"in person" "Golo Mann" "talking with Günter Gaus" "Herr Professor Golo Mann you've a formation as philosopher and historian you took your PhD in 1932 with Carl Jaspers till a few months ago, you were Professor for Political Sciences at the Technical University of Stuttgart you've given up that chair" "but you keep on being a political publicist who draws a lot of attention you're serving your field of expertise, History, as editor of a multi-volume world history all this is a wide scale philosopher, historian till recently, university professor" "if you were able to narrow this scale if you were able to have a life, a working life, all according to your liking, how would it look?" "what would you be doing?" "it's hard to keep the "golden mean" in life in my own life I've had the experience as it surely it must have been the experience of many people that at first the world wanted too little from you, for a long time" "wanted too little from me and nowadays it very often is a bit too much" "I'd like to be able to concentrate more on one great work more than I'm permitted today" "I'd like to spent the better part of the year in the country and write a book that'll be presentable and that will soothe my own soul, and the souls of a few others." "Besides that, I'd like to be active a bit in the outside world in the media that we have today, for instance TV to make use of them a bit, write a few articles or essays but not so densely packed as it's the case today" "since you were asking about the width of the scale ... there were times when the scale was even wider when I started teaching in America and had to teach subjects I didn't have a clue of so I got up every morning at 3 a.m. one winter and till 8 a.m. swotted over what I had to teach later in the day, subjects I'd rather not mention here" "do mention them oh well, American history and geography, political science and so on you said, it's happening to many, and it had happened to you that at first, the world, didn't want to learn anything from one," "and then later too much did you feel hurt?" "that for years, people didn't want to learn from you as much as you were ready to give" "I didn't feel hurt, at least not consciously." "since in those years one couldn't expect otherwise besides, I was too green at the time but I'd say that it was hard were you burning to publicize?" "yes." "a bit more than I was able to publicize, for many years as a political writer, Professor Mann, you attracted the public attention partly praised, partly criticized because you recommended to the Federal Republic's politicians more flexible politics, regarding East Germany" "including a more sober assessment of the German Eastern border question we shall return to that later in our talk but right now, I'm interested this:" "Golo Mann's occupation with politics, is this also an elixir of life, an urge, a necessity or is it a self-imposed duty?" "both." "Ever since my youth, starting when I was about 16 years old" "I've followed politics with strong, passionate and sometimes painful interest" "I've also seen a connection, between my historical interests and studies and the political ones that is, my inclination for the contemporary," "I've transposed it into the past, so to speak in some of my writings" "Not the other way round?" "The inclination belonged to the contemporary, and you transposed it into the past?" "That is the stronger one, but it flows in both directions." "But the one I mentioned first, has been the stronger one." "This is one side of the matter." "but as you grow older and things repeat themselves and this becomes tiring sometimes and a bit depressing" "I'd say, if today, occasionally, very occasionally, a make a public political statement then I'm doing this more from a sense of duty, and not because I like it." "You once said in a conversation, and this fits in with what you just told me, you said, regarding your political writings," ""it gives me no pleasure"" ""neither me nor others"" "and I think this sounds rather pessimistic at the time, you added you only kept on doing political commentary, because you didn't want to hear the reproach again that your generation - you were born in 1909 - had acted too passively, politically speaking." "I'd like to know, Herr Professor whether the kind of criticism you've been occasionally getting as political writer lately, whether you felt hurt?" "that depends there's a certain kind of criticism that reminds me of Goethe's verse:" ""Wanderer, why waste your strength against such misery?" "Whirlwind and dry shit, let them spin in the dust." "[West-Eastern Divan, book V-XI]" "There are thinks I never read but throw away instantly." "but well-meaning acquaintances give me reports so indirectly I know about them as they say in Austria "they couldn't possibly mean me" [with heavy Austrian accent] that doesn't concern me at all there is more serious criticisms" "that doesn't hurt me, but it makes me think and it often makes me reassess my own thinking" "I've had discussions with representatives of certain Refugee Organizations [from former German Eastern provinces] and I've learned from those people, they're a special group how deeply serious their arguments are and that gave me the duty, and a chance, to reassess my own thinking" "sometimes, I openly admit this" "I feel a bit depressed when the echo I get for statements that were, in all modesty, measured and well-meaning is so very spiteful and distorting and then you ask yourself:" ""do you really, in your advanced age, want spend your time and strength again and again dealing with that mess?"" "do you tend to resign yourself?" "and your decision to put up fight, does this involve a struggle?" "yes, I'd say it does to resign myself, this is a great temptation for me which I must fight fight consciously?" "yes, fight consciously." "you'd regard it as a crime against your duty if you succumbed to that temptation to resign too easily?" "yes." "indeed a betrayal of one's duty and of other people, be they many or few who, to my surprise, still expect something from me in the field of political criticism" "Herr Professor Mann, what do you think of the style, the manners, with which political disputes are being conducted in West Germany?" "would you, because of your own experiences, detect a brutalization of manners in the last years?" "up to a certain degree, yes in the first years, after '45 those manners were almost too good, too measured to be true to be permanently true" "I said to myself at the time "it can't keep on being like this"" "there'll be again in Germany, as after all elsewhere some sharp hitting because let's not imagine that political manners in, say, America, are so gentle and reliable and fair they are none of the kind" "in the last years" "I've detected a certain brutalization, at least a sharpening of the tone that exceeded what I considered normal in a democracy what do you think are the reasons for this?" "well, I'd say that ultimately, in the year '45 nothing has been solved that the German nation was only brought to an external, a military, a physical defeat which at first did have cogency of proof" "but the things which had existed for such a long time in Germany they weren't eliminated yet and now, with the return of power, with the juices of high economic boom and also with the weakening of political leaders in the Federal Republic" "certain forces are beginning to feel that for them too it might be spring again." "this is what I believe you're talking of certain forces, and in this context I'm interested how you jugde your own generation." "I've already mentioned, when talking about your political writings, that you once referred to a reproach made to your generation of having been too passive, politically speaking." "your personal destiny, Herr Mann, has certainly been not been typical of your generation but all the same, I'd like a to hear from you a characteristic of that generation to which you belong, the men I'm talking about are today between 55 and 65 years old" "who still experienced the Weimar Republic as adolescents and became adults after 1933 are there constant general virtues and weaknesses?" "I can't tell you anything about virtues about weaknesses, a bit more a generation that was, historically speaking, unfortunate excepting those who were strong enough, in Germany or outside, in the so-called emigration to resist all temptations to despair" "here in Germany, with the Second World War, this generation has been decimated a lot and nowadays to a large extent, their absence is felt and in the emigration, its courage was broken, not always but often" "but was heavily affected because one had to live for a long time under hard and difficult and almost hopeless conditions it's a generation that is experienced, historically speaking and from which one might, and I'm not speaking of an individual" "from which one might learn something but it is also in danger of being too resigned, too pessimistic or, again and again, to fear the repetition of evil things which it had experienced once" "By the way, I want to tell you that I'd rather have been born a few years earlier or later like my brother who is 10 years younger" "Hitler's rise didn't touch him at all he wasn't wounded in his soul at the time like our generation on the other hand, if I had been 10 years older then I would have been firmly rooted in Germany" "and could have returned after the war to something familiar and would have been able to continue well, I was 23 when Hitler seized power at an age when you're most receptive, I'd say but also an age when you could put up very little resistance, when you had very little to offer" "and then I was blown out of the country that wasn't fortunate, generation-wise does your generation tend to self-pity?" "that all depends on the individual case" " I really couldn't answer that for a generation - what about the person Golo Mann?" "I'd like to believe, honestly, no, I don't tend to self-pity but sometimes I tend to reflect on my own destiny and comparing with what it might have been under a luckier star you once said, while at the same time criticizing that era" "that you would have liked to have lived in the Wilhelmine period what would you have been there?" "a private scholar?" "sure, if I had some money yes, I would have liked to have been a private scholar, a writer and publicist but that remark didn't refer to my personal position within that period but to the period in general" "that the period had, after all, despite deep inner weaknesses that later led to its bitter end more lightness, more serenity than ours, this is the way we look at it today, and it was an extremely creative period" "when one could afford not to bother with politics at all, that was splendid, wasn't it do you have a longing for lightness and serenity?" "yes. although this doesn't mean that I possess those two beautiful things, but one often longs for what one doesn't possess so you're saying, you don't possess them to the degree you'd like to?" "that's about it that you, Golo Mann, are only to a small extent a typical representative of your generation that results already from your family background you were born, Herr Professor, on the 27th March 1909 in Munich, as the son of the poet Thomas Mann" "was certainly created particular circumstances" "I can imagine that being a son of such a father raises a couple of questions first, being the son of a famous father has this ever been a burden to you?" "in the sense that someone, like you, who is also a writer sets measures for himself, being the son of Thomas Mann, that make him want to despair" "I'd say that any son of a famous father who didn't feel this to be, among other things, a burden you'll hardly find any example in the history of mankind that a small tree, being in the shadow of a large tree, has trouble growing up" "this is well-known in botany and is valid too for human psychology that I shall never be able to equal my father's oeuvre, in quantity and quality that has never been a special burden to me since I, perhaps with a certain instinct" "chose for myself in time a subject, an art form differing from my father's." "I'm not a novelist if I were that, the strain would have been greater." "Did you possibly become a historian, even with a considerable talent as a writer becoming a historian as a means to escape the plight of suffering under the father's burden?" "That's possible." "but actually, the answer to your question depends on whether I would have had any talent as a novelist." "and that I don't know since I've never tried would you like to?" "perhaps perhaps. one should never say never but it'll take some time this sounds as if you've already considered it" "occasionally what kind of novel could that be, according to your reflections so far?" "there are only two alternatives either a historical novel or again a very subjective novel, more or less autobiographical." "a third alternative, say, something socio-critical, I don't see that for myself at all if it were a historical novel, what would have been the preferred setting ?" "I couldn't tell you right now, there are several options but I'd say, I'm even so optimistic to believe without having given the proof that one can write about history in such a way that it reads almost as fluent, as entertaining as a novel" "and yet remains scientific" " this is my ambition. - allow me to make exactly this compliment on your German History of the 19th and 20th Century" "I thank you, Herr Gaus but I hope, Deo volente, to surpass myself yet are you dissatisfied with yourself?" "always why?" "because it's never as good as it should have been, could have been what's missing?" "something stylistic or scientific?" "both. and often the necessary utmost exertion isn't there which is only possible when there's utmost concentration and tranquility" "My book on German History you just mentioned at the time, in Germany, almost nobody wanted anything from me" "I lived on Lake Constance for 2 years in extraordinary tranquility, I often remember the times with longing not a letter, not a phone call for weeks, being able to read and write without being disturbed but that's over now." "Maybe it'll come back which of your father's works is your favourite?" "I really couldn't say because they're all too different" "I could name a few that I particularly dislike, or like less like the novella "Disorder and Early Sorrow" which is so very popular with many also Tonio Kröger, except for the childhood episode," "I don't care for that one why?" "because it seems exaggerated the ascetism, the coldness of heart of the artist, I find that too abstract and exaggerated" "I mean, he wasn't like that at all, the author who wrote Tonio Kröger and an artist isn't like that in short, it doesn't appeal to me but whether I prefer the Buddenbrooks, or Felix Krull or Royal Highness" "or Death in Venice" "I couldn't say but I'd say that among the very great novels the Magic Mountain is the least accomplished compared with the Buddenbrooks, the Joseph novels and Dr. Faustus" "I think the Magic Mountain is the least accomplished" "I would have thought that Lotte in Weimar would mean a lot to you yes it does" "I love that one very much your elder brother, Herr Professor, Klaus Mann who departed from life in 1949 in his autobiography The Turning Point described life in your family home the father whom the children called, because of his remoteness, who only occasionally showed some tenderness," "they called him "the magician"" "the mother, who was the shining centre of the family and maybe still is and the six children themselves the eldest two, Klaus and Erika the two in the middle, Golo and Monika and the latest-born, Elisabeth and Michael" "all this seems to have taken place in a semi grand-bourgeois, semi artistic-literary setting if you think back now, Herr Professor Golo Mann think back of your childhood and adolescence what's your strongest memory?" "of your parental home well, an inexhaustible question for everyone on top of it, I am burdened with an especially good memory of my childhood hundreds, thousands of impressions from my childhood and adolescence are still alive in my mind, even today" "allow me to cut in:" "could you write a more precise autobiography than Klaus?" "I wouldn't say that his version was unprecise mine could be more precise in another way, but I wouldn't say, more precise in general but even today, among my relatives they appeal to my memory for help" "whenever there's a person, an event from 1914 to remember, to identify" " you were 5 years old at that time - yes and this extends from the most unimportant to the most important the frequent readings my father gave us, reading to us from his latest work-in-progress in his study in the evening" "the typical atmosphere, the way he read to us the fumes of his cigar and then the particular reading, the particular chapter whether it was from the Magic Mountain, or later, from Felix Krull all that left a lasting impression" "or the torment of emigration when my father was already in the South of France, early summer 1933" "I was still in Germany and I visited him a few times, and again and again we talked about it should he go back, or shouldn't he the torment of those discussions that too left a lasting impression" "or some remark on the politics of the day he made or on war situation in 1914 or 15, when I heard the names of Hindenburg or Tannenberg for the first time that too was unforgettable there's a lot, and of different sorts, from the most serene to the most serious" "have they been, on the whole, good memories?" "not always. how could it be thus in your book we just mentioned, Herr Professor" "German History of the 19th and 20th Century you wrote, dealing with your father's political attitude let me quote his "yes", meaning his "yes" to the Weimar Republic his "yes" was always half-hearted, weakened by criticism and self-criticism" "his "no", meaning his "no" to Hitler's dictatorship his "no" was definite and strong in what way did your father influence you, when you were young, politically speaking?" "what standards of value for public life did you pick up at Thomas Mann's dinner table?" "I think in the 1920s the humanitarian, the liberal the half-democratic evaluation he adhered to as a small boy I opposed him, became a member of the German-National Youth Club, the boy scouts and did all the usual things of the Royal Wilhelm Gymnasium in Munich in 1919" "and from all that, I got free or liberated lured away by the atmosphere in my parents' home your entry into the German-National Youth Club at the Wilhelm Gymnasium in Munich was that in opposition of your parental home?" "I don't know. anyway a longing to be like the other boys" "I remember, in the year '19 or '20 or '21" "I got as Christmas presents a boy-scout tunic, a spear, and the complete works of Theodor Körner and my elder brother poured scorn over me, called it a reactionary Christmas so I got over all that and partly under the influence of the talks at the table, that's for certain" "those measures of value would be, as you said, humanitarianism, liberalism, tolerance tolerance. peace, first of all" "German-French reconciliation all those thinks we believed in in the 20s wasn't it a key-phrase too for your father?" "oh yes and then, in the late 20s, there was Pan-Europe and all those ideas that unfortunately turned out to be illusions" "I got that from my father, without doubt and perhaps wouldn't have got it without him what else can you thank him for?" "again an inexhaustible question" "I'd say, the respect of the language the love of the language the respect of the style the effort to write in a style one could be answerable to, I don't know if I've always achieved that" "but the effort perhaps also a pronounced disgust of all things base and common that he had that he had to a great extent and I think I inherited some of it those two things, certainly also a formal education" "maybe this isn't very important but my formation in literary matters is strongly influenced by my knowledge of his works, his essays etc." "I simply pursued things like Tolstoi and Flaubert which he too knew and loved did you pursue those things in order to prove him wrong?" "no I don't think so" "I don't think I'm like that" "I never went that far in my filial opposition your fa... pardon, your uncle Heinrich Mann has he too been for you somebody influential and inspiring?" "hardly for a long time, he was a stranger to us, when I was in my formative years since he and my father, during World War I and later, weren't on very good terms" "it sounds a bit hard but his novels and his essays never really appealed to me there are exceptions" "The Loyal Subject" " remains a masterful ..." " what about The Small Town?" "yes, that's a pretty book" "Henry IV is a pretty book too he was somebody, the lion's claw is felt even in his minor works" "I've nothing against him, I'm only saying that I wasn't very close to him that I thought his political endeavours were illusory, fictitious he was almost childish in this, a mixture of intuition and naivety" "that I perceived" "I met him in 1940 in France in the midst of the chaos of those days and we fled together to Spain and from there to America and became closer, personally in short, he's never been my spiritual leader" "your elder siblings, Klaus and Erika in the '20s, were literary figures and cabaret artists and deliberately chose to be part of a wild jeunesse dorée and were very much in the public spotlights you yourself have been described by your brother Klaus as an always serious fellow" "and almost with malice, so it seems he wrote in the early version of his autobiography of your droll seriousness and he writes, as a child you acted as dignified as a gnome king" "I've several questions regarding this did you sometimes have the feeling of being in the shadow of your elder siblings?" "in the shadow?" "a bit" "I don't think I was envious in the shadow, yes I was they were older, the age difference wasn't that important in my early childhood but when I was a, say, 15 year old schoolboy and my brother was an elegant young writer" "that was a big gap then they were much more active, especially my brother they were elegant, extremely entertaining, attractive young people sought-after at parties and I was almost the exact opposite maybe a bit out of defiance, but I'm not sure, I was very young" "that I stood a bit in their shadow in the beginning, I admit that but they both were at the time nice and helpful to me" "I want to stress this a question in between, you were christened Gottfried is it true that "Golo" is a funny corruption of that name?" "I got stuck with that when I started to speak and this wasn't derived from Gottfried, but from my first name, Angelus my nanny called be Gelo and I babbled Golo then everybody stuck to it" "I missed the opportunity to get rid of that nickname in time, and now it's no longer possible, so I'll have to stick to it returning to your elder siblings, already as a young man you pursued a bourgeois, an academic career" "what was and is your attitude towards the independence of a certain literary life and work an attitude your elder siblings, during a certain period, were in a way the representatives an attitude that sometimes grew into an intentional shocking of the bourgeois" "what's your take on that?" "well what you're referring to, would apply more to my deceased brother that to my sister" "I'd say these goings-on were alien to me" "I wasn't against it but that Bohemian lifestyle like spending many hours in a badly ventilated bar as a nightclub was called at the time" "I never enjoyed doing this, only the contrary, I simply couldn't stand it so that felt alien to me and I was never tempted to join in but I said to myself chaqu'un à son goût each according to his own tastes" "my brother Klaus was decidedly a Metropolitan who only could live in Berlin or Paris or finally New York you aren't?" "no, I'm the contrary, I'd be miserable in such a city sooner or later" "Munich, in the good old times, 30 years ago, not too big, that was all right for me, but barely but I'd rather live in the country could you sketch the surrounding you'd like to live in?" "not in an abstract way, but but I can tell you my favourite countrysides the landscape between the Upper Danube and Lake Constance" "Upper Swabia and next to it the Baden country certain regions in Upper Bavaria not the high mountains, but lower at 1000 or 800 m altitude corresponding places in Switzerland those are my favourite landscapes and set up inside, a small house and garden?" "yes that would be nice" ""if I could have it, I'll take it" says Mephistofeles, no, somebody else you attended the posh and exemplary public school Schloß Salem on Lake Constance, Herr Professor, and it seems that this was a fitting place of education for the son of a highly successful writer and the grandson of a very rich family" "later, while studying at the university, in your own words, you joined a group of students that were more to the left" "I'd like to know, was this an attempt to free yourself from the traditional, the family was it just a reaction, or from what other motives came this political stance?" "they were Social-Democrats their student group at the university, and and I joined them in opposition against the rising National Socialism for no other reason at the time, we called each other Comrades fortunately this form of address has been dropped now" "so I told the comrades at the time that I'm not a Marxist" "Even then I spoke up against Marxism but I told myself, in this sphere too, at the university, one must do everything possible, and that wasn't much against the rise of that danger and that student group was the most suitable for me, that's why I did it" "this is astonishing, so it seems to me at a time, when the young people tended towards extremes, during the final years of the Weimar Republic the extremes of the Left and the Right you stayed with a political party that, while still using the vocabulary of the extreme" "belonged in fact to the moderate centre, slightly left from the centre who gave you this rationality, this sense of keeping measure?" "I don't know" "I'd like to believe that I have it those inclinations of temperament or of thinking one could name them as easily in a negative or positive way one could say, they originate from a pacific temper, from weakness" "shying away from fighting or one could say, it originates from common-sense, good-will etc." "and I don't care how you call it, because the matter always remains the same whatever you call it keeping the measure in politics, that has always been essential to me but I'd like to add that we youngsters in Heidelberg at the time" "sharply criticized the SPD's official politics [Social Democratic Party] their powerless tolerating you thought they were too immersed in details?" "yes and too powerless they joined in but didn't hold the power they enabled Brüning and didn't have any influence over him all the same, you joined them?" "yes, but I wasn't the only one, our group ... sent telegrams to the party leader in Berlin containg warnings that weren't so foolish but we got the usual answers that we should learn first about the functioning of politics etc." "all the same, I'd like to ask again what did stop you from giving yourself up to the extreme?" "I hate all things extreme this is my temperament, I've always hated it wherever I encountered it, in books" "I've hated a figure like Calvin and a figure like Robbespierre like Trotzky or Lenin, I've hated them the extreme in any form has always been hateful to me" "I was never tempted to join the Communists there were a lot of factors instinct temperament and also analysis because I've studied Karl Marx quite a bit and without being a genius, I discovered where the man was wrong in his thinking" "whom I also intensely disliked as a human being in short, I was never tempted not even when it was popular, in the '30s, in Paris when the Front Populaire was the hope of many of my fellow countrymen in emigration" "I never fell into that trap if you were to tell us in what way you most resemble your father Thomas Mann would you say:" "in your distaste of extremes?" "yes that would seem plausible and I'd like to add something entirely different our love of poetry the learning by heart of poems my father knew lots of poems by heart, but I think I've surpassed him in that field" "does Golo Mann have an absolute favourite poem?" "no, there are 20 name the first two no, I couldn't possibly" "I could name a few poets, it doesn't reach very far it only goes as far as Hofmannsthal, or Ricarda Huch if it's later than that, I'm poetically blind, unfortunately but it starts with the Barock age" "but ..." "I don't know ... the evening song by" " Claudius" "I always think it's by Gryphius [Andreas, 1616-1664] or by Günther [Johann Christian, 1695-1723] and later, Brentano and Heine and Eichendorff especially Rückert whom I love very much in short, I could publish an entire anthology of poems I know by heart, several hundreds" "and I got that from my father, more inherited than acquired by learning are you still learning poems by heart?" "I still do" "I think it's an excellent habit who were your role models in your youth?" "which figures of history filled you with enthusiasm?" "in my youth, no, it wasn't my youth any longer more the early years of manhood" "I studied extensively a German politician and writer Friedrich von Gentz [1764-1832] you wrote your first book about him." "was he a role model for you?" "not in every respect he wasn't without fault not that I myself am without fault either he was a bit, I don't mean corrupt, but he took money wherever he could get it and he wasn't exactly a liberal" "neither am I, at least, not through and through in short, he is the writer from whom I learned most about politics and whose style I've also imitated sometimes consciously?" "yes, consciously" "I believe a writer must have a master against whom he can exercise himself" "I've read several, I've studied Hegel a lot thank God I'm not heavily influenced by his style" "I've loved other poets and writers, like Heine, who was totally different" "Görres [Guido, 1805-1852] but Gentz is the one from whom I believe I've learned most but then there were, I can't say role models, because I didn't dream of being able to imitate them" "but figures who fascinated me in certain periods of my life, they were:" "the very first, when I was 9 years old was Wallenstein and I'd like to get back to him in my advanced years" " I've heard you'd like to write his scientific biography" " I'd like to but this project is literally 45 years old could you explain, why Wallenstein of all men?" "I couldn't that was love at first sight" "I read Schiller's History of the 30-Years-War and as soon as I got to Wallenstein I started trembling from then on I was hooked these are strange encounters you just said you weren't a liberal on all points that seems to be true" "because in your latest historical and contemporary critical studies the reader senses a tendency towards the conservative you recently said in a lecture, quote:" "without ties, without loyalty, driven only by economic interests no society can endure and in this context, with obvious sympathy, you mentioned the binding and stylistically leading role of the nobility and other conservative social forces do try to sketch the reasonable conservatism you're professing" "this sounds like a doctorate examination" "I don't believe too much in "isms"" " you dislike ideologies?" " yes and therefore also the conservatives, in sofar as it's an "ism"" "and insofar as its representatives claim that only they know it all" "I don't like it most of the time, the representative of every "ism", be it the conservatives or the liberal democrats or socialist if fact, all the good qualities, the ability to act right" "they claim it all for themselves, they say, we're the ones who always get it right anyone could say this but it seems sensible to me, all the same certain inclinations of thinking, certain fundamental assessments of human activity" "to describe them as conservative that would be a love of the past and the respect of the past in the present to refrain from exterminating it where it isn't absolutely necessary out of vital necessities that's one aspect" "then, skepticism not cynicism but a certain measured pessimism towards mankind and its busy activities so a refusal to believe in the reliable goodness and reason of mankind and therefore the appraisal of having ties even if they be irrational" "as long as they give ties to mankind and offer him a moral and spiritual home that seems to be a conservative attitude have you always been a conservative, even when you were a student who tended towards the left?" "or what made you turn conservative?" "probably, temperament and studying of history studying certain writers both" "I'm perfectly capable of voting for the Social Democrats today, by the way and that wouldn't be a contradiction with certain conservative tendencies of mine at least, I didn't see it that way in 1932 or 1939" "why didn't you stick to philosophy but became a historian?" "because I thought I wouldn't be able to become a creative philosopher because I didn't feel I had that ingenium in me and because a mere history of philosophy and related fields didn't satisfy me but I'd like to believe that a bit of philosophy can be detected in my historical writings" "As to myself, I find a lot of philosophy in history and its problems" "I'd say, also in your own writings are you a moralist, Herr Professor?" "you once wrote: only a fool could refuse to recognize the necessity of moral categories only a fool could do this what are in your eyes the moral categories the public needs?" "well, I wasn't prepared for this question again, an inexhaustible ..." "I'd like to state that you weren't prepared for any of my question very well, that's true, but the other questions were biographical and I could answer them more or less off the cuff well" "I do know that politics has always been, at least partly, a dirty business and that it'll always remain such that even men of state with decidedly moral standards often didn't refrain from compromises with their political opponents and couldn't avoid them" "about the business of politics I have no illusions" "I would think like a pupil of Immanuel Kant politics will never be a spotlessly clean affair but it ought be like it, it has to be like it even though it can never be, because man has been carved from crooked wood" "which again is a conservative way of thinking now in human relations, everything depends on degrees a bit immorality cheating the people just a little bit make compromises or exercise a bit of violence in the past that used to be possible in politics" "but some men went very far with that much too far and this experience has forced us all to rethink the moral basis of politics that murder is bad, and telling lies and oppression and so forth we all agree on that" "this leads me to a point abut which you've been severely criticized lately in the context of the possibility of carrying morals into politics while acknowledging at the same time that politics up to a certain degree has to be a dirty business" "people have occasionally criticized you when you said" "German will have to recognize the changes in Eastern Europe, including her own new borders, being what they are:" "as a fact when you said that, eg. the recognition of today's Oder-Neiße line you've been criticized that not the politicians you admonish because they cling to illusions, are the illusionists, but you yourself are one" "because you've said that the premature recognition of our Eastern borders was politically sensible and useful" "I've two questions on that, Herr Professor" "Generally speaking, how did you reach this conclusion, regarding the Eastern borders?" "why do you think the recognition would be sensible" " well - as a moralist?" "no." "at any rate, not exclusively as a moralist during the war, I was hoping for a reasonable peace the opposite of a revengeful peace perhaps you've noticed it perusing my book even by book on the old Gentz was written for that purpose" "I wanted to demonstrate how, after such a catastrophe, to make a lasting peace with the guilty defeated state, pacifying all sides that was a truly different period with truly different people yes, but anyway, that was the book's purpose" "but from my extremely humble and powerless sphere" "I tried to talk reason at the time but I realized very soon that it wouldn't end that way and then I saw that backlash, partly elementary, partly concocted by the cabinets, an act of revenge the expulsion of all Germans from those areas" "at the time I thought, out of something bad came something bad and out of this bad can only come new bad that was my assessment at the time by now, things have been consolidated a bit, on the one hand, we've had the incredible successes of West Germany" "on the other hand, we've seen the rebuilding, the re-population of those areas by the Poles, this is an accomplished fact and when you think clearly about it, you must ask yourself, and what's going to become of all that" "that's all I've been questioning my statements have often been coarsened or simplified, the way it's being done in politics" "I'm not at all happy about this solution," "I found it terrible when it happened even today I'm searching for the restoration of lawful rights for both sides meaning, I'd welcome it if the other side too could offer some reconciliatory gestures but they'd never do this as long as the [West] Germans insist on the borders of 1937" "I've always said that we must recognize the accomplished facts as a given historical basis certain changes, regarding Bohemia wouldn't exclude it the 2nd question in that context you've often been criticized of being too remote from so-called "Realpolitik"" "please tell me, Herr Professor Golo Mann are there positions that should be upheld, even against the needs of the alleged Realpolitik?" "is there a way, despite everything you said about politics' dirty business, to a foreign policy that is based on morals or is this just a sweet dream?" "is it a luxury the historian can afford, but not the politician?" "well today it's like this:" "a foreign policy based on morals meaning, a foreign policy which tries to pacify its own legal rights, its own life necessities with those of its opponent that's in a way at the same time a party in the struggle, and above the parties" "it has become a practical necessity because all former foreign policy that only fought for its own party, passionately, blindly that always led to war, because war was already inherent, as ultima ratio but war, full-blown war is no longer possible in Europe" "consequently, the political skills of a Bismarck, a certain German writer advises us to return to Bismarck to send Bismarck to Bonn, you know what book I'm alluding to" " Stöffens ?" " those skills are outdated now because war is no longer possible, because war can no longer solve anything consequently, we must try out something else consequently, we must come to a genuine peace with those people one way or another" "and they too must want it and I have no illusions about the Poles and Czechs I've been accused of occasionally" "I know too well that they're fervent nationalists behind the curtain of communism and the more liberated from Moscow they get the more liberated they'll be in their nationalism" "I know that only too well isn't it, despite such adversities the politician's duty to set himself lofty aims even if the present conditions are against it?" "Would you say in this context that De Gaulle is such a politician?" "I'd say that." "but De Gaulle, like every great statesman, and on the whole, I consider De Gaulle to be a very great statesman he knows that the great aim, even the illusionary that is contained all every great politics" "has to be combined with an extremely realistic assessment of things just think of the way he evacuated Algeria and think of the way he rates the German question today he rates it so realistically that he's being praised at the same time in Bonn, in Warsaw and in Peking" "that's a masterful stroke again, generally speaking do the politicians have the duty to set themselves aims that are greater than the present seems to permit?" "yes." "I believe that but they must carry the spark of realism inside themselves there is no safe recipe it must contain both elements let's take the foundation of the German Empire in 1862 it was an extremely difficult affair, when Bismarck started to tackle it" "But Bismarck, at the time, not later, when his work became unidealistic, intransparent but in those few early years he knew to combine aim and realism in a great way let's get back to Golo Mann's exterior portrait" "Herr Professor in 1933, you'd just received your doctorate the year before the Mann family went into emigration this step at first didn't seem imperative but which was, gradually, developed by your father Thomas Mann, into a resolute commitment against National-Socialist rule" "your own emigration, Herr Professor, led you through France, where you worked as a teacher, via Switzerland, where you contributed to the journal "Maß und Wert"" "to America, where you taught history at a Californian college, till you joined the American army, the decision to emigrate how did you yourself make up your mind?" "did you just follow your father?" "or were there reasons of your own?" "mainly, yes during winter and spring 1933 I was deeply unhappy in Germany lonely, desperate" "I felt like Cassandra in Schiller's poem desperate amidst the jubilation that reigned in the streets at the time" "I shall never forget this:" "the jubilation for the triumph of powers that I thought were evil and I've never completely gotten over that experience, by the way but I stayed for another six months in Germany, after my parents had left then friends sent me to the South of France" "in order to convince my father to return and at first, I was eager to fulfill that commission but in the atmosphere abroad my commission and my desire to fulfill it melted away very fast when you were still in Germany, before you departed on your journey" "if your father had returned, did you hope it would have any political effect?" "did you have that illusion?" "well, at the time I didn't really assess all that in detail no, not at all any political hopes but I knew and saw for myself how terribly hard the emigration was for him and I thought, if he got back to his beautiful home in Munich" "working peacefully in the country of his native language etc." "that it would be best for him and he himself hesitated for two years the final decision not to go back, he made that only in 1935 if I'm not mistaken you yourself didn't hesitate that long?" "not, not anymore at first, I didn't want to leave the country, then I got out" "I was, with my family, the "clan" as my late brother-in-law used to call us" "I was washed out with them, so to speak" "I would have to cut myself off forever from all my relatives, if I had stayed in Germany consequently, I followed them but once I was abroad, and looked at things from abroad and learned from foreign sources what was happening in Germany" "then I resolved not to return as long as Hitler was in power and I became a voluntary emigrant what I wasn't in the beginning without ever believing that emigration could achieve much, politically speaking right from the start, I was extremely pessimistic about that" "and occasionally I published something on that that's correct, and there are essays of yours from the '30s where you, considering your situation at the time displayed a lot of sympathy for Germany, not for the National-Socialists" "but for Germany's path through history a lot of sympathy were you homesick, Herr Professor?" "terribly homesick in times of crisis, when I believed the Nazi-regime would collapse" "I was virtually consumed by hopes for weeks I did nothing but read the papers especially during the Rheinland crisis, in 1936 after Hitler occupied the Rheinland when the French pretended for a few days that they'd oppose it" "and I thought, now Hitler will be overturned and I'll be in Munich in a week it went that far for six, seven years I kept on circling around Germany always near the German border" "France, Switzerland, Bohemia explain this home-sickness if you can what was the reason?" "the language?" "yes, the language and because I didn't know anything else maybe you don't even know anymore, being of a new generation how provincial our education had been at the time, in Germany even in your father's home?" "basically, there too" "I entered the Non-German Europe without any substantial knowledge of foreign languages without knowing any other country, be it France, even be it Switzerland, England" "I only knew Germany and I couldn't imagine myself without Germany the love for Germany, did you always feel it?" "yes, but sometimes" "I won't deny it, mingled with the opposite at certain times all the same, you have such an inclination, one comes to this conclusion by reading your historical studies" ""understanding much, forgiving much" is this true?" "I think it is if too much, I won't decide on this is there a danger, a blurring of positions if you relativize too much?" "the danger is there but writing history is always a tightrope walk you're always in danger to fall off, to the one side or the other in 1940 you left Switzerland and returned to France to fight for the French Army" "it didn't go that far, instead you were interned in a camp in France from which you got to America, by several detours but the decision to take up arms and fight against the Germany of 1940 what did that decision mean to you, what had to precede it?" "one must differentiate between the sentimental situation and theory emotionally speaking, it was like this that I was deeply unhappy in Switzerland after the war broke out because Switzerland had turned itself into an hedgehog they were totally mobilized all my acquaintances and friends were drafted into the army or did some patriotic duty" "what was potentielly against Hitler, Switzerland expected to be attacked daily, hourly and I was excluded from that" "I was barely tolerated, but excluded it went so far, when I was on the Rigi and old granny stepped up to me and asked:" ""why aren't you on duty?" I couldn't stand it and by the way, I was once arrested as a German spy as German parachutist" "I just couldn't stand it" "I wanted to join in and since I couldn't in Switzerland and I heard it would be possible in France that was the one side of the matter and perhaps the decisive one since we're all made from flesh and blood" "but in my thoughts I'd justify myself like this:" "Hitler was the bad guy a devilish power but Hitler's power was the German Army one couldn't remove Hitler without defeating the German Army and wishing that the German Army would be defeated but saying that one cannot assist in person because one was born a German" "I would have thought that wrong so, it was a Quixoterie, if you like, but I don't regret it you don't have to justify your attitude you've returned to Germany in the late 50s, Herr Professor" "first for a guest professorship at the University of Münster then as full professor for Political Sciences at the Technical University in Stuttgart you gave up that professorship you are, as one occasionally hears, searching for a small flat in Munich, but that's not sure" "your residence is Kilchberg near Zürich where your father spent the last years of his life are you wary of taking root in Germany?" "no, not that but speaking frankly" "I'd like to have one foot in Germany, and one foot somewhere else when one has been driven around in the world as long as we were what I deplore what wasn't sung to me in my cradle" "because I was basically born as somebody provincial but once this happened to me, whether I liked it or not then you become wary to tie yourself totally to one place" "I'd really like to be in Germany but not entirely, not lock, stock and barrel" "Is this wariness only against Germany, or against taking root in general?" "against taking root in general for a time, I tried very hard to take root in America and I have many reasons to be grateful to the Americans but I couldn't make it" "I couldn't make it anywhere, in fact partly because I was a victim of the times and this has to do with the radical and fast change of things" "I could imagine, even Germans who had always stayed in Germany are feeling estranged with many things we have today, and cannot avoid" "I'm leading up to the famous word "alienation" that I don't like but you know what I'm alluding to this doesn't apply solely to returning emigrants it applies to all of us we already spoke about it, Herr Professor, that the political manners in Germany, in certain circles, might be running wild again" "let me ask from the opposite side as my last question, if you permit has the Federal Republic, according to your views, developed political attitudes that might prevent lapses into unfortunate German crampings in politics and which attitudes would those be?" "quite a lot ties to Western Europe and America an openness towards the world, Western and Southern and Northern Europe and America practically speaking, an urge for travelling felt by nearly all the people which would make impossible the provincial, withdrawn stubbornness as represented by early Hitlerism" "when young people, as apprentices or gymnasium pupils visit France or Sicily or England strike up acquaintances and friendships in those countries then a repetition of those evil things would seem - not impossible, one should never say impossible" "but to be rendered very difficult, it would surely be a stronghold against it and the same applies to the great economic innovations applies to the European Union which shall certainly become a political attitude for the merchant or industrialist" "this is not just a dead apparatus but postulates political attitudes and develops political attitudes and I also think that in Germany and among Germans people are much more relaxed than they were in my youth and that the political parties, struggling for power" "treat each other with much more fairness than they did in my youth what's happening now is, on the whole not worse than what's happening in, say, America and this is part of democratic politics but the way trade unionists, industrialists, people of the SPD and CDU are sitting down at the same table today [social democrats and conservatives]" "this too is new, and this too is an achievement of the Federal Republic" "Engl. subtitles: serdar202@KG 2016"