent nose. When women are no longer young and of seductive beauty, they are often not only inconspicuous but ugly. The magnificence on display and the striking jewelry testify to the penchant for money, which is sometimes even mentioned without further ado.

Baron von Stein is a stock market speculator and arouses immediate suspicion as a parvenu. In the further course his nerdism is described as that of a baptized Jew who wants to cover up his origins because of the rise. His wife with her ears “sparkling big diamonds” is presented as “an ugly little Jewess in a tasteless gray dress”.

Gladius Dei

One example is the "nose lying flat on the upper lip" with which Mr. Blüthenzweig is described, who, business-oriented and without understanding for Hieronymus' torments of conscience, sniffs at buyers and rubs his hands. The depiction is reminiscent of the description of Franz Fehér, a classmate of Thomas Mann, whom he presents in the withdrawn essay On the Jewish Question as a “type, pronounced to the point of ugliness”, “with a flat nose and mustache shadow that darkens early”, whose “strangely dragging (r ) Dialect “seems more interesting to the author than the ordinary Waterkantic . Ephraim Carlebach is a quick, "if not very clean" " rabbi's son ", "whose big, clever, black eyes" would have pleased him. The name itself is filled with the "desert poetry of that hour from which its peculiarity was excluded [...] more distinctive and colorful [...] than Hans and Jürgen".

The painting dealer can be seen as a prime example of cliché-laden representation: his exaggerated politeness, his submissive ingratiation with rich customers and his posture by approaching the buyers with a stooped posture. In the face of the intrepid Christian Hieronymus with the Savonarola profile, his cowardice also comes to the fore, because at the end of the unsuccessful conversation he does not accompany him out himself, but has a clumsy employee put him outside the door.

Tristan

In this well-known novel, two characters appear who can be recognized as Jews: Doctor Leander and Detlev Spinell. Leander is the head of the sanatorium Einfried into which the decadent writer spinel has quartered "of style because of". Leander's physiognomy is characterized by a beard that is "hard and frizzy like the horsehair with which you stuff furniture". He wears glasses with "thick, sparkling glasses" and has "that aspect of a man whom science has chilled, hardened and imbued with a quiet, indulgent pessimism."

If the connection between the name and the doctorate and the gift of appropriating the “assets” of the sufferers entrusted to him do not make him recognizable as a Jew, then the external drawing. The description of the beard resembles that of the Jewish psychologist Doctor Krokowski from Zauberberg , in which Sigmund Freud can easily be recognized . For Elsaghe this attribute is not accidental, as Thomas Mann Edhin Krokowski believed in the project of the afflicted have bookmarked as a pseudonym for he despised authors Theodor Lessing, and Alfred Kerr.

The thick-cut glasses could be interpreted as a sign of degeneration for contemporary readers. After Max Nordau's work Entartung was reprinted in the year Tristan was published, it was understood as such a symbol. Elsaghe goes so far as to regard the phrase, “horsehair with which one stuffs the furniture”, as an “uncanny anticipation” of usability, to which the bodies were to be reduced in the course of the Holocaust .

Wälsung blood

Franz von Lenbach, portrait by Katia Pringsheim , 1892

In the novella Wälsungenblut , a rattling satire that caused quite a stir with its portrayal of decadent snobbery and incestuous intoxication, Thomas Mann, inspired by impressions he had received in the Pringsheim house , describes a nouveau riche Jewish bourgeoisie who mediated “a bold one and clever undertaking, great machinations ... directed a huge stream of gold into his coffers ”. His “little, ugly wife”, who wears a “chain of diamonds” “on her sunken breast”, was “withered as if under a strange, hot sun” and aged early.

The infamous story, with its stereotypical ideas stemming from the arsenal of anti-Semitism, is one of the writer's most controversial works. Thomas Mann was aware of its dubiousness and sometimes called it his "Jewish story". When he was confronted with allegations that he had written an anti-Semitic novella, he withdrew it before it was published in the Neue Rundschau . At the same time he decided that the last sentence would be changed in a future publication. Instead of: “We started him - the Goy ,” it should read: “He should be grateful to us. He will lead a less trivial existence from now on. ”His attitude towards the story changed fundamentally only in exile. In 1921, when it was published in a private limited edition, he was annoyed that he had not reinstated the original ending with the Yiddish expressions, an omission that he later made up for in a copy personally dedicated to Ernst Bertram . When he became aware of the effects of anti-Semitism, which he had long underestimated, in 1936, he emphasized that his novella was not an attack on Judaism.

In the opinion of Hermann Kurzke, the behavior and the drawing of the Jewish twins can "offer little resistance to an anti-Semitic interpretation." This is underlined by the authorial reference to external "marks of his kind", which during Siegmund's last words "very sharp on his face" emerged.

In the further course Kurzke sheds light on the background of the retreat, especially this story, and quotes a letter to his brother Heinrich, who wanted to keep the original phrase ("We started him - the goy"). The "Jewish expressions" would be stylistically out of the ordinary. In contrast to Heinrich's objection that it is kitsch to sacrifice the characteristic to the decency, one could argue that it is the art of being “extremely characteristic without hurting any stylistic sensitivity.” The word “Beganeft” breaks through the style that “Jewish tone” was only hinted at occasionally. For Kurzke this is an aesthetic and not an anti-Semitic argument, since Mann is concerned with stylistic considerations and characteristic details. He withdrew the story in order to avoid unnecessary debates, not because he himself considered it anti-Semitic.

Buddenbrooks

The first edition in two volumes

The Buddenbrooks is not only about the chronicle and the decline of the eponymous patrician family from Lübeck, but also the dialectical rise of the Hagenström company.

In the course of the novel, there were a number of often embarrassing encounters with the Buddenbrooks. The Hagenström family is described as a leitmotif in a way that gives them the character of something strange and disturbing.

Hinrich Hagenström, who has not lived in the city for long, is the head of the Strunck & Hagenström company and is considered “not particularly popular” because he “seems to have intended to oppose the members of the long-established families at every opportunity ". His young wife is a "lady with extremely thick black hair and the largest diamonds in town on her ears".

Similar to Sieglind Aarenhold in the Wälsungen blood , his daughter Julchen has “shiny, black eyes”. Her brother Hermann Hagenström, with his nose lying “flat on his upper lip”, only breathes through his mouth and therefore smacks his lips “constantly”. Tony Buddenbrook, pretty, with blonde hair, accompanies her on the way to school, despite her aversion, since she is her neighbor and they have to take the same route anyway. When Tony once defended himself against Hermann's intrusiveness and hit him in the face, Julchen drove out from behind a tree “like a black devil, threw himself at Tony, hissing with anger, tore her hat off her head and scratched her cheeks in the most pathetic way ... "

The economic decline of the trading house Buddenbrooks is contrasted with the rise of the Hagenström company, which displaces the long-established traditional company. In the end, the Hagenströms move into the family's patrician house on Mengstrasse.

If the Buddenbrook company embodies the traditional production method, the Hagenström company the new and progressive one. If the Buddenbrooks are representatives of tradition, the Hagenström stands for the modern economy. Rolf Thiede considers this contrast to be necessary in order to describe the development of decay and rise not only with random material.

For the economic decline of a part of the German entrepreneurship in the political culture of the empire, especially during the Great Depression , a scapegoat was required , for which Jews were usually considered. The success of anti-Semitic agitation during this time of crisis was mainly due to the fact that Jewish entrepreneurs were not shackled by traditional business management and thus could not prosper. Since the anti-Semitic movements identified Jews with the "modern economy", the Hagenström would take the position forced by the agitation.

Alberich and Hagen, A picture by Arthur Rackham

Thomas Mann had initially planned to name the family Cohn . Now the name Hagenström is particularly significant for the interpretation, as it is related to the figure Hagen and thus to the downfall motif of Götterdämmerung . The further the dragon slayer Siegfried , the simple German hero, became the archetype of the Germanic man, the darker the image of his murderer Hagen, the incarnation of evil and stranger, who takes on the role of the Jew in the dichotomy of the anti-Semite Richard Wagner .

His father Alberich, whom the beautiful Rhine daughters had rejected and ridiculed as a “black, calloused sulfur dwarf”, had stolen the gold. He renounced love and later cursed the ring that Wotan had stolen from him. Theodor W. Adorno interpreted this “gold-grabbing” figure in his attempt on Wagner - alongside the chatty mime or the mentally impotent Beckmesser - as a caricature of Jews .

Wolfgang Schneider also speaks of racist undertones when, for example, Tony expresses her hatred of the “junk”, but objects that she does not represent the author's opinion, especially since every reader knows that the judgment and comprehension of the naive being is not very be reliable. The anti-Semitic motifs of the novel are thus provided with signs of comedy and irony. Rolf Thiede and Elsaghe (in his evaluation of Tristan ) would point to overlooked historical contexts, but those of the novels and stories themselves more often lose sight of them. It was not Jewish competition but their own refinement and decadence that was responsible for the downfall of the Buddenbrooks .

Doctor Faustus

First edition in Europe in 1947

In this important novel, Thomas Mann has the humanist Serenus Zeitblom tell the story of his friend, the tragically ingenious “German composer” Adrian Leverkühn. On a second level, Zeitblom refers to his present and the dramatically worsening situation in Germany during the Second World War , repeatedly mentioning how tired the circumstances are and how they keep him from actually portraying it. There are numerous historical references, such as the murder of the Scholl siblings , the euthanasia policy , the activities of the Gestapo and - after the defeat - the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp . As Ruprecht Wimmer notes, the National Socialist persecution of the Jews is not presented, which he regards as a “deficiency that is no longer understandable”. The suspicion arises that the Jewish theme presented in the biography part of the late novel would prove the author's ambiguous attitude to Judaism, which is also found in his early work.

The first-person narrator, who by his characteristic name Serenus Zeitblom - Flower of Time - embodies the German educated bourgeoisie, may be able to appreciate clever Jews, but also expresses certain antipathies that he does not reflect further. Rüdiger Schildknapp's anti-Semitic tirades, which he explains socio-psychologically as an expression of inferiority complexes, only a little upset him. On the other hand, he condemns National Socialist anti-Semitism, emphasizes his positive attitude towards Judaism, distances himself from the regime and is ready to bear a kind of collective guilt in the end . His humanism is not combative, but rather resembles internal emigration .

Despite the cautious presentation, the narrator hints at the horror at the end by describing how an American general had the population of Weimar " filmed past the crematoria of the concentration camp there" and declared them complicit in the "atrocities exposed". "May you watch - I watch with you, I let myself be pushed ..."

In addition to the questionable figure of Chaim Braisacher - a caricature by Oskar Goldberg - the descriptions of the impresario Saul Fitelberg, who wants to market Adrian Leverkühn in vain, and the rabbi Dr. Carlebach, who frequented the Zeitbloms' house as well as a Catholic clergyman, the Council Zwilling . This is outwardly more attractive, while in Zeitblom's impression the "small and long-bearded Talmudist" surpasses the pastor in "erudition and religious acumen".

According to Ruprecht Wimmer , two stereotypes can already be found in the essays: "The superiority of the Jewish intellect with inconspicuous, if not ugly looks, and the flair for artistic achievement". The intellectual sharpness can also be found in the Jewish fascist, the private scholar Braisacher, who with his features and theses (also according to Theodor W. Adornos and Gershom Scholem ) is a portrait of Oskar Goldberg who wanted to reactivate Hebrew mythology . The "decline of Judaism" was itself to blame, since the Jewish people did not opt ​​for metaphysics but for technology.

Thomas Klugkist, on the other hand, says that Breisacher and the other Jewish characters in the novel are certainly not popular, but defends the author from accusations of anti-Semitic drawings. Thomas Mann has literally made Germany a character who acts alongside other peoples on the world historical stage. Since he identified himself with Germany, parallels between German and Jewish culture emerged that were “tough”. In this constructed sense, both peoples would have been excluded from the others in mythical prehistoric times in order to emigrate abroad, henceforth to lead a religiously determined life in the desert and to hope for a return to society. In these realms, the resentment of the "seriousness against the salon of the world" and thus a national arrogance of choice would have developed. In this way the moral exile of the Germans was negligently placed on the same level as the inclusion of the Jews in the ghetto. This finding becomes even more fatal for Klugkist when one recognizes the cynic Breisacher as the clever spokesman for the reaction.

Despite Thomas Mann's identification with Judaism and his statements against “concentration camp anti-Semitism”, certain clichés are unmistakable. With his clown-like appearance in front of Adrian and the staid writer Zeitblom, his purely receptive talent and rhetorical skill, Fitelberg conveyed the notion of “business ability that degrades everything to a commodity”, as Egon Schwarz put it in an essay on Jewish characters in the novel . Schwarz also recognized that the author was clinging to the picturesque features of traditional images and pointed out the not harmless downside of philosemitism. In Mann's case, this is limited to a few close artists or scientists, while in the German world of Doctor Faustus the Jews did not resemble Einstein or Freud, Bruno Walter or Arthur Schnitzler, about whom Thomas Mann had repeatedly praised, but rather as " charlatan-like music impresario and… rabulistic pioneers of fascism ”would appear.

Martin Buber

Klugkist points to the parallels Mann mentions between Jewish and German “original peculiarities”, which would have developed through the mythical exclusion from the others and which would lead back to an identity, a peculiarity whose psychological basis is found in the early essay The Solution of the Jewish Question find and be explained in great detail by Fitelberg, the fluently babbling impresario: "Should we Jews, who are a priestly people, even if we minaud in Parisian salons, do not feel drawn to Germanness [...] We are international, - but we are pro-German, like no one else in the world, if only because we cannot help but perceive the relationship between the role of Germanness and Judaism on earth […] Equally […] hated, despised, feared, envied, alike alienate them and are alienated [...] In reality there are only two nationalisms, the German and the Jewish, and that of everyone else ren is child's play on the other hand [...] the pure sophistication [...] compared to German loneliness - and the Jewish arrogance of choice. "

Later Thomas Mann himself recognized the danger of an anti-Semitic interpretation of the two Jewish figures of Doctor Faustus and wrote that he was aware that he had “in no way done justice to Jewish humanity and its so high and serious spirituality”. He failed to “ counterbalance Fitelberg and Breisacher with a Jewish figure of dignity (I am thinking of the prophetic Buber type ). The risk of anti-Semitic effects “is not insignificant, in any case for simple readers.

literature

• Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, ISBN 3-484-65140-7 .
• Manfred Dierks, Ruprecht Wimmer (ed.): Thomas Mann and Judaism. The lectures of the Berlin Colloquium of the German Thomas Mann Society. Series: Thomas Mann Studies, 30. Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, ISBN 3-465-03302-7 .
• Heinrich Detering : “Jews, women and literati.” On a figure of thought in the young Thomas Mann. Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-10-014203-9 .
• Yahya Elsaghe: The imaginary nation. Thomas Mann and the "German". Wilhelm Fink, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-7705-3455-7 .
• Otto Geudtner: "... my best friends and my worst enemies ..." Thomas Mann and the Jews, in Thursday books , 3rd Old Synagogue (Essen) , 2000 ISBN 3-924384-34-7 , pp. 2–23.
• Christian Hülshörster: Thomas Mann and Oskar Goldberg's “Reality of the Hebrews”. Vittorio Klostermann , Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-465-02792-2
• Thomas Klugkist: Cosmogony of Longing. Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus in the vicinity of his Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner reception. Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-8260-1639-4 , pp. 263-264.
• Hermann Kurzke : Jews , in: Thomas Mann. Life as a work of art. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-55166-1 , pp. 206-233.
• Franka Marquardt: Telling Jews. Studies on Thomas Mann's "Joseph and His Brothers" and Robert Musil's "Man without Qualities". (= Literature - Culture - Media. Vol. 4). Lit, Münster u. a. 2003, ISBN 3-8258-6805-2 (Also: University of Cologne , Diss. Phil. 2003)
• Guy Stern : Thomas Mann and the Jewish World. In: Helmut Koopmann (Ed.): Thomas Mann Handbook. (= Fischer TB 16610). Unabridged edition of the 3rd, updated edition. Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-596-16610-1 , pp. 54-67.
• Rolf Thiede: Operative anti-Semitism. The Early Essays in Society and in the "Twentieth Century". In: Stereotypes of Jews. The early writings of Heinrich and Thomas Mann. On the anti-Semitic discourse of modernity and the attempt to overcome it. Center for Research on Antisemitism . Series of Documents, Texts, Materials, 23. Metropol, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-926893-35-4 , pp. 55–80.

Web links

• Thomas Mann: On the Jewish question. Analysis of work and life. A reflection of the German Jewish problem. By Kurt Löwenstein

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Guy Stern in: Thomas Mann and the Jewish World. Thomas Mann Handbook. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 63.
2. ↑ Based on the foreword by Manfred Dierks and Ruprecht Wimmer, from: Thomas Mann and Judentum. (Thomas Mann Studies). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 7 f.
3. ↑ Manfred Dierks, Ruprecht Wimmer: Thomas Mann and Judaism. (Thomas Mann Studies). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 8.
4. ↑ Manfred Dierks, Ruprecht Wimmer: Thomas Mann and Judaism. (Thomas Mann Studies). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 12.
5. ↑ Heinrich Detering : Jews, women and literates . A figure of thought in the young Thomas Mann. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 66.
6. ^ Heinrich Detering: Artist Jew . In: Jews, women and literates. A figure of thought in the young Thomas Mann. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, pp. 67-68.
7. ^ Hermann Kurzke : Jews , in: Thomas Mann. Life as a work of art. Beck, Munich 2006, p. 211
8. ^ Rolf Thiede: Operative anti-Semitism . In: Stereotypes of Jews, The early writings of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, On the anti-Semitic discourse of modernity and the attempt to overcome it. Metropol Verlag, Berlin 1998, p. 74.
9. ↑ Stefan Breuer: “The Twentieth Century” and the Mann brothers. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism. (Thomas Mann Studies). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 92.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Stefan Breuer: The "Twentieth Century" and the Mann Brothers. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism. (Thomas Mann Studies). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 93.
11. ↑ Stefan Breuer: “The Twentieth Century” and the Mann brothers. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism. (Thomas Mann Studies). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 94.
12. ↑ Guy Stern in: Thomas Mann and the Jewish World. Thomas Mann Handbook, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 62.
13. ↑ Thomas Mann: The Doctor Lessing. Collected works in thirteen volumes, Volume 11, Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, pp. 719–721.
14. ^ Heinrich Detering: Jews, women, writers. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism. (Thomas Mann Studies, 30). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, p. 26.
15. ↑ Thomas Mann: Diaries 1933-1934. Edited by Peter de Mendelssohn. Fischer, Frankfurt 1977, p. 165.
16. ↑ Thomas Mann: On the problem of anti-Semitism . In: Thomas Mann: Collected works in thirteen volumes. Volume 13: Supplements. Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 479.
17. ↑ Thomas Mann: On the problem of anti-Semitism . In: Thomas Mann: Collected Works. Volume 13: Supplements. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1974, pp. 480-481.
18. ↑ Thomas Mann: A persistent people . In: Thomas Mann: Collected works in thirteen volumes. Volume 13: Supplements. Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 512.
19. ↑ Thomas Mann: A persistent people . In: Thomas Mann: Collected works in thirteen volumes. Volume 13: Supplements. Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 510.
20. ↑ Thomas-Mann-Handbuch, Theo Stammen: Politische Welt. Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, pp. 36/37
21. ^ Thomas Mann Handbook, Herman Kurzke: Political Essayistik. Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, p. 703.
22. ↑ Thomas Mann Handbook, Theo Stammen: Politische Welt , Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, p. 40.
23. ↑ Thomas Mann: Freud and the future. In: Thomas Mann, Collected Works. Volume 9, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1974, p. 493.
24. ↑ So: Hans Horst Henschen, in: Joseph and his brothers, Kindlers Neues Literatur-Lexikon, Thomas Mann, Joseph und seine Brüder, Kindler, Munich 1990, p. 77.
25. ^ Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 178.
26. ^ Thomas Mann, Sixteen Years, On the American Edition of Joseph and His Brothers in One Volume. In: Thomas Mann, Collected Works. Volume 11, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1974, p. 670.
27. ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Poetry and Truth. First part, 4th book, In: Goethe's works. Volume 9, Hamburg edition, Beck, Munich 1998, p. 141.
28. ^ Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 178.
29. ↑ Hans Horst Henschen, in: Joseph und seine Brüder, Kindlers Neues Literatur-Lexikon, Thomas Mann, Joseph und seine Brüder, Kindler, Munich 1990, p. 78.
30. ↑ Guy Stern: Thomas Mann and the Jewish World. Thomas Mann Handbook. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, pp. 54–55.
31. ↑ Guy Stern: Thomas Mann and the Jewish World. Thomas Mann Handbook. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 55.
32. ↑ Guy Stern: Thomas Mann and the Jewish World. Thomas Mann Handbook. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 57.
33. ↑ Thomas Mann: Sixteen Years, On the American Edition of Joseph and His Brothers in One Volume. In: Thomas Mann, Collected Works. Volume 11: Supplements. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1974, p. 671.
34. ^ Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 179.
35. ↑ Quoted from: Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Deutschland und die Juden. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 179.
36. ^ Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 181.
37. ↑ Christian Hülshörster: Thomas Mann and Oskar Goldberg's "reality of the Hebrews" . Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1999, pp. 10, 11
38. ↑ Thomas Mann, Joseph and his brothers, Joseph, the breadwinner, Thomas Mann, Gesammelte Werke, Volume 5, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1974, p. 1282.
39. ^ Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 186.
40. ^ Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 187.
41. ^ Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 189.
42. ↑ Thomas Mann, Joseph and his brothers, Joseph, the breadwinner, Thomas Mann, Gesammelte Werke, Volume 5, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1974, p. 1290.
43. ↑ Christian Hülshörster: Thomas Mann and Oskar Goldberg's "reality of the Hebrews." Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 45.
44. ↑ Quoted from: Christian Hülshörster: Thomas Mann and Oskar Goldberg's “Reality of the Hebrews” . Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 46
45. ↑ Christian Hülshörster: Thomas Mann and Oskar Goldberg's "reality of the Hebrews" . Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 132
46. ↑ Quoted from: Christian Hülshörster: Thomas Mann and Oskar Goldberg's “Reality of the Hebrews” . Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 120
47. ↑ So Christian Hülshörster: Thomas Mann and Oskar Goldberg's "reality of the Hebrews" . Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 123.
48. ↑ Christian Hülshörster: Thomas Mann and Oskar Goldberg's "reality of the Hebrews" . Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 126
49. ↑ Quoted from: Christian Hülshörster: Thomas Mann and Oskar Goldberg's "Reality of the Hebrews" . Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 127
50. ↑ Quoted from: Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Deutschland und die Juden. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 190.
51. ^ Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 193.
52. ↑ Quoted from: Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Deutschland und die Juden. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 195.
53. ^ Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 207.
54. ↑ Quoted from: Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Deutschland und die Juden. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 209.
55. ↑ Thomas Klugkist: 49 questions and answers on Thomas Mann , Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2003, p. 193
56. ↑ Manfred Dierks: Thomas Mann and the "Jewish" Psychoanalysis , In: Thomas Mann and Judentum. (Thomas Mann Studies, 30). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, pp. 97–126
57. ↑ So Manfred Dierks: Thomas Mann and the "Jewish" psychoanalysis. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism (= Thomas Mann Studies . Volume 30). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, p. 98
58. ↑ Quoted from: Manfred Dierks: Thomas Mann and the "Jewish" Psychoanalysis. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism (= Thomas Mann Studies . Volume 30). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, p. 99
59. ↑ So Manfred Dierks: Thomas Mann and the "Jewish" Psychoanalysis , In: Thomas Mann and Judentum. (Thomas Mann Studies, 30). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, p. 97
60. ↑ Manfred Dierks: Thomas Mann and the depth psychology . In: Thomas Mann Handbook, Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, p. 284
61. ↑ Manfred Dierks: Thomas Mann and the "Jewish" Psychoanalysis , In: Thomas Mann and Judentum. (Thomas Mann Studies, 30). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, p. 98
62. ↑ Thomas Mann: My relationship to psychoanalysis In: Thomas Mann - Essays: For the new Germany Volume 2, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1993, p. 283.
63. ↑ So Manfred Dierks: Thomas Mann and the "Jewish" psychoanalysis. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism (= Thomas Mann Studies . Volume 30). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, p. 110.
64. ↑ Manfred Dierks: Thomas Mann and the "Jewish" psychoanalysis. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism (= Thomas Mann Studies . Volume 30). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, p. 114.
65. ↑ So Manfred Dierks: Thomas Mann and the "Jewish" psychoanalysis. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism (= Thomas Mann Studies . Volume 30). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, p. 110.
66. ↑ Guy Stern in: Thomas Mann and the Jewish World. Thomas Mann Handbook. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 61.
67. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget : “Of hopelessly different kind.” Thomas Mann's Wälsungenblut in the light of our experience. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism . Thomas Mann Studies. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 38.
68. ^ Yahya Elsaghe: Judaism and Scripture with Thomas Mann. Thomas Mann Studies. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 66.
69. ↑ Thomas Mann: On the Jewish question. In: Thomas Mann: Collected works in thirteen volumes. Volume 13: Supplements. Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 475.
70. ↑ ^{a b c} Jacques Darmaun: Judengestalten. In: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 26.
71. ^ Ruprecht Wimmer: Doctor Faustus and the Jews. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism. (Thomas Mann Studies, 30). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, p. 152.
72. ↑ Thomas Klugkist: Thomas Mann and Judaism. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism . Thomas Mann Studies. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 163.
73. ↑ Wolfgang Schneider: You can feel nothing but culture, blossoms and co .: The Jews in Thomas Mann's work - an inventory before the Thomas Mann Society conference . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. August 27, 2002.
74. ↑ Hermann Kurzke: Jews. In: Thomas Mann. Life as a work of art. Beck, Munich 2006, p. 209.
75. ↑ Thomas Mann: The solution to the Jewish question. In: Thomas Mann: Collected works in thirteen volumes. Volume 13, supplements, Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 460.
76. ↑ Hermann Kurzke, Jews , in: Thomas Mann. Life as a work of art. Beck, Munich 2006, p. 210.
77. ↑ Wolfgang Schneider: You can feel nothing but culture, blossoms and co .: The Jews in Thomas Mann's work - an inventory before the Thomas Mann Society conference. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. August 27, 2002.
78. ↑ Thomas Mann: Gladius Dei . In: Thomas Mann, Collected Works in Thirteen Volumes. Volume 8, Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, pp. 206-207.
79. ↑ Thomas Mann: On the Jewish question. In: Thomas Mann: Collected works in thirteen volumes. Volume 13: Supplements. Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 466.
80. ↑ Jacques Darmaun: Judengestalten. In: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 27.
81. ↑ Thomas Mann: Tristan. In: Thomas Mann, Collected Works in Thirteen Volumes. Volume 8, Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 216.
82. ↑ Yahya Elsaghe: The imaginary nation, Thomas Mann and the "German". Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 2000, p. 91.
83. ↑ ^{a b c} Yahya Elsaghe: The imaginary nation, Thomas Mann and the "German". Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 2000, p. 92.
84. ↑ Thomas Mann: Wälsungenblut. In: Thomas Mann, Collected Works in Thirteen Volumes. Volume 8, Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 385.
85. ↑ Thomas Mann: Wälsungenblut. In: Thomas Mann, Collected Works in Thirteen Volumes. Volume 8, Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 380.
86. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: "Of hopelessly different kind", Thomas Manns Wälsungenblut in the light of our experience. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism. (Thomas Mann Studies). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 38.
87. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: “Of hopelessly different kind.” Thomas Mann's Wälsungenblut in the light of our experience. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism . Thomas Mann Studies. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 36.
88. ↑ Hermann Kurzke, Jews , in: Thomas Mann. Life as a work of art. Beck, Munich 2006, p. 206.
89. ↑ Thomas Mann: Wälsungenblut In: Thomas Mann: Collected works in thirteen volumes. Volume 8, Erzählungen, Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 410.
90. ↑ Hermann Kurzke: Jews. In: Thomas Mann. Life as a work of art. Beck, Munich 2006, p. 207.
91. ↑ Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks. In: Collected works in thirteen volumes. Volume 1, Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 63.
92. ↑ Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks. In: Collected works in thirteen volumes. Volume 1, Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 65.
93. ↑ ^{a b} Rolf Thiede: The representation of the "Jewish question" in the "higher narrative art", Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks". In: Stereotypes of Jews, The early writings of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, On the anti-Semitic discourse of modernity and the attempt to overcome it. Metropol Verlag, Berlin 1998, p. 81.
94. ^ Theodor W. Adorno: Collected writings. Volume 13, experiment on Wagner, social structure, p. 19.
95. ↑ Wolfgang Schneider: You can feel nothing but culture, blossoms and co .: The Jews in Thomas Mann's work - an inventory before the Thomas Mann Society conference. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. August 27, 2002.
96. ^ Ruprecht Wimmer: Doctor Faustus and the Jews. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism. (Thomas Mann Studies, 30) Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, p. 151.
97. ^ Jacques Darmaun: Thomas Mann, Germany and the Jews. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003, p. 228f.
98. ↑ Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus. In: Thomas Mann, Collected Works in Thirteen Volumes. Volume 6, Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 637.
99. ^ Ruprecht Wimmer: Doctor Faustus and the Jews. In: Thomas Mann and Judaism. (Thomas Mann Studies, 30). Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt 2004, p. 156.
100. ↑ Thomas Klugkist: 49 questions and answers about Thomas Mann. Was Thomas Mann anti-Semite? Fischer, Frankfurt 2003, p. 201.
101. ↑ Quoted from: Thomas Klugkist: Sehnsuchtskosmogonie, Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus in the vicinity of his Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner reception, In the shadow of an idea. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2000, p. 264.
102. ↑ Thomas Klugkist, Sehnsuchtskosmogonie, Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus in the vicinity of his Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner reception, In the shadow of an idea, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2000, pp. 263–264.
103. ↑ Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus. In: Thomas Mann, Collected Works in Thirteen Volumes. Volume 6, Fischer, Frankfurt 1974, p. 541.
104. ↑ Quoted from: Guy Stern: Thomas Mann and the Jewish World. Thomas Mann Handbook. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 61.
105. ↑ From the estate, only online in various file formats, Mkr. 346 pages