Thomas Mann used a composer’s life as a symbol of Germany’s cultural decline

Evidence

By the time of their arrival in California, previous disagreements had been muted, and Mann became close friends with the two fellow emigres. During the forties Mann occasionally participated in Institut-sponsored seminars and lent his name to an Institut study of the help German gentiles had given to persecuted Jews, which was conducted in 1943 primarily through a survey in the Aufbau, the leading emigre newspaper. Increasingly occupied with an attempt to render the Nazi experience and its origins in a fictional form, Mann hit on the device of using the life and works of a composer as the symbolic equivalent of Germany’s cultural decline. Not unexpectedly, he was attracted to Adorno, with his unique background in both music and philosophy, as a source of information. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 588

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader question of how the Institute leveraged cultural influence in exile; also evokes Doktor Faustus, which the Mann-Adorno collaboration produced. — connects to: Adorno’s music theory was absorbed wholesale into Mann’s Doctor Faustus. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 590; Thomas Mann endorsed planned economy as the coming rational world order — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 502

Broader Connections

• Adorno’s music theory was absorbed wholesale into Mann’s Doctor Faustus. #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 590