Thomas Mann’s Dilemma

'The great novelist’s defense of the nonpolitical continues to resonate.'

Adam Kirsch on Thomas Mann's Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man, at City Journal.

"Reflections turned out to be a dead end for Mann—better, a cathartic discharge. Four years after the war ended, he delivered a public address titled 'On the German Republic,' in which he renounced the nationalistic and antidemocratic sentiments of Reflections. To the dismay of the book’s right-wing admirers, he now pledged support for the embattled Weimar Republic: 'Let me say it openly: to the extent it’s needed, my aim is to win you over to the side of the republic, of what is termed democracy,' he declared."

See Mann, Death in Venice, in Great Books of the Western World (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 59.