Abstract

The German Enigma

This article focuses on the book "The Other Germany," by Erika and Klaus Mann. The German exiles living abroad today are curiously free from bitterness and loss of perspective in regard to their native land. On the contrary their sense of responsibility and their political conscience seem to have been stimulated, forcing them to deal honestly and constructively with their own and the world's most burning problems: with Nazism and the roads toward and away from it. The Manns have studied and analyzed the new Germany for years, but in their new book they build up a case for the defense of the "other Germany," the Germany which must be fitted into the historical perspective yet seems momentarily buried under the vast cruelty and barbarism of the present regime.