I think Germany has a special relationship with “whiteness” that makes it especially vulnerable to fascism, especially in how Germany is perceived and treated by other groups of white people.
Also though, Germany is a culture bursting with contradictions, within a year of Mein Kempf being published another novel was published The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann by an originally German author who moved to the US.
The Magic Mountain is firmly cemented in German culture… and is indisputably one of the best novels ever written in German or English and is certainly one of the most humanist and openly accepting of humanity in all its “failures” of any great novel of the 20th century. The Magic Mountain is the most supremely antifascist novel imaginable and it is equally allergic to racism and discrimination.
With the start of the Cold War, he was increasingly frustrated by rising McCarthyism. As a “suspected communist”, he was required to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he was termed “one of the world’s foremost apologists for Stalin and company”.[19] He was listed by HUAC as being “affiliated with various peace organizations or Communist fronts”.
Being in his own words a non-communist, rather than an anti-communist, Mann openly opposed the allegations: “As an American citizen of German birth, I finally testify that I am painfully familiar with certain political trends. Spiritual intolerance, political inquisitions, and declining legal security, and all this in the name of an alleged ‘state of emergency’. … That is how it started in Germany.”
As Mann joined protests against the jailing of the Hollywood Ten and the firing of schoolteachers suspected of being Communists, he found “the media had been closed to him”.[20] Finally, he was forced to quit his position as Consultant in Germanic Literature at the Library of Congress,[21] and in 1952, he returned to Europe, to live in Kilchberg, near Zürich, Switzerland. Here he initially lived in a rented house and bought his last house there in 1954 (which later his widow and then their son Golo lived in until their deaths).
He never again lived in Germany, though he regularly traveled there. His most important German visit was in 1949, at the 200th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, attending celebrations in Frankfurt am Main (then West Germany) and Weimar (then East Germany), as a statement that German culture extended beyond the new political borders.[22] He also visited Lübeck, where he saw his parents’ house, which was partially destroyed by the bombing of Lübeck in World War II (and only later rebuilt).
History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake.
I think Germany has a special relationship with “whiteness”
No that’s the US. Racism in Germany and Europe as a whole, has always been about cultural and ethnic differences more than skin color. The persecuted slavs or jews were just as pasty as any German, unlike the “honorary Aryans” in Japan.
Germany is a culture bursting with contradictions, within a year of Mein Kempf being published another novel was published The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Two different authors with different backgrounds writing different books? What a uniquely contradictory culture Germany is.
Disregard that one of them is lauded for its literary and cultural significance while the other is basically as important as the art of the deal.
And of course the explanation for contemporary German culture and its problematic relation to Israel can be found in the literature of 1924.
Nothing significant happened since then, right? Everyone was on vacation in the 30s and 40s. Occupation, the Cold War, the literal formation of the country of Israel? Surely none of the could have any relevance.
I do agree that the Magic Mountain is a great book.
But although some of its themes do go against aspects of fascism, calling it "the most supremely antifascist novel imaginable " seems a bit of a stretch.
No that’s the US. Racism in Germany and Europe as a whole, has always been about cultural and ethnic differences more than skin color. The persecuted slavs or jews were just as pasty as any German, unlike the “honorary Aryans” in Japan.
ahahahaha
Read The Color Purple or Their Eyes Were Watching God, the idea that racism actually cares about skin tone in any consistent way anywhere is impossible, contradictory and absurd, it is always mixed up with ethnicity, context and imposed categories. Germany is just the same as any other racist society in that respect. Check your ignorance.
You added nothing to this conversation other than a sense of condescencion.
The Magic Mountain is one of the most supremely antifascist novels ever written and its perspective from the eve of WW1 mirrors our current position with eerie and foreboding syncronicity. The Magic Mountain is easily one of the most important novels of the 20th century, if not all time.
In 1933, when Hitler came to power, Mann moved his own family to Switzerland, and then, after his German citizenship was revoked, to the USA, where he recorded monthly anti-fascist dispatches which were broadcast to Germany by the BBC.
He is ‘one of the great German writers’, wrote Malcolm Bradbury, ‘the spokesman for a modern humanism’.
Read The Color Purple or Their Eyes Were Watching God
Do they contain sociological studies that support your claim that
Germany has a special relationship with "whiteness”
Otherwise I don’t see what you think this is adding to the conversation.
As for The Magic Mountain:
its perspective from the eve of WW1 mirrors our current position
We currently don’t have European empires in a mutual standoff waiting for the powder-keg to be lit.
By all accounts most people are more reminded of the inter-war period with the rising fascism.
The Magic Mountain is easily one of the most important novels of the 20th century
I never disagreed but being important does not automatically make it anti-fascist.
In 1933, when Hitler came to power, Mann moved his own family to Switzerland
And just like his cold war experiences that you quoted before, this happened after he published Zauberberg in 1924.
At the time, Mussolini’s regime had barely begun and Hitler was a failed putschist in jail.
Come up with a better argument if you want to cut me down.
Dude, your only “arguments” are wikipedia quotes about Mann’s life after he published the book, completely unrelated literature recommendations and an unexplained association of fascism with the eve of WWI.
I honestly find it hilarious you don’t think The Magic Mountain is one of the most antifascist novels ever written, and one of the most effective and wholistic takedowns of fascism ever created in any form ever… your understanding of history must be so mutilated into discrete bloody boxes one preceding after another with no connection between one and another…
Six months later, Mann resumed work on the novel he had begun before the war: The Magic Mountain. His development and completion of the manuscript occurred in tandem with a dramatic political reorientation: deeply shaken by the assassination of Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau in 1922, Mann took a decisive stand in defense of the fragile, embattled Weimar Republic. In his essays and speeches of the second half of the 1920s, he continued to warn Germans of the threat posed by the National Socialist Party. Had he not left Germany when he did, it is very likely that he would have been arrested and interned in the Dachau concentration camp.
@HieroProtagonist@blackshirt
That has traditionally been the case because the historical account was the exclusive copyright of the “winner”.
Now, however (as we can see e.g. with Israel’s century of terrorism and crimes against humanity), the truth is harder to hide. #Germany is on the wrong side of history, and that won’t change, whoever “wins”.
Germany always manages to be on the wrong side of history
I think Germany has a special relationship with “whiteness” that makes it especially vulnerable to fascism, especially in how Germany is perceived and treated by other groups of white people.
Also though, Germany is a culture bursting with contradictions, within a year of Mein Kempf being published another novel was published The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann by an originally German author who moved to the US.
The Magic Mountain is firmly cemented in German culture… and is indisputably one of the best novels ever written in German or English and is certainly one of the most humanist and openly accepting of humanity in all its “failures” of any great novel of the 20th century. The Magic Mountain is the most supremely antifascist novel imaginable and it is equally allergic to racism and discrimination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mann
History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake.
No that’s the US. Racism in Germany and Europe as a whole, has always been about cultural and ethnic differences more than skin color. The persecuted slavs or jews were just as pasty as any German, unlike the “honorary Aryans” in Japan.
Two different authors with different backgrounds writing different books? What a uniquely contradictory culture Germany is.
Disregard that one of them is lauded for its literary and cultural significance while the other is basically as important as the art of the deal.
And of course the explanation for contemporary German culture and its problematic relation to Israel can be found in the literature of 1924.
Nothing significant happened since then, right? Everyone was on vacation in the 30s and 40s. Occupation, the Cold War, the literal formation of the country of Israel? Surely none of the could have any relevance.
I do agree that the Magic Mountain is a great book.
But although some of its themes do go against aspects of fascism, calling it "the most supremely antifascist novel imaginable " seems a bit of a stretch.
ahahahaha
Read The Color Purple or Their Eyes Were Watching God, the idea that racism actually cares about skin tone in any consistent way anywhere is impossible, contradictory and absurd, it is always mixed up with ethnicity, context and imposed categories. Germany is just the same as any other racist society in that respect. Check your ignorance.
You added nothing to this conversation other than a sense of condescencion.
The Magic Mountain is one of the most supremely antifascist novels ever written and its perspective from the eve of WW1 mirrors our current position with eerie and foreboding syncronicity. The Magic Mountain is easily one of the most important novels of the 20th century, if not all time.
https://henryeliot.substack.com/p/the-magic-mountain
Come up with a better argument if you want to cut me down.
Do they contain sociological studies that support your claim that
Otherwise I don’t see what you think this is adding to the conversation.
As for The Magic Mountain:
We currently don’t have European empires in a mutual standoff waiting for the powder-keg to be lit. By all accounts most people are more reminded of the inter-war period with the rising fascism.
I never disagreed but being important does not automatically make it anti-fascist.
And just like his cold war experiences that you quoted before, this happened after he published Zauberberg in 1924.
At the time, Mussolini’s regime had barely begun and Hitler was a failed putschist in jail.
Dude, your only “arguments” are wikipedia quotes about Mann’s life after he published the book, completely unrelated literature recommendations and an unexplained association of fascism with the eve of WWI.
I honestly find it hilarious you don’t think The Magic Mountain is one of the most antifascist novels ever written, and one of the most effective and wholistic takedowns of fascism ever created in any form ever… your understanding of history must be so mutilated into discrete bloody boxes one preceding after another with no connection between one and another…
https://yalereview.org/article/morten-jensen-thomas-mann
This comment is so true.
I stole it from Stephen Dedalus :P
It’s only the wrong side if you lose.
@HieroProtagonist @blackshirt
That has traditionally been the case because the historical account was the exclusive copyright of the “winner”.
Now, however (as we can see e.g. with Israel’s century of terrorism and crimes against humanity), the truth is harder to hide.
#Germany is on the wrong side of history, and that won’t change, whoever “wins”.
And do you see any sign of a downfall of those who are on the - in your opinion - “wrong side”?
@HieroProtagonist
No.
Sooo…