The Turning Point

THIS autobiography of the son of Thomas Mann meets two essential tests of autobiography. It is the faithful mirror of an interesting personality, of a young German, a little precocious, a little immature, who wrote plays and criticisms, made a host of friends among the intellectuals of Berlin and Paris, London and New York, refused to accept the Nazi yoke, “harangued the Elks in Buffalo, the liberal intelligentsia in Boston, the Rotarians in Des Moines, the Friends in Philadelphia,” and started a short-lived literary magazine in this country. And it is also a reflection, lifelike and convincing and anecdotal, of Klaus Mann’s background, of the restless, neurotic Germany that fell a prey to Hitler, of the rather rootless liberal and radical writers and poets and playwrights of the Weimar Republic. Some of these committed suicide, without much reason, before Hitler came into power; many others killed themselves, for only too good reason, after the Nazi dictatorship clamped down the full weight of its terror.

There is also something of Thomas Mann in the book; one sees the rich, mellow personality of this great literary master first in Munich, then in exile near Zurich, and later at Princeton. The reader leaves Klaus Mann preparing to enlist in the American Army, eager to fight for the return of the civilized Europe which he appreciated so keenly, and of which he is an attractive product. W. H. C.