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An Episode of Cultural Politics during the Weimar Republic: Aby Warburg and Thomas Mann Exchange a Letter Each
Author(s) -
SchoellGlass Charlotte
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
art history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8365
pISSN - 0141-6790
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8365.00094
Subject(s) - politics , tragedy (event) , art history , german , character (mathematics) , history , art , humanities , law , literature , political science , archaeology , geometry , mathematics
In this article an exchange of letters is published between Aby Warburg in Hamburg and Thomas Mann, in Munich in 1926, and between the exiles Gertrud Bing in England and Thomas Mann in Pacific Palisades, California, in 1941. These letters are placed in their respective contexts: the activities of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg in Hamburg, later the Warburg Institute, Thomas Mann’s work (particularly the first Joseph novel and Doktor Faustus ), and their specific political backgrounds. At best episodic in character, these exchanges are indicative of the tragedy of German ‘cultural politics’ of the 1920s.