[Rarebooks] FS: Superb Thomas Mann Letter to Louis B. Mayer of MGM on Hiring Refugee Writers

[Charles Agvent]

MANN, Thomas. TYPED LETTER SIGNED (TLS) to Louis B. Mayer of MGM. 
Pacific Palisades, CA, 5 October 1941. A superb three-page TYPED LETTER 
SIGNED (TLS) on Mann's personal stationery to Louis B. Mayer, president 
of MGM Studios, commending Mayer for the Studios' contracting of 5 
refugee writers in order to allow their immigration to the United States 
to escape death during World War II: Alfred Doeblin, Alfred Polgar, Hans 
Lustig, Wilhelm Speyer, and Walter Mehring. In part: "It is not my 
custom to interfere in matters which do not directly concern me; however 
I should like to take the liberty of presenting to you with confidence a 
matter which is close to my heart, and which is a source of worry for me 
as well many other well-meaning people. It was one of the finest and 
most meritorious deeds during these turbulent years which destroyed so 
much life and happiness, a deed which will certainly never be forgotten 
when the fantastic tale of the emigration of European culture is told, 
that two great Motion Picture Companies in Hollywood decided to give 
emergency contracts to a number of German and Austrian writers which not 
only enabled these men to immigrate into the United States, but also 
secured, if only for a certain time, a basis for their existence." Mann 
spends most of the letter arguing for the rehiring of these writers for 
another year, not "for unproductive and merely humanitarian purposes," 
but because "the value of the agreement for the Company has already been 
demonstrated." An important letter revealing Mann's solidarity with 
refugee writers during the rise of Fascism in Europe. Mann himself 
emigrated to the United States in 1939 following the German occupation 
of Czechoslovakia. The outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939 
prompted Mann to offer anti-Nazi speeches (in German) to the German 
people via the BBC, and in October 1940 Mann began monthly eight-minute 
broadcasts, recorded in the U.S. and broadcast by the BBC to Germany, 
condemning Hitler and the Nazis. In doing so, he was one of the few 
publicly active opponents of Nazism among German expatriates in the 
United States. Light creases from mailing. Near Fine. (#020957)        
$2,000

https://www.charlesagvent.com/pages/books/020957/thomas-mann/typed-letter-signed-tls-to-louis-b-mayer-of-mgm

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