Soul of the Age: Selected Letters, 1891-1962 by Hesse Hermann

Author:Hesse, Hermann [Hesse, Hermann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography
ISBN: 9780374126124
Amazon: 0374126127
Goodreads: 742145
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 1987-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Montagnola, beginning of April 1933

So you have turned up once again like a friendly, helpful magician. Thank you very much for your kind letters and gifts. The gift is very welcome and I shall use it, exactly as you wished, to provide hospitality for the exiles and émigrés.

The first guest, from Leipzig, left for Italy the day before yesterday. These people are all in bad shape financially. The editors of the leftist German press, and all the contributors as well, have suddenly lost their livelihoods. Many were in mortal danger, or might have been imprisoned, so they had to flee—e.g., my guest, whose wife stayed behind to give notice and pack their things, and if possible collect a payment owed them. But the editorial offices of the papers in question have been closed down, the printing works are in chaos, some have even been demolished, all the employees have been sacked and are now unemployed. For the socialist press alone, that amounts to some 80,000 to 100,000 people all over the Reich.

Another of my German acquaintances and colleagues will be here tomorrow. Thomas Mann and his wife have been here quite frequently, and I’m glad to see that he is slowly recovering from an initially severe depression. We have spent half days together on several occasions. He doesn’t have any material worries, and is in good shape for now. But he has no idea what will become of his house and children in Munich. His passport is going to expire in the next few days, and no German consulate is willing to grant him even a provisional renewal; so he is going to ask the League of Nations for a passport. Th. Mann’s statement of his allegiance to the socially progressive Republic appeared in Berlin just before Hitler came to power (I’m enclosing a reprint, which is somewhat condensed).245 Since then he has been number one on the terrorists’ blacklist. I have not had any problems so far; I received a couple of letters from worried readers warning me to keep my mouth shut and act cautiously, since there have already been threats to boycott my books and confiscate my German royalties. That may happen, but in such matters there is no such thing as certainty. I’m expecting my publisher here on Monday; he wants to discuss the situation with me on his way through to Italy (to visit Gerhart Hauptmann). The founder and the owners of my publishers are Jews, and so there is also danger lurking there.

But I think the present situation is so unbelievably crazy that it can hardly last very long. Hitler’s terrorism will certainly prevail for a long time (until he stumbles into a war and loses it, or the economy goes bankrupt). But aggressive, pathological phenomena such as Minister Göring, who makes those sadistic speeches (he is apparently a morphine addict), will hardly survive that long. Unfortunately, Germany will become increasingly corrupt, and some people with big names will join the bandwagon. I wouldn’t be surprised if, for example, Hauptmann capitulated and started kowtowing to them.

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