Thomas Mann

“ And now I wish to think not only of us out here in exile, I finally wish to remember also those people who are still there, the German masses, and to think of the cruel compulsion which destiny has forced upon the German spirit. Believe me, for many there the fatherland has become as strange as it has for us; an "inner emigration" of millions is there awaiting the end just as we. They await the end, that is the end of the war, and there can be only one end. ”

“ I mean those moments and those historical conditions in which Freedom itself, by which the freedom of the artist also exists, is endangered. It is reactionary, unscrupulous, and suicidal, and the intellectual undermines his own existence, if through his need for freedom, he plays into the hands of the enemies and assassins of freedom. These enemies are only too happy if mind considers nothing but the ironical attitude worthy of itself, if it despises the distinction between good and evil, and considers the preoccupation with ideas such as freedom, truth, justice as "bourgeois." ”

“ In this sense, communism is older than Marx and the nineteenth century. But it belongs to the future in as much as the world that will be when we are gone, whose outlines are beginning to emerge and in which our children and grandchildren will live, can scarcely be imagined without certain communistic traits—that means, without the fundamental idea of common rights of ownership and enjoyment of earthly good, without a progressive equalization of class differences, without the right to work and the duty to work for all. ”

“ That is democracy in its highest form, far removed from demagogy and a flattering wooing of the masses. I have always subscribed to this kind of democracy; but that is exactly the reason why I feel deeply that there is nothing more abominable than deception of the masses and betrayal of the people. My unhappiest years were those, when in the name of a false peace, of appeasement, the people were sold out to fascism. ”

“ It cannot be otherwise; common morality or, if you wish, divine justice demands it. But we out here, who saw disaster coming, we who ahead of our compatriots intoxicated by a fraudulent revolution, ahead of all the rest of the world, were convinced that the Nazi rule could never bring anything except war, destruction, and catastrophe, we see no great difference between that which these scoundrels have done to us and what they have done to our people at home. We hate the corrupters and we long for the day which rids the world of them. ”

“ At a certain period when fascism took over politically in Germany and Italy, when nationalism became the focus and universal expression of all these tendencies, I was convinced that nothing but war and general destruction could be the final outcome of the irrationalistic orgy, and that in short order. What seemed necessary was the memory of other values, of the idea of democracy, of humanity, of peace, and of human freedom and dignity. It was this side of human nature that needed our help. ”

“ Freedom and justice have long ceased to be banal; they arc vital; and to think of them as boring, simply means an acceptance of the fascistic pseudo-revolutionary fraud that violence and mass-deception are the last word and most up-to-date. The better mind knows that the really new thing in the world which the living spirit is called upon to serve is something totally different, namely, a social democracy and a humanism which, instead of being caught in a cowardly relativism, have the courage once more to distinguish between good and evil. ”

“ In the eyes of Western, conservative capitalism, fascism was frankly a bulwark against Bolshevism and against everything that they wished to assail under this name, especially since the German purges of June 1934, in which everything that was socialistic in national socialism was destroyed and the old power combination of Junkers, army and industry was saved. This bloody act was cleverly aimed to gain international support of the Nazi regime. For it demonstrated to the West that a change of power had taken place in Germany but not a revolution that threatened the existing economic system. ”

“ It will be aware of the tragedy of all human life without letting that awareness destroy its courage and will. It will not disavow its religious traits, for in the idea of human dignity, of the value of the individual soul, humanism transcends into the religious. Concepts like freedom, truth, justice, belong to a trans-biological sphere, the sphere of the Absolute, to the religious sphere. Optimism and pessimism are empty words to this humanism. They cancel each other in the determination to preserve the honor of man, in the paths of sympathy and duty. ”

“ On the contrary, the resistance has only grown stronger and the most outrageous of all the Nazi lies is that of a united Europe defending its holiest possessions against the invasion of foreigners; the foreigners against whom these holiest possessions must be defended are they, the Nazis, and no one else. Only a corrupt upper-crust, a treasonous gang for whom nothing is holy but money and advantage, is collaborating with them. The people have refused collaboration and, as the victory of the Allies is more clearly outlined, the more confident does the opposition to oppression become. ”

“ But although I know that fascism has its ideological side and must be understood as a fatal, calamitous reaction against the rationalistic humanism of the nineteenth century, I must admit that I also visualize it as a political-economic movement, a counter-revolution pur sang. ”

“ Imagine that you were forced, with all your wishes and hopes to oppose an American victory as a great misfortune for the entire world; if you can imagine that, you can place yourself in the position of these people. This attitude has become the destiny of uncounted Germans and I can't help feeling that this destiny is of a particular and uncommonly tragic nature. ”

“ I believe, Ladies and Gentlemen, that out of the suffering and struggle of our difficult period of transition, a wholly new and more emotional interest in humanity and its fate, in its exceptional position between the realms of nature and mind, in its mystery and its destiny will emerge, a humanistic impulse which even now is alive and active in the best hearts and minds. This new humanism will have a different character, a different color and tone than the earlier related movements. ”

“ Today it is scarcely believable that Mozart at first seemed turgid, and harmonically extravagant, that Verdi in comparison with Donizetti was terribly difficult, Beethoven unendurably bizarre, Wagner crazily futuristic, Mahler an incomprehensible noise. In every instance, the human ear caught up slowly, for people need music, and they learn to feel as music whatever the musician produces, not deliberately, not recklessly but because he must, because the Zeitgeist and historical development prescribe it. ”

“ Seven million people have been deported to enforced labor; almost a million have been executed and murdered; ten thousand more are imprisoned in the hell of the concentration camp. Notwithstanding, the uneven, the heroic battle continues. I say: all honor to the peoples of Europe. They are fighting our battle. They are our allies and they deserve to be treated as our allies. Slowly, very slowly, freedom is drawing near, yet their tenacity is indomitable. They deserve our confidence ”

“ The common possession of opportunities for enjoyment and education are largely achieved. The whole world smokes the same cigarettes, eats the same ice cream, sees the same movies, hears the same music on the radio; even the difference in clothing is disappearing more and more, and the college student who earns his way through college, which would have been very much beneath his class dignity in Europe, is here a commonplace.
Why do I mention this? Because I am persuaded we must not be afraid, we must not fear word spooks like "communism." For our fear is the source of courage to our enemies. ”

“ We would rather look at the ground or at the sky, for the sight of the symbol under which our people are fighting for their existence, or rather delude themselves that they are fighting for that existence, makes us physically sick. You do not know how horribly strange, how detestable, how shocking it is for us to see the swastika-ornamented entrance to a German consulate or embassy. ”

“ Power politics corrupted this universalism and turned it into evil, for whenever universalism becomes power politics then humanity must arise and defend its liberty. Let us trust that German universalism will again find the way to its old place of honor, that it will forever renounce the wanton ambition of world conquest and that it will again prove itself as world sympathy, world understanding, open-mindedness, and spiritual enrichment of the world. ”

“ The only suitable themes for art are the mythical and purely human ones, the unhistorical, timeless Ur-poetry of nature and of the heart; and out of these depths the German spirit creates perhaps the greatest and most beautiful thing that the century has to offer. The non-social Ur-poetry is in fact Germany's own special myth, its typical and fundamental national nature, which differentiates it from the other European national minds and types. Between Zola and Wagner, between the symbolic naturalism of the Rougon-Maquarts novels and Wagner's art, there are many similarities. ”

“ This warning, which at that time, was meant for the citizens of the German republic, could today be directed toward the citizens of the entire Occidental world. If democracy has not the courage in this world and afterward to rely upon the popular forces, to see in it a real war of the people and strive toward a new, a freer, and a juster world, the world of social democracy; if, on the other hand, unmindful of its own revolutionary traditions, it allies itself with the powers of the old order, a has-been order, to avoid at any price what it calls anarchy, to subdue every revolutionary tendency ”

“ The German, when he wants to be political, thinks that all morality and humanity must be thrown overboard. A Frenchman said: "When a German wishes to be graceful, he jumps out of the window." He does the same thing when he wants to be political. He thinks that for this purpose he must de-humanize himself. We do well to see in national socialism an example of this jumping out of the window, an exaggerated over-compensation of the German lack of political talent. ”

“ But a war for freedom and justice can only be waged with the people and for the people, and we sincerely hope that the same thing will not happen that happened after the wars with Napoleon. Those wars were called "wars of freedom" as long as they lasted, and the people, with their desire for freedom, were needed to do the fighting; but afterwards they were interpreted as "wars of liberation only from foreign oppression" so that the people might be robbed of the internal revolutionary fruits of victory. ”

“ It is often said that German youth has been hopelessly corrupted by national socialism, but events that took place in the University of Munich, which created such a stir in America, prove that now, at last, after the experiences of years, German youth is ready to put its head on the executioner's block out of conviction that national socialism is a shameful aberration and that Hitler is the corrupter of Germany and of Europe. ”

“ Never is the artist only the protagonist and prophet of the new but also the heir and repository of the old. Always he brings forth the new out of tradition. Just as I am far from denying the values of the bourgeois epoch to which the largest part of my personal life belongs, just so am I aware that the demands of the times and the problems of the coming peace are not merely of a revolutionary but also of a constructive, yes, of a restorative nature. ”

“ For the artist, the poet, is one who absorbs all the movements and intellectual tendencies, all the currents and spiritual contents of the times and allows them to act upon him; he is affected by all of them, digests them all mentally, gives them form and in this way makes visual the total cultural picture of his times for his contemporary world and for posterity. He does not preach nor propagandize; he gives things a plastic reality, indifferent to nothing; but committed to no cause except that of freedom, of ironical objectivity. He does not speak himself ”

“ The ever present propaganda has deeply impressed upon their consciousness the pretended permanently destructive results of a German defeat, so that in one part of their being they cannot avoid fearing that defeat more than anything else in the world. And yet there is one thing which many of them fear more than a German defeat, that is a German victory ”

“ They have no intention of destroying fascism. Secretly, they wish to preserve it. They are fighting half-heartedly with indistinct aims, the indecision of their wills is our protection. To be sure, they are slowly getting the upper hand on the battlefield but, if only we continue the war as long as possible, the inner differences between the Allies will come to an open break and we shall profit by it. We shall play the East against the West and avoid an unconditional surrender. ”

“ This is not to be understood merely negatively but we can actually speak of a vacuum, of a lack, of a deficiency, and it is probably true that in times when the social problem is dominant, when the idea of social and economic equality, of a juster economic order is felt by every alert consciousness as the most vital and urgent problem—that tinder such circumstances, this deficiency which is often so fruitful, does not make the happiest impression and leads to disharmony with the general will of the world. ”