Beschreibung:

63 S.; viele Illustr.; 27 cm; geheftet.

Bemerkung:

Gutes Ex.; Einband u. Seiten gering gebräunt; vorderer Innendeckel mit priv. Widmung. - Englisch. // INHALT : Goethe by Erwin G. Gudde; Goethe and America by Wilm Guhl; The Goethe House by Peter Muschamp; Goethe's Drama and the Art of the Theatre by Alwin Kronacher; Goethe's Reflection of His Country by Mowry Sabin; The Religion of Goethe by W. Edwin Ver Becke // (u.a.) -- The 1949 Bicentennial of Goethe's birth is being celebrated spontaneously in nations throughout the civilized world as a universal tribute to a poetic genius whose philosophic wisdom has striking pertinence today. The second world war has left a tragic stain upon the race that bore Goethe's culture. Man seldom stops to think of this universal culture. The human mind is oft impaired by the evils of destruction. Though the German-American Societies of San Francisco and the Pacific Coast Singing Societies number only a few citizens, we are most happy to have been the impetus to give the opportunity for participation in this observance to the people of California. But numbers are not important. It is thought and the power of good thinking that are important. The Goethe celebration is and must be more than a celebration. It is the opportunity for a people to unconsciously, almost unknowingly put into force a gigantic vibration of cultural truth, which is good truth, that may change the entire thinking of the western world. For change must take place in a materialistic, greedy, sensory world . . . or what the German mind has so nobly built of culture and impersonally given to the world, will turn into the same ruins that war has left on a civilized world. There is a greater evil than this type of war. It is the evil that destroys the beauty of cultural thought: creative thought. Real art, real music, real cinema, real dance and theatre are never destructive. They are the implements of God. This celebration is more than the birthday of Goethe to us. He is only the instrument by which the greater power takes the opportunity to work and to preserve that which is worth preservation in a tragic time of need. Politics, war, propaganda, commercial schemes have no place in such a celebration or nothing to do with it. It is the opportunity given by God to a fettered people. Ours has ever been a cosmopolitan city world-renowned for its culture and appreciation of the arts. By showing our respect and appreciation of Goethe and his literary accomplishments we are only carrying on that noble tradition. (Heinz A. Solbach; A. Schaumloeffel)