Thomas Mann: Enlightenment and Social Democracy
@article{Vaget2017ThomasME, title={Thomas Mann: Enlightenment and Social Democracy}, author={H. R. Vaget}, journal={Publications of the English Goethe Society}, year={2017}, volume={86}, pages={193 - 204} }
Abstract Taking a cue from T. J. Reed’s characterization of Thomas Mann as ‘a late adoptive child of the Enlightenment’, this essay examines an under-appreciated continuum in German history as it is manifested in the political affinities between Mann and Willy Brandt. These may be traced back to the self-correction in Mann’s political outlook as he shifted his intellectual allegiance from Romanticism to the Enlightenment. This led to an increasingly desperate defense of the Weimar Republic and… CONTINUE READING