Kultur und Politik – Deutsche Geschichten

For a long time, Germans, including intellectuals such as Thomas Mann, Gottfried Benn or Theodor W. Adorno, believed in the superiority of culture over politics and in their own superiority over their neighbours. Only after liberation from National Socialism did a democratic constitution develop whose authority was accepted and which still shapes the country’s national identity today. Wolf Lepenies looks at the relationship between culture and politics between the 18th and 20th centuries, which were so precarious in Germany, and thus puts the catastrophes and dreams of the modern era in a new light.