Lotte in Weimar: The Beloved Returns
First US edition
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| Author | Thomas Mann |
|---|---|
| Original title | Lotte in Weimar |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
| Publisher |
Gottfried Bermann Fischer () Secker & Warburg (UK) Knopf (US) |
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Publication date
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1939 |
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Published in English
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1940 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 342 (hardback edition) |
Lotte in Weimar: The Beloved Returns, otherwise known as Lotte in Weimar or The Beloved Returns, is a 1939 novel by Thomas Mann. It is a story written in the shadow of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; Mann developed the narrative almost as a response to Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, which is more than 150 years older than Lotte in Weimar. Lotte in Weimar was first published in English in 1940.
The Beloved Returns is the story of one of Goethe's old romantic interests, a real historical figure by the name of Charlotte Kestner née Buff, who has come to Weimar to see him again after more than 40 years of separation. Goethe had romanced Charlotte when they were young, but she had already been engaged (and then married) to another man whom she truly loved. Ultimately, the romance ended unconsummated; afterwards, Goethe wrote a fictional depiction of these events, with some artistic changes, and published it under the title The Sorrows of Young Werther—a still famous book, which brought early renown to Goethe. The real Charlotte became inadvertently and unwillingly famous, and remained so for the rest of her life to a certain degree.
Her return in some ways is due to her need to settle the "wrongs" done to her by Goethe in his creation of Werther; one of the underlying motifs in the story is the question of what sacrifices both a "genius" and the people around him/her must make to promote his/her creations, and whether or not Goethe (as the resident genius of Weimar) is too demanding of his supporters. Most of the novel is written as dialogues between Charlotte and other residents of Weimar, who give their own opinions on the issue of Goethe's genius. Only in the last third of the book, starting with the internal monologue in the seventh chapter, the reader is finally directly confronted with Goethe and what he himself thinks of the entire affair.
"Lotte in Weimar" also echoes in subtle ways Mann's and the world's concerns with German military aggression and social oppression.
On 27 July 1946 Hartley Shawcross, Chief Prosecutor for the UK at the Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals, at the end of his final argument, told the International Military Tribunal:
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