<b> <i>Der Zauberberg</i> </b> und die Kultursynthese.

Abstract This essay demonstrates how Thomas Mann, in resuming work on The Magic Mountain , incorporated political and religious views encountered not only in contemporary written sources but also in the context of the events following the First World War. These views served him both to construct the antithetical positions of the progressive Settembrini and the reactionary Naphta, the two self-appointed tutors of Hans Castorp, and to formulate the synthesis of these positions, which the protagonist arrives at in the dream of the famous „Snow Chapter.“ This synthesis, the message of The Magic Mountain that transcends the novel itself, expresses the political and religious stance that Thomas Mann developed during the course of writing the novel and which represents his commitment to Weimar democracy. This stance constitutes a synthesis of the German spirit, shaped by Romanticism, with the Western spirit, a cultural synthesis, for which he explicitly invokes Ernst Troeltsch.