The Magic Mountain is the story of a young shipbuilding engineer Hans Castorp, who arrives at an exclusive sanatorium high up in the mountains, where he is only meant to stay for fourteen days, visiting his sick cousin. But Hans falls ill himself and thus remains at the sanatorium for seven years. The play discusses questions of the body and mind. It includes both ideological and conceptual issues of the turbulent period at the beginning of the twentieth century, as well as a broader picture of the decadent society and sickening world of questionable, decaying values. Thomas Mann imbued his unique medical microcosm with irony and at the same time, with poetry and magic of the last of the human mysteries. The play ends with Hans’ departure to the battlefields of the First World War, and thus also represents a departure point for a reflection of the centenary at its beginning.