Thomas Mann's Exile Broadcasts: «Deutsche Hörer!» as Anti-Nazi Polemic and Podcast Precursor

From Californian exile, Thomas Mann waged a publicistic campaign against the «Dritte Reich», and his radio addresses collected as «Deutsche Hörer!» are described as brilliant hate sermons — and podcasts avant la lettre. Mann called Hitler a «kümmerlichen Erzschwindler», addressing his compatriots in Nazi Germany directly across the airwaves to appeal to their conscience. The article's central claim concerns the postwar period: Mann forgave the Germans nothing after the Second World War, holding the majority of them to be unverbesserliche Nazis. The piece, published by the NZZ, revisits both the wartime broadcasts and that uncompromising postwar verdict, framing the exile speeches as a literary and rhetorical form with a contemporary echo in podcasting.