Writes Rick Rozoff:

From a 1998 translation of the letters of brothers Heinrich and Thomas Mann, at the time perhaps the most prestigious of German novelists. Thomas had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. Both had Jewish wives (Heinrich until 1930) and had left Germany shortly after Hitler became chancellor. The following excerpts are from letters by Thomas, who admired Roosevelt and did not mean to present him in a bad light, to Heinrich toward the very beginning of Roosevelt’s over 12-year presidency.

July 5, 1934

…Roosevelt is a good man in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the word; that much is certain. It is dictatorship that he is pursuing as well, of course, but no doubt….From prosperous sorts I heard repeatedly that the revolution would have come for sure without him.

***

June 17, 1935

The President had invited us to Washington….where we enjoyed a very lovely and also interesting family dinner with the Roosevelts – very private, of course, with no sign of the ambassador. My impression was quite sympathetic – on the basis of a favorable predisposition….With him I had more the sense of a certain disdain for parliamentarism and a tendency for one-man rule, but….