During 1942, the decisive battles of Stalingrad and El Alamein raged and the Nazi genocide was at its lethal peak. examines the shared motives behind four remarkable texts German exiles began writing that year: Thomas Mann's (1947); Ernst Cassirer's (1946); Erich Auerbach's (1946); and Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's (1944). Each identified a specific danger in Nazi ideology and mustered new theories, approaches, and sources to combat it. The books aimed to expose the encompassing catastrophes of German culture (Mann), politics (Cassirer), philology (Auerbach), and philosophy and sociology (Horkheimer and Adorno). Their scope, mastery, and sense of urgency constitute a comprehensive (culture war) against Nazi barbarism. Avihu Zakai cogently analyzes each work, explains the context of its creation, and draws connections between these four landmark books in Western intellectual history.