Mephisto in the Third Reich: Literary Representations of Evil in Nazi Germany

The association of Nazism with the symbol of ultimate evil – the devil – can be found in the works of Klaus and Thomas Mann, Else Lasker-Schüler, and Rolf Hochhuth. He appears either as Satan of the Judeo-Christian tradition, or as Goethe’s Mephisto. Barasch-Rubinstein looks into this phenomenon and analyzes the premise that the image of the devil had a substantial impact on Germans’ acceptance of Nazi ideas.