| | The German original is Vize-Wachtmeister, a Wilhelmine military rank that has a whiff of the ridiculous about it because it literally translates as “Assistant Policeman.” |
| Ah monsieur […] grand malheur! | French: “Oh monsieur, the war, what great evil!” |
| And in general, I will not deny | Throughout the following paragraphs, Z. provides a summary of the so-called “Ideas of 1914,” to which TM, then an ardent nationalist and defender of the monarchy, contributed several essays, as well as the book-length Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man (1918). TM liberally quotes from his earlier writings throughout this chapter. |
| quotidian morality is thereby superseded | Zeitblom’s language here is very similar to that of Dr. Breisacher. Compare the latter’s claim on 299/412 that “religion and ethics [are] related only insofar as the latter was the former in decay.” |
| thoroughly unsoldierly playactor | The reference is to Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941), whose proclivities for pompous military exercises were the source of ridicule even while he was still on the throne. |
| breaking through to a new form of life | See 258/354. In his wartime writings, TM advocated for the idea that state and culture, political and social/intellectual life should be one, but this notion is, of course, characteristic also of totalitarian societies. |
| (and we are always growing) | |
| | TM is likely thinking of the United States, for he greatly admired Walt Whitman (1819–1892), whose poems glorified the American Civil War as a crucible of democracy. |
| | The victorious wars against Denmark, Austria, and France fought between 1864 and 1871, which led to the proclamation of the Second Reich in 1871. |
| militaristic socialism yet to be defined | This phrase establishes a link between 1914 and 1933, when “militaristic socialism” would indeed take on a definite form. |
| | French: “I’ve had enough of that to last me till the end of my days!” |
| Frederick the Great’s incursion into […] Saxony | The subject also of one of TM’s wartime essays, “Frederick the Great and the Grand Coalition” (1915). |
| Kleist […] essay on marionettes | “On the Marionette Theater” by Heinrich von Kleist. |
| Twelfth Night […] Much Ado about Nothing […] Two Gentlemen of Verona | These three plays all contain courtship triangles and thus foreshadow the L.-Schwerdtfeger-Marie Godeau marriage plot that will take center stage in XLI and XLII. |
| | A fourteenth- or fifteenth-century collection of exemplary tales that influenced Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Shakespeare among many other writers. The Latin title translates as Deeds of the Romans. |
| | Pierre Monteux (1875–1964), the conductor of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and a noted supporter of modern music. At the time of the composition of DF, Monteux was the chief conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, where TM’s son Michael was employed as a violist. |
| May God bless your studia […] won’t amount to much | L. is quoting one half of an old German student saying; Z. responds with the other half. |
| listening to you now it’s as if I’m listening to them | An observation that strengthens the sense that TM wants us to read the student conversations of chapter XIV as precursors of the mindset that led to the “Ideas of 1914.” |
| here too […] the issue of breakthrough is dealt with | L. refers specifically to the last paragraph of Kleist’s “On the Marionette Theater.” |
| ultimately aesthetics is all things | Throughout this paragraph, Z. is channeling ideas from Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872). |
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