LISTEN GERMANY

From October 1940 to August 1942, Thomas Mann has broadcast -- first through someone else, than by shortwave -- to listeners braving the danger of discovery in Germany. Through these fearless messages he has revealed to his listeners the agony of a man who loves Germany, who has faith in the ultimate triumph of Germany's captive millions over their tyrants, and who is determined to get through to them the facts their government is distorting or concealing, facts of brutality, of beastliness, of the anger of the civilised world against them, of the madness of the leaders, of the justifiable condemnation of the German people for upholding them. One gets the pattern of events highspotted -- but it is primarily a pleading for action before it is too late. This differs from Listen , the Dorothy Thompson broadcasts by short wave, in that she is deliberately organizing her material as constructive propaganda, presenting the cause of democracies to the intelligent German listener, while Thomas Mann is pleading, broken-heartedly, vigorously, at times angrily, for the Germans to begin at once a process of reeducation, last they perish from the earth. The Thompson book has a message for the unthinking American, defining the things for which he is fighting; Mann is thinking only of his own people, their name and fame tomorrow.