Language:
German
Year of publication:
1990
Titel der Quelle:
Bulletin des Leo Baeck Instituts
Angaben zur Quelle:
86 (1990) 67-81
Keywords:
Mann, Heinrich,
;
Antisemitism in literature
Abstract:
Argues that antisemitism as a basic element in the character of the anti-hero Diederich Hessling in Mann's novel has not been sufficiently recognized. Three antisemitic incidents mark Hessling's story: the humiliation of a Jewish pupil, which made him the school hero; the enthusiasm for Stöcker's antisemitic Christian Social ideology; and the prosecution of his competitor Lauer, denounced by Hessling for insulting the Emperor by insinuating that the royal house is "verjudet" through intermarriage. That this remark is made by a liberal shows the all-pervasiveness of antisemitism. The passive witness Cohn and the antisemitic Jewish prosecutor Jadassohn illustrate the self-hatred inculcated in the Jews. Mann was able to portray antisemitism vividly because in his youth he participated in an antisemitic journal, "Das zwanzigste Jahrhundert". After Hitler came to power, he warned that the Nazi attack on the Jews was an attack on the intellect and against moral sensibility.
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