At the age of almost eighty, shortly before his death on 12 August 1955, Thomas Mann revisited his home town of Lübeck, which he cemented in literary history in 1901 with his first major novel Buddenbrooks. He also used this opportunity to visit the border between East and West Germany, which he placed in defiant opposition with his own German nationality, characterised by culture and intellectual history. In 1949 he had stated during a lecture tour that he did not acknowledge any ‘zones’ and he therefore regarded his visit as a visit to Germany itself, Germany as a whole, and not an occupied zone. The fact that he spoke in both Frankfurt and Weimar on the occasion of Goethe’s 200th birthday earned him resentment in some circles of the West German public.

However, the conciliatory reception in Lübeck, where he was named an honorary citizen, was seen by Thomas Mann as an opportunity to make delayed yet final peace with the homeland that had once forced him into exile. In honour of his milestone birthday in June 1955, the writer was showered with tributes and festivities. He used this public attention to make an emphatic warning in his final essay Versuch über Schiller [Essay on Schiller], where he discussed the beautiful, true and good, civilisation, inner freedom, art, love, peace and saving humanity from themselves.