Writer Thomas Mann was actually invited by the Verband Deutscher Erzähler to read a few chapters from his new novel in Berlin in October 1930. But in light of the drastic gains by the NSDAP in the Reichstag election of September 1930, the newly-minted literature Nobel laureate decided to hold an additional event in Berlin's Beethovensaal. In the Deutsche Ansprache [German Address] that he delivered, he presented a case of unprecedented directness against the rapacious political extremism of the day. Mann described the Weimar Republic as displaying a worrying societal anxiety, which he attributed to the bitter conditions of the Treaty of Versailles and a hysterical fear of Marxism.

 In view of the lamentable retreat from the “humanist-idealist school of the 19th century”, the author of Buddenbrooks (1901) called on the bourgeoisie to form a pragmatic alliance with the social democrats – to preserve freedom and democracy.  He explicitly praised the measured diplomatic attempts to revise the treaty by the former chancellor and foreign minister Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929).

Thomas Mann's speech was interrupted by a group of political opponents – including the writers Arnolt Bronnen, Ernst and Friedrich Georg Jünger – as well as a roughly 20 man delegation of tuxedo-clad SA men, jeering loudly. Ultimately, however, the attempts at sabotage were rendered moot by the sustained applause from the crowd.