“Democracy wants to win!” This famous Thomas Mann quote from 1938 is also of great importance for his grandson, Frido Mann: “Democracy will win – Confessions of a world citizen” is the name of the current book by the Munich writer. His commitment to dialogue, togetherness, plurality and freedom is remarkable – and also shapes his life this week.
Monday: Strengthen democracy
The musical Pestalozzi-Gymnasium “without racism and with courage” in Munich invited me to talk to the students of class 9c about the topic “What is democracy?” to speak. The Weimar Republic and the time of National Socialism were the last subjects to be dealt with in politics lessons there. I will make it plausible to my young listeners that democracy only works if people fully identify with it and consistently support it. In this sense, at the end of the lesson, the answer to the opening question will be the formula: we are democracy. The consistent train of thought there gave me the idea of writing a short and concise brochure on this number one topic for as many higher schools in the German-speaking area as possible.
Tuesday: Explore the Allgäu
Beautiful Allgäu: View from Oberstaufen in southern direction.
(Photo: Doris Burger/dpa)
On my train journey through the Allgäu from Munich to Lake Constance, I feel like I always do today. In view of the idyllic landscape from Kempten, which has been spared from the global extinction of nature and species, my heart tightens with happiness, but at the same time with pain. The innocence of the snow-covered Alps, the clarity of the self-confidently sparkling lakes, the powerful green of the forests and fields around Immenstadt, Oberstaufen and Sonthofen, especially in summer. There are still no traces of karstification of the soil and no damage caused by torrential rain. For how much longer?
Wednesday: days in the monastery
Today we meet in the sponsoring association world monastery at the Bodensee. For years we have been gathering insights into authentic and empathetic dialogues between clergy and ordained people from a wide variety of religions. We definitely want to carry this knowledge even deeper into our society. The purely strategic appeals and empty phrases of many politicians irritate me every day. Only in a minority do their speeches come across as genuine and committed right away. Certainly our increasingly endangered togetherness would become more peaceful and closer through more authentic and empathetic dialogues. Above all, it would help strengthen our vigilance and resistance to the increasingly rampant racism, hatred and extremist violence. Today we are considering how we can contribute even more comprehensively.
Thursday: Learn to read
André Eisermann and Ben Becker in Joseph Vilsmaier’s 1995 film adaptation of “Schlafes Bruder”.
(Photo: picture alliance / dpa)
On my way back to Munich, I continue reading Robert Schneider’s award-winning and widely translated novel “Schlafes Bruder”. A disturbing but fascinating tale. The milieu of an Austrian mountain village in the early 19th century, characterized by inbreeding and double standards. On the one hand, I am fascinated by the central role of music as the engine of a life that has failed due to inner entanglements and compulsions, as well as the connection to the relationship between sleep and death in Greek mythology. The ramshackle descriptions are a shocking testimony to the unbelievable backwardness of remote areas in the middle of the age of enlightenment, revolution and social progress. A powerful and multifaceted outline that shows us the fragility and the depths of the human being and calls for patience, modesty and humility.
Friday: Stay optimistic
I’ve been looking forward to this evening’s transatlantic video conference organized by the Section of German Studies at California State University in Long Beach near Los Angeles. Several other universities will be added across the USA to the east coast. The main theme, as during my lecture tour of the USA more than two years ago, is the importance of dialogue in the service of our democracy, which is in crisis around the world and especially in the USA. And once again, the clever, committed and creative contributions of the students who have conjured up my screen from all over the world inspire me. They give me back my confidence that all is not lost, as the media sometimes make us believe, sensationalizing. Pessimism is more popular than optimism.
Saturday: Marvel at the Literature House
Hannah Arendt (undated archive photo).
(Photo: UPI/picture alliance/dpa)
Today I am visiting the exhibition in the Munich Literature House, which is well worth seeing: “The Dare of the Public. Hannah Arendt and the 20th Century”, taken from the German Historical Museum in Berlin. The exhibition shows how Arendt brought us closer to the ideal and reality of the “ruler-free democracy” enshrined in the US Constitution. I encounter a fascinating collage of enlightening documents, provocatively witty quotes from Arendt’s political writings and from the private photos and personal belongings of this radical pioneer and fighter for freedom, plurality and dialogical cohesion.
Sunday: Feasting in Munich
Preference for Bavarian, for example white sausage with pretzel and mustard.
(Photo: Johannes Simon)
It is said that love goes through the stomach. This also applies to me in Munich, which, as the lost home of my ancestors, has long since become my permanent home. This also includes the preference for certain traditional Bavarian specialties. On my menu this lunchtime is the white sausage invented on Shrove Sunday 1857 in the “Zum Eternal Light” inn on Marienplatz, made from finely chopped veal, pork loin and spices. Of course, the heavily salty pretzel, which is part of my daily Munich bread, should not be missing.
His interests are diverse and they are reflected in a life path with many junctions. Frido Mann, born in 1940 as Thomas Mann’s grandson into a famous family of artists, studied music as well as theology and psychology and, among other things, headed an institute for medical psychology. He has written seven novels and numerous non-fiction books. Here, too, the spectrum of the writer, who has lived in Munich for ten years, is broad – Frido Mann is just as interested in family history as, for example, quantum physics or the topic of democracy.
(Editor’s note: the guest author has chosen to use the gender colon. Since this is a personal article, this was adopted contrary to the usual SZ regulation.)