Wort und Tat : Positionen und Projektionen des Intellektuellen im antifaschistischen Widerstand : eine Studie zum Exilwerk von Klaus Mann / présentée par Spaska Siderova.

This thesis shall endeavour to explore a topic on which there has been little research to date: The positions and projections of German intellectuals in the anti-fascist resistance movement. Klaus Mann is particularly suited to such an analysis, which assures the originality of this project. Too often, his texts have only been viewed through an ideological or political lens, which does not do justice to their polysemy, or the variety of meanings, which stem from their very ambiguity. The purpose of this study is to expose the true complexity of his work—through a literary lens. Given that the works of Klaus Mann represent only a fraction of the whole of anti-fascist discourse, an analysis of this discourse is a useful tool in studying linguistic forms while considering the interaction between the written word and history, society, author and the reader. In this spirit, this paper adopts the philosophy of discourse as process rather than discourse as product, as suggested by Gillian Brown and George Yule in Discourse Analysis (Cambridge University Press, 1993). From this perspective, the text is defined as a ‘verbal record of a communicative act’, which includes the context of the moment in which it is made and in which it is received. This view allows one to project and express on different levels the dichotomy between the aestheticism and littérature engagée, art and propaganda, pacifism and heroism. This thesis adopts the point of view that it is the author, the person at the centre of the communication process, who creates the structures of address and information, and who defines his topics and intentions. The paper undertakes a study of the works of Klaus Mann where the author, through various narrative processes becomes the object of the narration for the purpose of reconstructing or re-positioning himself. By analysing a vast spectrum of intellectual viewpoints on political discourse (from pro-nazi, nationalist, pacifist, humanist-cultural-political, marxist, to religious-mythical), which simultaneously cross three literary genres (autobiographical/correspondence-journalistic-fictional), this thesis endeavours to find an answer to this primary question: How could Klaus Mann, author-in-exile, continue his engagement with humanity during the dark times of Nazism? (Abstract shortened by UMI.)