Some of the atmosphere of the “German problem”—heavy with guilt, suspicion, smouldering resentments, and personal tragedy—is captured in these two brief glimpses: Alfred Polgar’s sketch of two court trials he witnessed recently in Munich, and F. S. Grosshut’s report on the events that led up to the suicide of Klaus Mann last year. Mr. Polgar, the distinguished German short story writer and critic, was born in Vienna but is now an American citizen. Mr. Grosshut, who has written criticism for many periodicals throughout the world, emigrated from Germany to Palestine in 1933 and came to the United States last year. His permanent residence is in Haifa. Both these articles were translated from the German by Martin Greenberg.

_____________

Klaus Mann died on May 22, 1949 of an over dose of sleeping tablets. “Leiden um Deutschland”—that was Klaus Mann’s tragedy. The moral and cultural death of Germany was his death.

In exile, Klaus Mann had been among the most uncompromising and untiring fighters against the tyranny of the Third Reich. In lectures and essays, with inexhaustible energy, he called the attention of the world to the international threat represented by the Nazi regime. He edited the courageous periodical Die Sammlung, and wrote two important novels, Symphonie Pathétique and Vulkan. A third novel, Das vergitterte Fenster (“The Barred Window”), dissected the diseased body of National Socialism through the parallels between the Hitler regime and the reign of the mad king Ludwig of Bavaria (1825-1848). In still another book he analyzed André Gide’s writings. During the war he served with the American Army as a soldier-correspondent.

After the collapse of the Nazi regime, he hoped for a spiritual and cultural regeneration of his homeland. But he returned to America from a postwar visit to Germany deeply disillusioned: nothing had changed in Germany. The hopes he had cherished during the years of exile were cruelly contradicted by the facts, and day by day the facts seemed to get worse.

Then there followed the attacks on his father, Thomas Mann, by the exponents of the so-called “inner emigration,” who accused Thomas Mann of “deserting” his country. In June 1947 Thomas Mann answered his accusers roundly, quoting from the pages of his journal, Leiden um Deutschland, the moving passages that revealed his “profound horror” of the Germany of the Third Reich, and his “steadfast conviction that such a regime could only bring bloody ruin upon the nation”—as well as the deep compassion he had earlier felt for the German people, “that so much faith, enthusiasm, and proud hope should be thrown away on things so evidently macabre and depraved.”

Twice, already, the faith and vital aspirations of the younger generation of German writers had broken down: first in the disorder and depression of the Weimar Republic, and a second time in 1933. For Klaus Mann, the third breakdown that came after 1945 proved too much. Despair took possession of him. He made several attempts on his own life.

_____________

For a last time, however, he set to work. He began work on a novel that was to express his deep despair and thus, he may have hoped, would help him to overcome it. To complete this novel, he went to Cannes, and while there he entered into negotiations with a German publisher for the publication of an earlier novel, Mephisto, which had appeared outside of Germany in 1936.

Mephisto told the story of a brilliant and dangerously virtuoso actor who in 1933, betraying his integrity as an artist, went over to Hitler. It is easily discernible to those at all acquainted with German theatrical circles that the story is based largely on the career of the German actor and director Gustav Gruendgens, who early in 1934 became director of the Prussian Staatstheater. (Gruendgens’ predecessor in this post was the Nazi poet Hanns Johst, who as president of Hitler’s Academy of Literature immortalized himself with the dictum: “When I hear the word ‘culture,’ I reach for my gun.”)

It must have seemed to Klaus Mann that 1949 was an opportune time for the publication in Germany of this novel about the betrayal of German culture. It was the year of the Goethe Bicentennial, and all over Germany there were celebrations to observe the anniversary of the birth of the father of German culture. Germany East and West united to award Thomas Mann the Goethe Prize. Performances of Faust were arranged in many cities. Goethe had once said that for him there were only two important things: culture and barbarism. Klaus Mann’s Mephisto, in its way, was saying the same thing. Perhaps the reception of Mephisto in Germany would tell something of whether the Goethe celebrations were more than window-dressing.

The contract was closed with the publisher and nothing, apparently, stood in the way of the book’s appearance.

_____________

Mephisto did appear, but not Klaus Mann’s Mephisto.

Among the various performances of Faust that were projected, one of the most important was to be given in Edinburgh, Scotland, whose cultural festivals enjoy such renown on the Continent. To play the role of Mephistopheles in the Edinburgh production of Faust was a mark of the highest distinction. It was, so to speak, the Goethe Prize of the stage.

The man invited to play the part of Mephistopheles was: Gustav Gruendgens, actor, director, and Intendant of the National Socialist theater, Staatsrat of the Third Reich, and the man whose moral betrayal of German culture formed the subject of Klaus Mann’s novel.

Gruendgens, of course, had passed safely through the “denazification” courts—but the whole world knows what this “denazification” amounts to.

For actors, who practice their art in the public eye, there had been, if anything, an added obligation to separate themselves from the barbarism of the Third Reich. Far better artists than Gruendgens had gone into exile or imposed silence upon themselves. But Gruendgens stayed in Germany, acted in and directed plays, accepted the honorary tide of Staatsrat at the hands of the Nazis, and frequented the circles close to the Nazi leadership. Indeed, he became the protégé of Goering himself. In a theatrical almanac published in 1948 (!), he had said that the “decisive years” for him had been “the period from 1933 to 1945.” It was this man who had been singled out for the honor of an invitation to the Edinburgh Festival.

Many English actors refused to appear on the same stage with Gruendgens. But Gruendgens and the Duesseldorf theatrical troupe were nevertheless engaged and the performance took place—almost on the anniversary of the day on which Gruendgens’ protector, Goering, had first let loose his bombs on London.

_____________

In All this, the publisher who had contracted to bring out Klaus Mann’s Mephisto found cause for reflection. He had known that Gruendgens was highly regarded in West Germany. In Munich this former director of the National Socialist theater had even been permitted to put on the opera Banditen by the Jewish composer Jacques Offenbach. And now, at the Goethe Festival in Edinburgh, the crowning touch had been added to the process of Gruendgens’ “rehabilitation.” On May 5, 1949, the publisher wrote to Klaus Mann:

Dear Herr Mann:

I am very much obliged to you for your letter of April 21. In the middle of October, already, political developments obliged me to move from Berlin to Bavaria. Here, however, it would not be wise to start up with the Mephisto, for Herr Gruendgens is already a person of some consequence in this area—you must surely have seen the announcements that have been appearing in the press? In Berlin it would have been easier to undertake such an operation, but here in the West it is not a simple matter.

With best regards,

Georg Jacobi
Verlag der Langenscheidt
Sprachwerke

On May 12, Klaus Mann sent this answer from Cannes:

Dear Herr Jacobi:

Your letter of May 5 is priceless. The publication of a novel you now call “undertaking an operation.” Such an “operation”—you think—would be in the case of Mephisto “not at all a simple matter”—ergo, it must be dropped at once. Why? Because “Herr Gruendgens is already a person of some consequence in this area.”

I call that logic! And civil courage! And the faithful keeping of a contract!—I don’t know what astounds me more: the abjectness of your reasons, or the naivety with which you confess them. Gruendgens is a success—why then should you bring out a book that might seem to be aimed at him? Above all, no risks! Always throw in with the winning side! Swim with the current!

We know very well what all this leads to: to those very concentration camps of which afterwards one prefers to have known nothing. . . .

Will you be good enough to send the copy of Mephisto (a rarity!) now in your possession to the above address, by return mail.

Please do not address any further communications to me.

Respectfully,
Klaus Mann

_____________

Jacobi had written on May 5, and on May 12 Klaus Mann answered him. In between fell May 10, the anniversary of the Nazi burning of the books.

On May 21, Klaus Mann poisoned himself, and on May 22 he died.

Thomas Mann, who was in Stockholm on his European trip when the news of his son’s death reached him, displayed during his Goethe address a Roman fortitude. His son was a victim of this time of crisis, he said, with characteristic restraint.

_____________