About the decapitation of corpses – Reflections of Ernst Bloch’s Ungleichzeitigkeit in the novels of Klaus Mann (including a glimpse into the present)

With the help of the termUngleichzeitigkeit the German philosopher Ernst Bloch tried to comprehend the emergence ofNazism. Blochwas not satisfiedwith the typicalMarxist explanation that fascism can simply be understood as capitalism’s last hope. Instead, he focused on dreams, wishes, and worldviews which seemed to be misplaced in the present and, thus, were ignored or considered as reactionary by the political left. Bloch demonstrated how the Nazis were able to exploit theseUngleichzeitigkeiten by addressing them in their propaganda. The objective of this paper is not only to introduce the notion ofUngleichzeitigkeit in its historical context but also to show in which ways this political term is reflected in the novels of Klaus Mann. As Mann, at first glance, may seem as a rather unexpected candidate for such an endeavour, the text starts with outlining the relationship Bloch and Mann had during the 1920s and 1930s. The paper ends with a brief look at today’sUngleichzeitigkeiten and their reflections in contemporary German literature.


An unlikely connection?
At first glance, the undertaking of applying a term which originates in the philosophy of Ernst Bloch to literary texts written by Klaus Mann may appear to be a fruitless endeavour. On the one hand, there is an unorthodox Marxist philosopher whose oeuvre -especially considering its core, the utopian thinking -is worldly oriented. Bloch was an advocate of what he called concrete utopias -that is, of conceptions of the future which are rooted in the possibilities reality has to offer. On the other hand, there is a highly lyrical young writer whose enthusiasm threw him from idea to idea, and for a long time none of these ideas demonstrated a deep understanding of or even an interest in the world that surrounded him. Reflecting on authors who influenced him the most in his youth (i.e. Nietzsche, Kleist, George), Klaus Mann, in his second autobiography Der Wendepunkt (The turning point) 1 , does not make any secret of his naiveté as a young adult concerning questions of society or politics. He clarifies that among his personal Gods of writers "the erotic-religious element dominates, whereas the social element is almost entirely neglected. Realism is hardly represented in my boy-Olympus" 2 (Mann 2006, 160). Mann was still in this phase of his intellectual development when he met Bloch for the first time in Paris in 1926 (Gekle 1985, 619). At that point, he knew (and admired) the philosopher for being the author of Geist der Utopie (Spirit of Utopia) -a book Bloch had published shortly after World War I. Highly expressionist in its language, it comes as little surprise that Mann was fascinated by Bloch's first major work. However, it is also not very astonishing that the young writer was not able to fully grasp all implications and intentions of the text. Particularly Bloch's hints towards a materialism with the principle of hope as its core (e.g. Bloch 1985f, 276-294, 411)that is, with matter which is not static but characterised by movement and thus open for worldly change as well as for the dreams of the people 3 -were lost on Mann. Obviously captivated by Bloch's language, he remarked the following about the philosopher's style of writing in an article, published about a year after both had met in Paris: "No materialism speaks in such a way" (Mann 1992a, 150). It would have been true had he written: Before Bloch, no materialism has ever spoken in such a way. In fact, in order to be truth- 1 The mere fact that Klaus Mann already wrote his second autobiography when he was in his mid-thirties (1941), depicts a huge difference to Bloch. Mann always drew inspiration from personal circumstances for his work, whereas Bloch rarely reflects directly on his life in his texts. Prominent exceptions are Geist, der sich erst bildet (Bloch 2007) and Gedenkbuch für Else Bloch-von Stritzki (Bloch 1985i). 2 If not signified otherwise, translations are provided by the author. 3 In Geist der Utopie, Bloch's materialism is limited to these hints. It is described in more detail in Bloch's later works, especially in Das Prinzip Hoffnung and in Das Materialismusproblem, seine Geschichte und Substanz. ful to itself, Bloch's materialism had to speak in the way it did because a changing world cannot be captured by a dry and clotted language.
All in all, Mann's enthusiasm alone was not enough to grasp the essence of the ideas of Geist der Utopie (Jens and Naumann 2011, 198). And although there is a noticeable change in Mann's perception of the world in general and of literature in particular during the late 1920s and 1930s -a change which lets him focus more on social issues -, the hiatus when it comes to fundamental principles of Bloch's philosophy remains in place. When he briefly mentions Bloch in Der Wendepunkt, which was written in exile during World War II, he introduces him as an author who is linked closely to the Malik-publishing house and -more importantly -he still assigns Bloch to orthodox Marxism (Mann 2006, 447). Mann explains that it is the elimination of every transcendental aspect that bothers him most about hard-line Marxism. Everything that goes beyond economics, everything that has to do with longing, desire, and, dreams is, according to Mann, suspicious among these thinkers; alpha and omega is the doctrine of Marx (Mann 2006, 452 However, what is also interesting about the passage in question from Mann's autobiography is that he claims to be in a friendly relationship with the philosopher (Mann 2006, 447). This cordiality was, in fact, mutual and it was based upon a shared char-  (Bloch 1985a, 622). He had been, as Bloch claims, among the "first friends" (Bloch 1985c, 642) of the philosopher's publications and he furthermore states to have been deeply moved by the fidelity Mann had, thus far, demonstrated towards Geist der Utopie (Bloch 1985d, 643). Regarding an opportunity to publish with Querido, Bloch's flatteries were not very successful -Erbschaft dieser Zeit first came out in Switzerland with Oprecht and Helbling -, but Mann at least complied with Bloch's request to write a review (Mann 1993a). Though the text, published in Mann's own periodical Die Sammlung, was very short, it still is noteworthy because Mann was one of only very few people who took notice of the book at all at that time (Dietschy 1988, 288). In their correspondence, Bloch repeatedly expressed his lack of understanding concerning the difficulties he had to face: "Nonsense of all kinds is printed; that is and always will be the case." As the following sentences illustrate, however, his self-confidence was not shattered at all: "A book of mine is not only made for the moment, but its name carries it and will carry it. One day, fifty books will be written about this book -but now it does not find a publisher. The affair is even more boring than it is sad and shameful" (Bloch 1985b, 628f). The more Bloch's incomprehension grew, the more Mann stood out as someone who was not only willing to help in matters of publishing but also picked up central ideas of Erbschaft dieser Zeit for his essays as well as for his literary works.
From the former he inherited the focus on matter without picking up a strictly mechanistic understanding of it; from the latter he inherited dialectics without giving in to Hegel's opinion that dialectical movement is nothing more than a mere, purely idealistic soliloquy of the Weltgeist.
In order to do so, the change in Mann's perception of the world was crucial. The more the Weimar Republic, this so often unappreciated backbone of his carefree youth in Munich and Berlin, was weakened, the more Mann's political consciousness was growing.
He describes himself as an author who gained more and more insight into his moral and political obligations, especially in the course of the 1930s (Mann 2006, 509). As time passed, the clear cut between passion, emotion, and human experiences on the one hand and the political and economic sphere on the other, which he had tended to maintain during the 1920s, became more and more blurry. This process went hand in hand with his perception of Nazism. From a spectacle, which stuck out because of its stupidity and could therefore never have been taken seriously (and he took for granted that everyone else perceived the Braunhemden in the same way), the Nazis evolved in Mann's worldview to the most dangerous threat not only for Germany and Europe but for the rest of the world as well. This judgment led to self-critical questions as to whether enough had been done by the youth in general and by himself in particular to defend the democracy they had grown up in (Mann 2006, 344). Furthermore, this assessment also called for answers to the question why the Germans had handed their fate over to the Nazis.
In order to find answers to these questions, Bloch's Erbschaft dieser Zeit was of great use for Mann. It offered an argumentation that went far beyond vulgar-Marxist explanations which understood the uprising of Nazism simply as the last straw for capitalism to grasp. Bloch focussed more on energies and forces that had been ignored by left-wing politicians and which were eventually exploited by German fascism. He understood that the Nazis had been able to use the longing of the youth for risk and danger, the anger within an increasingly pauperised middle-class, and the anti-capitalist opposition within the peasantry for their own political programme (Dietschy 1988, 9). They had made, as Bloch concisely put it, their prey among people who had become anxious and uneasy (Bloch 1985e, 19). Klaus Mann reflects on Bloch's ideas not only in his review of Erbschaft dieser Zeit but also in a number of essays and in his literary texts. These reflections not only include the failure of the political left to broaden its horizon and to overthink its blind trust in what they had considered to be the unavoidable laws of economics (Mann 1993a, 249. Mann 1993b but also Bloch's notion of Ungleichzeitigkeit 6 -a term that helps explain how the Nazis were able to get hold of the desires and dreams of the people and eventually brought them in line with their propaganda.

Ernst Bloch's notion of Ungleichzeitigkeit
The concept of Ungleichzeitigkeit, as outlined in Erbschaft dieser Zeit, is strongly connected to a Marxist understanding of history -that is, with historical materialism. Without going into too much detail here, it can be said that Marx saw history as a series of class struggles (slave vs. slaveholder in the ancient world, bondsman vs. nobleman in the feudal system of the Middle Ages, proletarian vs. capitalist in the Early Modern Age and in modernity). In consequence, throughout history it is always one group of people who have to carry the heavy burden of drastic social change. For the capitalist period, Marx identified this group as the proletariat. From these fundamental principles of historical materialism, Bloch concluded that both the proletarian and the capitalist live at the forefront of the historical process, they are parallel to their time. Using Bloch's term, it can be said that they both live in Gleichzeitigkeit (contemporaneousness). For other groups of people or classes this is not true. The peasant, for example, is still bound to his own clod of earth; in contrast to many of his fellow citizens, they work independently and still have the means of production in their own hands. Although they share the same present with their contemporaries who live in the cities, they, nevertheless, live in a totally different time. "In the countryside there are faces that are -despite their youth -so old that the eldest people in the city do not remember them. Hardship or a more convenient opportunity drives people into the factories whereas a peasant saying goes like this: 'Work to which one is whistled to is no good.'" (Bloch 1985e, 106). And it is not only a differing outlook on labour that lets the peasant appear to be misplaced in capitalist times but them being bound to nature and the seasons as well as cultural anachronisms also contribute to this impression. 7 For Bloch, then, history -and that marks a huge difference to vulgar-Marxist positions -is a "polyrhythmic entity" (1985g, 618 It follows from this that within a nation itself the individuals, even apart from their pecuniary circumstances, have quite different developments, and that an earlier interest, the peculiar form of intercourse of which has already been ousted by that belonging to a later interest, remains for a long time afterwards in possession of a traditional power in the illusory community (State, law). (Marx 1976, 83) Marx superficially encompasses here what Bloch in Erbschaft dieser Zeit specified as the difference between real (or objective) and false (or subjective) Ungleichzeitigkeit (Bloch 1985e, 111-22). The former applies to the above-mentioned example of the peasant; his Ungleichzeitigkeit has a materialistic foundation, it has its roots in the economic development.
The situation of the petty bourgeois presents itself quite differently: Liberties once given to them in order for capitalism to spread have vanished. These people more or less live under the same conditions as the proletariat; they are dependent on others and forced to sell their labour power. But unlike the proletarian they are not willing to face this reality. They are stuck in the past. Although their earlier interest's "peculiar form of intercourse […] has already been ousted by that belonging to a later interest," these people still live according to this long-gone interest. They hold on to a mindset that allows them to artificially differentiate themselves from the proletariat. Or in the words of other shallow entertainment offered to them (Bloch 1985e, 31-41). 8 This resulted in an intellectual malnourishment, making it almost impossible to enlighten this class about its real place within society.
However, Bloch considered addressing these people to be crucial in order to prevent the Nazis from getting hold of them. While doing so, the peculiarities of Ungleichzeitigkeit have to be taken into account. The fact that Bloch did not see people living in Ungleichzeitigkeit as merely reactionary or backward is important in this context.
He stressed that there is -despite every potential materialistic or ideological difference compared to those classes living in Gleichzeitigkeit -always an anticapitalistic element.
Again, this can be explained via the example of the peasant: By doing their work the way they think is best, by not wanting to have a superior and by keeping the means of production in their own hands, they stand in a contradictory relation to capitalism. The same is true for the petty bourgeois whose ideologies are not entirely deceptive but at the same time demonstrate a longing for a better life the present state of affairs is unable to provide. And this longing, too, can be seen as an antithesis to capitalism. These are definitely not contradictions similar to those of the class-conscious proletarian, but, nevertheless, they reveal elements that are worthwhile considering and eventually valuable to inherit (hence, the title of the book: Heritage of this Time). In short, within every Ungleichzeitigkeit there is always an element of Gleichzeitigkeit. And here lies the reason why the term is not translated in this paper. Since Ungleichzeitigkeit is a rather unusual word, Bloch might have intended to use it in a way that normally a figure of speech is used -that is, to alienate the language in order to make the reader aware of the very fact that the term is not fully understood when the entire focus lies on its negation. That exactly would have been the case with translations like "asynchronism" or "non-parallelism".
The main conclusion Bloch drew from his findings was that he insisted on the necessity of addressing people living in Ungleichzeitigkeit in a specific way by left-wing politicians and intellectuals. Simply reusing speeches and texts that had been written in order to form a class-conscious proletariat would not be sufficient. Bloch demanded to find an address that would respect the living conditions of the peasant or the petty bourgeois and that takes their desires and dreams as well as their fears into consideration. He called for a popularisation of language without vulgarising the issues at hand (Bloch 1985g, 245). According to Bloch, the social democrats and communists of the 1920s and 30s had failed to do so. This can be illustrated by a personal anecdote Bloch told in an interview, first published in the periodical Kursbuch: Just before the Nazis took over power in Germany, Bloch attended a political gathering in the Sportpalast in Berlin. At that particular meeting, Nazis as well as communists gave speeches. First it was a communist's turn to talk. And he started by throwing very specific Marxist terms and endless economic numbers at the audience. He talked in his own jargon which, in consequence, led to him talking more or less to himself. Soon, no one was listening anymore. Analysing the situation rhetorically, one can say that the communist did not take the aptum -the adequacy of the speech in relation to audience and topic -into account. Then a Nazi stepped to the microphone and politely thanked the communist for his remarks because with what he had just said he had confirmed a wisdom of the Fuehrer Adolf Hitler: By presenting numbers and numbers and even more numbers, he had demonstrated that communism and capitalism are basically two sides of the same coin (Bloch 1985i, 211f.).
The communists talked about the issues but did not address the people; the Nazis obscured the issues but were able to address the people (Bloch 1985e, 153). And they did so by purposefully taking advantage of the inability of social democrats and communists to explain their own approaches and goals. To a great extent, Nazi propaganda was nourished by occupying topics ignored or insufficiently addressed by the political left.
In Bloch's anecdote, they were able to disguise themselves as the real anti-capitalist force -a role they of course never intended to take on. 9 Bloch called this the revolutionary illusiveness of the Nazis (Bloch 1985e, 71), and it did not stop by taking over narratives from the political left. Nazism also adopted the red colour (which was now the background for the swastika) and strategies of mobilising huge crowds of people (gatherings, singing along to catchy melodies etc.). The common Nazi tried to give the impression of being "a rebel, even a socialist one, one from the worker's party" (Bloch 1985h, 145).
This deceit also reveals itself by taking a closer look at the party name: NSDAP (National Socialist Worker's Party of Germany). The Nazis claimed to be a socialist workers' party, but at no time were they interested in changing the economy or improving the situation of the workers. The fate Nazism had in mind for the 'German worker' was to use him as a soldier for their inevitable war. All in all, the Nazis capitalised on the anti-capitalist atmosphere caused by the Weimar Republic and the economic crisis at the end of the 1920s. To a great extent, this atmosphere was -due to Ungleichzeitigkeit in many social  (Bloch 1985e, 132-40). The Nazis then appropriated the phrase and twisted it for their fascist ideology.

It then stood for an empire of hatred and suppression.
Again, what Bloch repeatedly emphasised, while tracing these roots of Nazi propaganda, was that Ungleichzeitigkeit is not bad per se. That people look out for some sort of salvator mundi or dream of a paradise-like society in which the good thrive while the bad have to face the consequences of their actions was not the problem. On the contrary, these wishes can be seen as a detector for an unsatisfactory present. The problem actually was that the political left ignored these dreams and saw them merely as reactionary.
They condemned them almost to the same extent they condemned fascism. The "difference between Ungleichzeitigkeit and its fascist deceit was denied" (Bloch 1985e, 123f.).
Klaus Mann, coming from a totally different intellectual background, did not make this mistake. Berlin; "concerning the others, one could always take for granted a certain knowledge and certain experiences that were of importance to oneself; one loved the same poets, the same painters and composers, the same sceneries, rhythms, games and gestures" (Mann 2006, 298  This results in a moral responsibility to make choices, which in turn find their reflection in clearly positioning oneself. What Mann, of course, had in mind at that point in time was the barbarism of the Nazis -it was fascism that had made him realise (t)his moral responsibility.

Reflections of Ungleichzeitigkeit in the novels of Klaus Mann
In his literary texts, this change is reflected only gradually. It starts with introducing minor characters which do not belong to the above-mentioned bubble of a bohemian lifestyle. In his novel Treffpunkt im Unendlichen (Rendezvous in Infinity), published in 1932, it is for example young Willi Müller -19 years of age and living with his brother in Berlin -who fits into this category. He once had work on a farm in East Prussia, but the business had to close down. So, he came back to Berlin, struggled finding a new job and eventually became a follower of Nazism. When he calls the Nazis "Germany's hope" (Mann 1984, 140), his family reacts uncomprehendingly, but at the same time shies away from open confrontation. In one scene of the novel, a group of artists and intellectuals meet in a flat when suddenly they hear an uproar (Mann 1984, 141-47). The noises are caused by Nazis marching through the streets -among them young Willi Müller. Coincidentally, a companion of Müller looks up and sees the group of artists gazing at them through the window. He asks whether those people are comrades.
Müller answers no, they are Jews and will hang soon enough. This scene does not only depict two different worlds by simply confronting them but undermines this confrontation and estrangement within a society by its spatial organisation. The intellectuals are positioned in the apartment above the people on the street; they are in no way connected to them and look down on them. This impression is furthermore strengthened by the topics which were discussed in the apartment before the disturbance from the street.
First, the consequences of drug abuse were debated, followed by speculations when it will be possible to fly to the moon. These subjects contribute to perceiving the spatial distance between the two groups as even bigger than it actually is. (The fact that Mann describes a situation in which it is already too late -the Nazis want to kill the people in the apartment -will be discussed later.) Given this background, other passages of Treffpunkt im Unendlichen can be read as attempts not only to bring attention to this huge hiatus between groups within society but also as an effort to reduce this gap. When, for example, another character, also a young man, comes into a bar and one of the writers present (a friend of the young man's mother) buys him a meal, the narrator comments the character's remark that he is unemployed as follows: "'Unemployed' -word from another world, word with a heavy weight attached to it that falls into the perfumed, joyful establishment" (Mann 1984, 72). The same intrusion of reality shows itself at an evening party. A theatre critic reflects on the significance of his work: "In fact, everything else is more important. One is almost ashamed to death when hearing about four million people in unemployment or that half a million Chinese simply starved to death. However, one still continues writing this empty chatter" (Mann, 1984, 72 Germany a strict regime which is much better than any revolution because an uprising of the people always results in chaos (Mann 2003, 47). 11 The remarks of Karin's brother Jens -when it comes to German fascism -are less materialistically anchored but instead highly ideologically charged. He enjoys exactly the kind of 'liberalism for the few' that Wystan Auden talked about (financed not by the merits of his abilities but by the 'old money' of his family). He travels back and forth from America to Europe, only superficially comprehending what is going on in both parts of the world. His view of Germany is mainly shaped by the country's art and philosophy from the 19 th century (Mann 2003, 18, 20, 45). He has a culturally saturated nation in mind, which is impossible for him to connect with the cruelties Johanna accuses her fatherland of. This kind of Ungleichzeitigkeit that detached people from politics because they saw issues of this sort as something not worthy of discussion was widely spread at that time, especially among the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.
By some, it was used as a means to justify Germany's historical Sonderweg, explaining that the German nation has its roots in culture rather than in democracy -one of the most famous texts in this context, Die Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (Reflections of an Unpolitical Man), was written by Klaus Mann's father Thomas. 12 While completely turning one's back at politics was one extreme, the other is demonstrated by vulgar Marxism. They believed in socialism to rise as surely as the sun does every morning. This issue, too, is reflected in Mann's literary works, for example in his novel Der Vulkan (The Volcano). This text offers an overview of different types of expatriates. It follows artists, intellectuals, students, and political activists leaving Germany because of the Nazi takeover. Some of them find the strength to fight back from abroad, 10 A similar type of old lady appears in Mann's early novel Der fromme Tanz (The Pious Dance). She is a baroness and the aunt of the main character. The narrator describes her as follows: "Around her meagre mouth and around her lean neck, which was decorated -as a sign of former splendour -with pearls, appeared a twitch and in her frightened eyes laid the misery of an entire endangered class" (Mann 2004, 41). 11 Mann quite early on argued in favour of an alliance between the capitalist West and the communist East in order to stop Hitler. He did not share the opinion popular among conservatives that the Soviet Union is the bigger threat compared to Nazi Germany (Mann 2006, 548f.). some gradually lose hope as time passes by. Some simply decide to start all over again in a new country, some lose their lives in the fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War. One, comparatively small, mosaic in this picture is the love story between Tilly von Seydewitz and Konni Bruck. She comes from an upper-class family, whose wealth slowly but steadily diminishes, while he is a student of physics and a political activist for the communists. As she flees to Switzerland with her family, Konni decides to stay in Berlin for a couple more weeks. He eventually gets arrested by the Nazis and is put in a concentration camp. Concerning Ungleichzeitigkeit, what is particularly noteworthy here is not only the reaction of Tilly's mother when she hears the news ("Poor chap! […] but why does a bright young man get involved with the dirty business of politics in the first place? I always knew that this would not end well." -Mann 1981, 74) 13 but also Konni's naïve outlook on Marxism: According to the narrator, he "believed with a confidence -that answered to every objection with a proud shrug -that Marxist dogmas and prophecies were true in the same objective, indisputable way like the laws of nature or mathematical rules." (Mann 1981, 72f). This is exactly the kind of vulgar, narrow understanding of Marxism that Bloch criticised again and again. The vulgar Marxists ignored everything they considered primitive or utopian, whereas the Nazis took advantage of this very ignorance. "Hell as well as heaven, the berserks as well as theology were handed over to the reaction without putting up a fight." (Bloch 1985e, 66f Höfgen (the personage that is based on Gründgens) a certain kind of character representative for many other people of that particular time -in this case someone who is willing to come to terms with mass murderers, if only this benefits his personal goals.
However, when it comes to Ungleichzeitigkeit, the minor character of Hans Miklas is 13 It is also interesting to consider what Tilly's mother thinks about fascism and communism: "Those Nazis are even worse than the communists. Concerning the latter one at least knows what they are: our enemies. The Nazis pretend to be the guardians of our holiest goods, but in fact they are just disrespectful plebs" (Mann 1981, 70). far more interesting than Höfgen. At the beginning of the novel, they both work together in a theatre in Hamburg. Miklas is a young actor in his early 20s, who came from rural Bavaria to Northern Germany in order to pursue an acting career. His childhood was not very happy; his father had died in World War I and his mother did not accept his decision to become an actor. After coming to Hamburg, he soon has to face problems.
His colleagues are sometimes looking down on him and treat him like a child. He does not get the roles he thinks he deserves, which stirs up his hatred, especially towards a thriving Höfgen. On top of that, he also struggles financially because his salary is not very high. All in all, he is very lonely and searches for some kind of direction -something that makes him the perfect target for Nazi propaganda. He is among the anxious and uneasy people Bloch talked about (1985e, 19 This is the notorious distraction tactic. (Mann 1986, 36f) Otto Ulrichs' argumentation reveals the clearest marks the notion of Ungleichzeitigkeit has left in Klaus Mann's oeuvre. There is the urban-rural difference, the longing for something to believe in, the struggles to keep one's head up in times of financial hardship, hence, the anticapitalist element, its exploitation by the Nazis, and finally also the lies and argumentative shortcuts of fascism. As time goes by, Miklas more and more comes to realise that his firm belief in a national socialism is not shared by those he put his faith in. "What the Nazi agitators once had loved to call the 'fat-cat economy' did not stop to exist but became even worse." (Mann 1986, 222) And unlike so many others, Miklas is neither willing nor able to hide his disappointment. He speaks up, increasingly louder the more he realises the betrayal he got himself into -and one day he ultimately gets picked up by some of his comrades who drive with him to a forest and shoot him in the back. The narrator of the novel precisely captures Miklas' fate with the following words: "The heads of those rolled whose only fault was not to let go of their socialist sympathies -and the Messiah, too, who executed them, called himself a socialist." (Mann 1986, 318) And if Miklas had not realised the scam and had kept his mouth shut, he would have seen the fulfilment of his revolutionary dreams in the torment of the Jews, just as a group of people in Mann's novel Der Vulkan does. And while they abuse an old Jewish man in the streets of Vienna, their victim addresses them in his thoughts: "Do you really believe in a better future because today you are allowed to harass some Jews? Do you really believe this is the revolution? You have to be really narrow-minded to be betrayed that easily!" (Mann 1981, 502)  He writes about two of his friends, both from the proletarianised petty bourgeoisie, and both neither with much knowledge of the world nor with any goals for their lives (Mann 2006, 351-53, 726-28). Both end up with the Nazis, which brings an end to the friendship with Mann. Knowing how much the author relied on his personal experiences for his work, the names of his two onetime friends come as little surprise: Hans and Willi.

A glimpse into the present
About the latter, Mann remorsefully remarks: I knew so many like him. Why did I not write their novel? Many novels and dramas were written about them when it was already too late. They then appeared as villains abusing Jewish philosophers in the concentration camps. But I saw them, and I liked them at a time when they were the victims and could have been saved. However, we did not care about them. (Mann 2006, 728) Being aware of the differences between the political situation in the early 1930s and the present, there are also strong indications that there is much more awareness among today's artists for people who are disregarded by politics and the media than in the past.
Taking a look at contemporary German literature, there are quite a few writers who seem to be conscious of today's (objective and subjective) Ungleichzeitigkeiten. However, these texts are definitely not as explicitly directed towards the present increase of nationalism as Mann's texts were directed towards Nazism -and that is, presumably because they were not published too late but come just at the right moment. continuity. This illusive perception was, especially during the 1990s, a popular means to denounce those who brought awareness to problems within capitalism as reactionary (Vidal 1996, 14). Today, with a renewed and re-awakened nationalism, it is, in fact, history itself that unmasks the assertions of its end as mere ideologies. By pointing towards a variety of (ungleichzeitige) contradictions of the status quo, the above-mentioned literary texts do not only illustrate that history continues to progress but also that it still is the "polyrhythmic entity" (1985g, 618) Bloch talked about. While it may not be advisable to adopt every strategy Bloch proposed in order to deal with present problems (Dietschy 2018, 37-42), his general assumptions that (firstly) people living in Ungleichzeitigkeit need to be acknowledged and (secondly) they need to be addressed in a specific way remain true.
In order to briefly illustrate this with a contemporary example, this paper concludes with some remarks on Juli Zeh's Unterleuten. The title of the novel refers to a fictional village in Brandenburg. The entire novel is set in this village and many of its inhabitants are portrayed in the text -the mayor, the only entrepreneur of the village, an old communist, and townsfolk who just moved to Unterleuten. The major conflict of the novel revolves around a piece of land on which a company plans to build a wind farm; and this property in question is not owned by one but by three different persons. Concerning Ungleichzeitgkeit, one of the newcomers, Gerhard Fließ -a former professor who 14 However, there are examples of how right-wing politicians take advantage of Ungleichzeitigkeit today. In the fall of 2015, when large numbers of refugees came to Germany, a political gathering took place in Magdeburg. There, Björn Höcke from the AfD expressed his hope that Germany -in the face of foreigners allegedly flooding the country -will have a thousand-year-long-future (Müller 2015). As a former teacher of history, Höcke knows that this phrase is historically contaminated, and he also knows that it probably appeals to people who are religious. Besides, there are other parallels to history concerning today's increase of nationalism -for example, superficially criticising consequences of capitalism without analysing them, followed by blaming a minority (foreigners, refugees) or copying means of propaganda from the political left (Wagner 2017, 11-13, 221-25, 228-31). now works for the authorities to protect the environment and just recently moved from Berlin to Unterleuten -, is most aware of it: Although Unterleuten was only roughly one hundred kilometres away from Berlin, it could have been -from a socio-anthropological perspective -on the other side of the planet. Unnoticed by politics, the media, and science existed a semi-anarchistic, almost entirely independent way of life, […] involuntarily subversive, far away from state influence, forgotten, neglected, and for this very reason free in a peculiar way. (Zeh 2017, 29) Many aspects discussed earlier in this paper show themselves in this quote: There is, again, the urban-rural difference, the anticapitalist element, as well as society's ignorance towards certain ways of living. This ignorance manifests itself most clearly when an associate of the windmill company visits Unterleuten and is unable to address the villagers in an adequate manner. What is not reflected in the novel is the political exploitation of this kind of Ungleichzeitigkeit. Zeh is more interested in offering a variety of perspectives on the novel's main conflict. Thus, her book is, first and foremost, a text about tolerance because at the end the reader is able to understand every character's motives (although some of them did quite horrible things).
Having this in mind, the final word shall be given to Klaus Mann -or, to be more precise, to a character from his novel Der Vulkan. A refugee, who had to leave Germany and fled to Paris, concludes that fascism, "the new barbarism will get a cheap victory: it decapitates corpses." (Mann 1981, 260) This powerful metaphor brings attention to the question of how much damage had been done before the Nazis came to power; what mistakes had been made? And this ultimately leads to the phenomenon of Ungleichzeitigkeit. Thus, simply accepting the fact that we all share the same present, but nevertheless some of us live in totally different times might help in pushing back antidemocratic movements.