Thomas Mann (2025). Zur Verteidigung der Demokratie. Politische Schriften. Fischer Verlag.
The political papers were written by Mann between 1918 and 1949. He describes the crawling rise of National Socialism between the two 20th century World Wars.
From the papers, it becomes clear that Germany struggled after the peace dictate of the Treaty of Versailles. This provided fertile ground to the rise of the national socialist party and of its leader, Adolf Hitler.
Especially frightening are Mann's descriptions of the how the bourgeois mind set was systematically molded into a dominant narrative and institutionalization of traditional (family) values, glory to warriors,from which no deviation was tolerated.
Mental and world view diversity was already being eliminated well before [[World War II]. The call for rearmament, strong military capacity, nationalism, and not collaboration is frightening as it reflects so much of the current European nationalist agendas.
Mann's warnings are vivid descriptions of what was going on between 1918 and 1938.
Although written mostly in the years before WWI, but in an era national socialism and the nazi party were coming to power, the juxtaposition of Democracy and Faschism as state principles is more topical than ever at this moment, in which we see faschist characteristics becoming manifest in several Western and Atlantic countries.
In the discourses in the book, Mann vividly counterpositions Democracy and Fascism. Democracy is founded on respect for people, institution, justice and the law. Fasism goes together with Nationalism and National Socialism, disrepect for people (its own and for others), e tendency towards War, towards Propaganda, imposing a Party Line to interpret almost everything, the use of Violence and Force.
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