Vansittartism Revisited: Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, and the Threat of World War (The Ida Herz Lecture).

This essay examines the ramifications of the debate about Vansittart's indictment of Germany in his wartime pamphlet, Black Record, among the German exiles in the United States. The issue of Vansittartism emerged as a particularly incendiary factor in the longstanding and deep rift between Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht. The influence of Vansittartism on Thomas Mann also led to the failure of the Californian exiles to speak in one voice regarding the future of Germany, as they struggled to draft a political manifesto in support of a similar statement coming from German exiles and captured generals in Stalin's Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]