Thomas Mann’s Antifascist Radio Addresses, 1940–1945

First complete English translation of Mann's uncannily insightful wartime anti-Nazi radio addresses, once again urgently topical in the context of the current worldwide rise of anti-democratic movements. Upon Hitler's rise to power in 1933, the great German writer Thomas Mann, 1929 Nobel Prize laureate on the strength of his monumental novels Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain, chose exile, eventually moving to the United States in 1938. An early critic of National Socialism, he gave over 150 public lectures with titles such as "The Coming Victory of Democracy." From 1940 to 1945, he authored and narrated a series of anti-Nazi radio addresses that were broadcast to Germany by the BBC; German listeners risked severe punishment. Mann's radio addresses constitute his most sustained contribution to the Allied war effort. In them, he comments on the progress of the war, contrasts fascism with democracy, measures Hitler against Roosevelt, and counters German propaganda with international consensus, lies with facts. After initially encouraging the Germans to resist the Nazi regime, Mann prepares them for the consequences of defeat, but also instills hope in them for future reconciliation with the community of nations. Today, when democracy is again endangered in much of the world, Mann's antifascist radio addresses have once again acquired urgency. This edition presents for the first time English translations of all of Mann's 58 radio addresses, with a foreword by Mann's grandson Frido Mann, an introduction by leading Mann scholar Hans Rudolf Vaget, careful annotations and a selection of photographs.