“A masterpiece”, concluded Stefan Zweig in his review of the novel by his colleague Thomas Mann. His humoristic romantic novel Lotte in Weimar, published in German in 1939 by the Stockholm-based exile publishing house Bermann-Fischer, walks a line between reverence for Goethe and a certain mockery of him.

Since autumn 1946 Thomas Mann had worked on the novel and had created a story in which the love of Goethe's youth, Lotte, returned to Weimar 44 years later to meet the prominent bard. One part of the multifaceted work deals with Goethe's deliberations about Germany. Thus Goethe appears as a representative of a better Germany when he says, “They think they are Germany – but I am [...].” In exile, Mann's Goethe novel thus becomes an important reference point in the search for an “other Germany”.

Zweig emphasises the value of this debate in his review when he writes, “We should be thankful that we were able to receive this book now whereas the others in Germany, who within themselves have remained in Goethe's Germany, will only receive it as compensation for the war and their suffering.” In another version he changes “the others in Germany” by hand to “those others in actual exile” and thus uses the term exile in an unexpected context. (ed. trans.)

Thomas Mann was not alone in his fixation on Goethe. Many other artists dealt extensively with Goethe while in exile, for example Emil Ludwig's Goethe-book or theatre productions by the Viennese cabaret Laterndl in London.