One of the achievements of Hans Blumenberg’s historical anthropology is to have reflected on the way individuals can preserve themselves when they come up against points of significance (Bedeutsamkeiten). Goethe’s encounter with Napoleon, in which the poet succeeded in standing up to the emperor at eye level, was of such self-preserving significance. For Blumenberg himself, his sole encounter with Thomas Mann was of comparable significance, since the Nobel prize-winner asserted himself in the face of the ascendant Nazis as the representative (...) of Goethe and the defender of a humane world. Blumenberg likewise sought contact with Carl Schmitt in order to claim his own interpretative sovereignty over Goethe and thereby — following the model of Goethe and Thomas Mann — assert himself against a representative of the Third Reich. (shrink)