This splendid exchange of letters between the two famous Nobel Prize laureates makes fascinating reading and the sheer output of a life long letter writing on both sides is truly breathtaking - altogether some 60.000 letters were written, 25.000 by the pen of Thomas Mann (TM 1875-1955), 35.000 by Hermann Hesse (HH 1877-1962). The Foreword by Theodore Ziolkowski (Princeton 1974) moreover is a manifest masterpiece of an introductionary effort, both in brevity and spice (Kürze und Würze), covering apparent and profound divergences such as ancestry, public appearance or course of private life - but also a surprising multifold of similarities, much to TM´s own “consternation (...) at the resemblance and kinship between us.” (92) Ziolkowski explains this kinship albeit “the reserved tone that characterizes formal communication in German” at the time by “a growing consciousness of their mission as codefenders of the humanistic tradition in German culture” adding some other “underlying similarities as the two young writers embarked on careers that led them in totally different directions”: they both married “into a family of mathematicians”, they both were “passionately addicted to music”, both writers “rebelled against their bourgeois heritage, leaving school without graduating and taking relatively menial jobs - Mann in an insurance company and Hesse in a secondhand bookstore”; in both cases their mothers had brought “a touch of the exotic (...) into otherweise conventional childhoods”. After TM´s move to America in Sept. 1938 - after his fourth US-trip from Switzerland from Feb. to July in that year - and after the outbreak of war in 1939 the tone became more and more intimate and personal - we now have frequent addresses like “dear friend Hesse (146), “dear friend and brother” (135) or “dear old companion” (151). A dedication (Widmung) by HH in a book in 1953 now reads “To the elder brother from the younger” (154). As early as 1933 TM has recommended HH for the Nobel Prize for Literature to the academy in Stockholm, with warm words to be sure, f.i. as “being more supra-German and acceptable at large, HH is more loveable as a writer (...), who has won my heart with the magic of his form and the charm of his mixture of romanticism and modern psychological elements.” (173) In a letter of 1935 TM speaks of “a man whose art and thinking I approve with all my heart” (50), while in the same year his political faculty of prophesizing future events is much better than the poet´s reputation: “When I left the White House at my first visit (30.6.1935!), I knew Hitler was lost.” (106) The issues of the Swiss paper in Zurich NZZ in 1937 and 1947 hold two full page article by TM to congratulate HH to his 60th and 70th birthday (70-72, 112-15): “This chaste and daring, dream-filled yet highly intellectual work is fraught with tradition, tied by memories to the homeland and its past (...). It has the romantic timbre, the intricacy, the involute, hypochondrical humor of the soulful German vein (...). I long ago chose him as the member of my literay generation closest and dearest to me.” (70f) From 1933 onwards both writers could apply some (according to Erich Heller)´black magic´ of word and speech (Schwarze Magie des Wortes) to comment, on a regular basis, on the outrageous developments during the pityful reign of the Nazis in Germany between Blubobrausi (Blut und Boden, Brauchtum und Sitte) and Volksgemeinschaft: “They (the Germans of the time) don´t like the truth, they don´t want to know it, they are unaware of its charm and purifying powers (ihren Reiz und ihre reinigende Kraft). They love vapor and gush (Dunst und Dusel), putried, self-pitying, brutal ´feeling´ (das faule, wehleidige, brutale `Gemüt` ...), they would gladly murder anyone who tries to turn them away from their soulful hogwash (101, der ihnen den Seelenfusel verleiden will, 167), writes TM from Pacific Palisades in 1946 in retrospect and HH had remarked in the middle of the Zeitenwende (turning point in history) in the early 1930ies that “I feel as far removed from the dominant German mentality as in 1914 - 1918. (...) I am no longer able to read a single German newspaper.” (11) As the inevitable did in fact happen in 1933 both writers used their pen friendship for mutual encouragement - ”What a beautiful piece of workmanship your novella is” (38) - or for clearing the chest (als Brustlöser): “I am so plagued by the happenings in Germany (Die deutschen Dinge setzen mir so zu), they are such a torment to my moral and critical conscience” (41/69), the final solution obviously being “my desire to break completely with that ghastly country” (diesem schauerlichen Lande, 48/82). HH on the other hand is rather inclined to stay put, that is, to stay in the vicinity of the high moutains and its remote security: “I am preparing to go peasant for a while. (Ich bereite mich auf eine Periode des Verbauerns vor,) It won´t be the first time (wie ich sie auch früher schon erlebt habe, 12/26), mentioning obvious differences in their civil attitudes and life style: „I don´t envy you your trip to America. But fortunately you are more resilient and unfortuna-tely (!) more wellbred than a hermit like me” (Aber zum Glück sind Sie ja elastischer und, leider, besser erzogen als ich Einsiedler, 39/65). Hence it seems to be the ´hermit´s´ obligation to dig for the deeper roots in man´s destiny, close to the not so easy to grasp matters of eternity, as is being put to the test by an enclosed poem entitled, incidentally, “Letters”: From time to time we take up pen and write / Signs on a sheet of paper, carrying / various meanings. They are known to all. / The thing´s a game, a game that has its rules. (46, Gelegentlich ergreifen wir die Feder / Und schreiben Zeichen auf ein weißes Blatt. / Die sagen dies und das: es kennt sie jeder, / Es ist ein Spiel, das seine Regeln hat, 79). I am referring here to the Arena edition 1986 and the German original by Suhrkamp and S. Fischer Verlag (SV Band 441). For Heller see Suhrkamp (st 243).
Michael Karl