Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T18:06:37.088Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Thomas Mann and Martin Heidegger

Two Distinct Paths of the “Conservative Revolution” in Germany

from III - Heidegger and Literary Works

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

By
Ingo Farin
Edited by
Andrew Benjamin
Andrew Benjamin
Affiliation:
Monash University, Victoria
Get access

Summary

After an introductory discussion about Mann’s and Heidegger’s direct comments about each other, I explore how Mann and Heidegger are situated with regard to what has been called conservative revolution. Mann not only helped to gain currency for the concept of conservative revolution, but he also defended it against what he considered its right-wing and/or fascist spoilers, before eventually providing a thorough criticism of it in his Doctor Faustus. Heidegger’s recently published Black Notebooks show that in the 1930s and 1940s his thought veered towards the direction of conservative revolution, as described in Mann’s novel. To complement the understanding of conservative revolution, I also draw on Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s seminal speech from 1927, which helps to determine how much Heidegger’s philosophy partakes of the spirit of conservative revolution in Germany.

Keywords

Martin HeideggerThomas MannHugo von HofmannsthalBlack Notebooksanti-culturalismmythbarbarismpoetryBeing
Type
Chapter
Information
Heidegger and Literary Studies , pp. 278 - 318
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arendt, Hannah, and Heidegger, Martin. Briefe 1925–1975. Edited by Ludz, Ursula. 3rd ed. Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 2002.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah, and Heidegger, Martin. Letters 1925–1975. Translated by Shields, Andrew. Edited by Ludz, Ursula. New York: Harcourt, 2004.Google Scholar
Breuer, Stefan. “Die konservative Revolution – Kritik eines Mythos,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 31, no. 4 (1990): 585–607.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. “Différance.” In Derrida, Jacques, Margins of Philosophy, translated by Bass, Alan, 3–27. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques, Gadamer, Hans-Georg, and Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe. Heidegger, Philosophy, and Politics: The Heidelberg Conference. Translated by Fort, Jeff. Edited by Calle-Gruber, Mireille. New York: Fordham, 2016.Google Scholar
Dethloff, Klaus. “Hugo von Hofmannsthal und eine conservative Revolution,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 92 (2018): 531–55.Google Scholar
Dostoievsky, Feodor. The Diary of a Writer. Translated and annotated by Brasol, Boris, vol. I. London: Cassell, 1949.Google Scholar
Farin, Ingo. “The Concept of Life in Heidegger’s Early Lecture Courses.” In Heideggers Hermeneutik der Faktizität, edited by Camilleri, Sylvain, Fagniez, Guillaume, and Gauvry, Charlotte, 79–98. Nordhausen: Traugott Bautz, 2018.Google Scholar
Held, Klaus. “Heidegger und das Politische.” In Heidegger und der Antisemitismus: Positionen im Widerstreit, edited by Homolka, Walter and Heidegger, Arnulf, 257–68. Freiburg: Herder, 2016.Google Scholar
Hölderlin, Friedrich. “Hyperion.” In Grosse Stuttgarter Ausgabe, edited by Beissner, Friedrich, vol. III. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1957.Google Scholar
Kiesel, Helmuth. Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Literatur 1918–1933. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2017.Google Scholar
Löwith, Karl. “My Last Meeting with Heidegger in Rome.” In The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader, edited by Wolin, Richard, 140–43. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Malpas, Jeff. In the Brightness of Place: Topological Thinking in and After Heidegger. Albany: Suny Press, 2022.Google Scholar
Malpas, Jeff. Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2018.Google Scholar
Malpas, Jeff. Rethinking Dwelling: Heidegger, Place, Architecture. London: Bloomsbury, 2023.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas. Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen. Frankfurt: Fischer, 2015.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas. “Das Deutscheste: Thomas Mann an Paul Tillich, 13. April 1944.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 20, 2002, 45.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas. Doktor Faustus. In Grosse kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe, edited by Wimmer, Ruprecht and Stachorski, Stephan, vol. X.1. Frankfurt: Fischer, 2007.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas. “Doktor Faustus.” Kommentar. In Grosse kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe, edited by Wimmer, Ruprecht and Stachorski, Stephan, vol. X.2. Frankfurt: Fischer, 2007.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas. “Russische Anthologie.” In Essays II. In Große kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe, edited by Kurzke, Hermann, Stoupy, Joëlle, Bender, Jörn, and Stachorski, Stephan, vol. XV.1, 333–72. Frankfurt: Fischer, 2002.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas. Tonio Kröger. Project Gutenberg, 2007. www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23313.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas. “Von deutscher Republik.” In Essays II. In Große kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe, edited by Kurzke, Hermann, Stoupy, Joëlle, Bender, Jörn, and Stachorski, Stephan, vol. XV.1, 514–59. Frankfurt: Fischer, 2002.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas. “Deutschland und die Deutschen.” In Essays V, edited by Kurzke, Hermann and Stachorski, Stephan, 260–281. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1996.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas. “Vorwort zum ersten Jahrgang von ‘Mass und Wert.’” In Politische Schriften und Reden, edited by Bürgin, Hans, vol. II, 348–58. Hamburg: Fischer, 1968.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. Selected Writings. Edited by Simon, Lawrence H.. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Andrew J. The Fourfold: Reading the Late Heidegger. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mohler, Armin. Die konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1972.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Die fröhliche Wissenschaft.” In Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke in drei Bänden, edited by Schlechta, Karl, vol. II, 7–274. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1973.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Die Geburt der Tragödie.” In Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke in drei Bänden, edited by Schlechta, Karl, vol. I, 7–134. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1973.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Menschliches, allzumenschliches: Ein Buch für freie Geister.” In Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke in drei Bänden, edited by Schlechta, Karl, vol. I, 435–1009. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1973.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen. In Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke in drei Bänden, edited by Schlechta, Karl, vol. I, 135–434. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1973.Google Scholar
Ottmann, Henning. “Die konservative Revolution (Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Thomas Mann, Oswald Spengler, Ernst Jünger).” In Geschichte des politischen Denkens, edited by Ottmann, Henning, 143–214. Berlin: Springer, 2010.Google Scholar
Rosenstock, Bruce. “The Flight of the Gods: A Comparative Study of Martin Heidegger and Oskar Goldberg,” New German Critique 46, no. 137 (2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Steven B. Modernity and Its Discontents: Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.Google Scholar
Taubes, Jacob. “Vom Kult zur Kultur.” In Vom Kult zur Kultur, edited by Assmann, Aleida and Assmann, Jan, 269–82. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2007.Google Scholar
Thaning, Morten S. “Faustian Intellectualism: Reading the Considerations in the Perspective of Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics and Mann’s Doctor Faustus.” In Heideggers “Schwarze Hefte” im Kontext: Geschichte, Politik, Ideologie, edited by Espinet, David, Figal, Günter, Keiling, Tobias, and Mirković, Nikola, 37–67. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018.Google Scholar
von Hofmannsthal, Hugo. Das Schrifttum als geistiger Raum der Nation. Munich: Verlag der Bremer Presse, 1927.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.Google Scholar
Zantke, Michael. “Thomas Mann und die Versuchung der ‘konservativen Revolution.’” In Thomas Manns “Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen” nach 100 Jahren: Neue Perspektiven und Kontexte, edited by Schilling, Erik, 169–81. Frankfurt: Klostermann, 2018.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×