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Dr. Paul Tillich (Details anzeigen)^a
East Hampton Post Office
Long Island, New York (Details anzeigen)^b.

Dear Paulus (Details anzeigen)^c,

Although I told you by wire how happy you made me with your letter (Details anzeigen)^d, I can not leave here before having expressed again my thanks and my good thoughts for your own work. Maidon (Details anzeigen)^e and I are leaving for San Francisco (Details anzeigen)^f, where I will have to stay a few days. Later on we will take a drive on the coast, up to the Oregon (Details anzeigen)^g border. On the return trip I will again go to Berkeley (Details anzeigen)^h.

It is a great pity that I can not discuss your impressions concerning ECLIPSE in detail right now. Your criticisms would be the more valuable because Teddy (Details anzeigen)ⁱ and I are now engaged in writing the second part of the „Black Manuscript“. The first part is on the presses in Holland (Details anzeigen)^j and will be published under the name „Dialektik der Aufklärung“ before Christmas. During the last weeks we have been writing on the concept of Truth, but we are still in the beginning. Even though it is clear that your own viewpoint represented in our discussions as distinctly as it can be without you being present, I miss our regular meetings, particularly during this part of our work. Yet if you can spare a few minutes at any time, you could render us an invaluable service by telling us where we could find competent theoretical interpretations of the word of Jesus (Details anzeigen)^k „I am the Truth“. Has this word been a subject of lively arguments and implications in Protestant or even scholastic or patristic doctrine, and where could we find an account of them?

You tell me that the Germans insist on hearing liberating words from you. Are you not responding to this plea by doing what you do? In the book which you are writing now you are giving the best of yourself and in the phase of a spiritual predicament, such as the Germans are in now, anything but the best would be too little. There are, anyway, too many intellectuals who either accuse or defend the Germans politically. I do not think that we can help them by entering this field, yet if we do there is one observation which, in my opinion, should not be overlooked.|

I think the Germans, more than anyone, have been aware of the horror of the unspeakable actions to which they have become willing or unwilling helpers. Deep down in their hearts they have never kidded themselves about what was going on. Since they were the most highly developed nation in the world, they were more sensitive about injustice and vulgarity than others are today. Therefore, during the last fifteen years they had to achieve a more thorough job of psychological repression than any people in any period of history. Apart from the miseries of their daily lives, it is this constant necessity of keeping those feelings hidden in their unconscious, by which their libidinous energies {?} are tied up. Anyone who takes their defense, and even more the one who with friendly or unfriendly intentions admits their guilt, must necessarily reactivate the process of repression and stir up fury and hatred. The obvious statement that masses of German individuals were unwilling, in only a rationalization for this fury; in fact, all of them feel guilty. Indeed, the inner shame is so great that they have lost the sense of shame. Therefore, if one speaks to them on subjects close to politics, I don't see any other way but to express those as they are. That means that we point to them the thorn in their eyes without seeming to forget about the beam in our own. If we are unyielding in view of the evils and dangers in other parts of the world without letting up in our denunciation of Germany (Details anzeigen)^l's actually committed deeds, if, in other words, we express our insight into the plight of both the victors and the vanquished without using the ones in order to excuse the others, we shall help the Germans to accept consciously the indictment which they are now opposing. To make them conscious of the repression which is at the base of their actual attitude would contribute a great deal to strengthen the forces of resistance against post-war Nazist trends.

Forgive me for having let myself go in free associations. However, this subject takes such an important place in my own thinking that I even consider a trip to Germany (Details anzeigen)^m next year. I am exchanging letters with many people over there and I should like to find out for myself whether I can do anything constructive.

Maidon (Details anzeigen)ⁿ wants to join me in sending kindest regards and heartiest wishes. She suggests that, in order to avoid scurvy you should not limit yourself exclusively to a diet from canned goods. When you write to Hannah (Details anzeigen)^o, please give her our love.

P.S. This letter is written in English because Miss von Mendelssohn (Details anzeigen)^p is visiting her mother in Switzerland (Details anzeigen)^q and the part-time secretary does not write German.