About the work
Mephisto. Novel of a Career is a novel by Klaus Mann, published in 1936 by the exile publisher Querido in Amsterdam, which has been adapted many times for the stage. The work transfers the Faust motif to National Socialist Germany and tells of the rise of an actor who betrays his convictions for his career. The central figure Hendrik Höfgen bears unmistakable features of Gustaf Gründgens, Klaus Mann's former brother-in-law — for which reason the novel could not be published in West Germany until 1981.
Plot
The ambitious actor Hendrik Höfgen makes his early career in the Weimar Republic at a Hamburg art theatre and flirts with leftist, revolutionary ideals. His signature role is Mephisto in Goethe's Faust. When the National Socialists seize power in 1933, Höfgen disavows his former convictions, drops friends and lovers, and comes to terms with the new rulers. Protected by a powerful minister-president — unmistakably Hermann Göring — he rises to become a celebrated star and theatre director of the "new Reich". But the pact with the devil exacts its price: Höfgen becomes an "ape of power", inwardly hollowed out, trapped in a role he can no longer step out of.
Cultural significance
Mephisto is one of the most significant exile novels of German literature and a timeless study of opportunism and artistic self-betrayal under a dictatorship. The dispute over the resemblance to Gründgens led to one of the greatest literary scandals of West Germany: a court banned the novel, and only in 1981 did it appear again and become a cult book. István Szabó's 1981 film with Klaus Maria Brandauer won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Stage versions, especially that of Ariane Mnouchkine, belong to the standard repertoire.