Thomas Mann | Autograph letter signed, on the rise of the Nazis, to Kurt Schlesinger, 4 February 1933

Thomas Mann

Autograph letter signed ("Thomas Mann"), to Kurt Schlesinger

REGARDING THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN GERMANY, referring to the celebrated speech given in Vienna in which he declared his solidarity with the socialist workers, distinguishing between two speeches he gave on the subject, explaining that the "Deutsche Ansprache" was specifically intended to persuade the German middle class to side with the workers, and that the Vienna speech was more a reflection of his own political views; Mann also expresses his growing alarm at the direction that German domestic policy is taking, especially with regard to censorship of writing and speech, adding that the newspaper Vorwärts has now been banned 

...Freilich der Augenblick mag kommen, wo gar nichts anderes übrig bleibt als alles hinzuwerfen und sich auf die Barrikaden zu setzen. Aber vorläufig bittet man noch, der Kelch möge vorübergehen...

2 pages, 4to (28 x 21.8cm), mounted on a guard, Munich, 4 February 1933, horizontal and vertical folds; together with a facsimile of the second page

Mann's speech was given in October 1932. This would have been one of the last letters he wrote from his home in Munich, which he had left in February to undertake a lecture tour. Adolf Hitler had become German Chancellor on 30 January 1933, and Mann was never to return to Germany again. 

LITERATURE:

Hans Bürgin & Hans-Otto Mayer, edd., Die Briefe Thomas Manns. Regesten und Register, Vol. I 1889-1933, (1976), p.687.

PROVENANCE:

Sotheby's, London, 1 December 1995, lot 27