13 questions · Literature
Thomas Mann, born in Lübeck in 1875 as the son of a senator and grain merchant, achieved at 26 what others dream of for a lifetime: 'Buddenbrooks' (1901), the 'decline of a family' across four generations of Lübeck merchants: so close to his own family history that the Hanseatic city was at first outraged. Almost three decades later, the Swedish Academy justified the 1929 Nobel Prize expressly ('principally') with this debut. Mann became the very representative of German literature: disciplined as a civil servant, he wrote every morning. There followed the novella 'Death in Venice' (1912), in which the ageing writer Gustav von Aschenbach, in the cholera-stricken city, succumbs to his fascination with the beautiful boy Tadzio, and 'The Magic Mountain' (1924): young Hans Castorp intends a three-week visit to a Davos lung sanatorium and stays seven years, while the ideas of pre-war Europe talk at him. His wife Katia, mother of their six children, managed house and work; Mann's concealed homoerotic leanings were revealed only by the diaries opened after his death. In 1933 the soon-to-be-expatriated author did not return from abroad: exile in Switzerland, from 1938 in the USA. From California he addressed 'German listeners!' over the BBC against Hitler, wrote the Joseph tetralogy and 'Doctor Faustus': the story of the composer Adrian Leverkühn, who, like Germany, makes his pact with the devil. He died in Zurich in 1955. Did you know that literature was a family affair with the Manns? His brother Heinrich wrote 'The Loyal Subject', and the children Erika, Klaus and Golo became important authors themselves, while the two writing brothers' relationship remained fraught for years.
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Buddenbrooks
Four generations of Lübeck merchants: written at 26, close to his own family history.
💡 Did you know? Mann wrote the family saga at just 25: it would later earn him the Nobel Prize.
Buddenbrooks
The Academy expressly singled out the debut: though 'The Magic Mountain' had long since appeared.
💡 Did you know? In 1929 the committee explicitly cited above all „Buddenbrooks“: not „The Magic Mountain.“
in a sanatorium in Davos
Hans Castorp plans to stay three weeks and stays seven years.
💡 Did you know? His tubercular wife's stay in Davos gave Mann the idea for „The Magic Mountain.“
the beautiful boy Tadzio
The ageing writer stays in the city despite the cholera outbreak: Visconti filmed the novella in 1971 with Mahler's music.
💡 Did you know? „Death in Venice“ was filmed by Luchino Visconti, with Mahler's music as its leitmotif.
Lübeck
The 'Buddenbrookhaus' in Mengstraße is a museum today; the city was at first outraged by the roman à clef.
💡 Did you know? The real Buddenbrook House in Lübeck is today a much-visited museum of the Mann family.
He went into exile
First Switzerland, from 1938 the USA: the Nazis stripped him of citizenship and his honorary doctorate.
💡 Did you know? From exile Mann declared: „Where I am, there is German culture.“
German listeners
Over 50 addresses from exile, broadcast into Germany: plain words against the regime.
💡 Did you know? Over the BBC, Mann addressed „German listeners“ monthly, calling for resistance against Hitler.
Adrian Leverkühn
His path mirrors Germany's slide into barbarism: Theodor W. Adorno advised on the music theory.
💡 Did you know? „Doctor Faustus“ reads the rise of Nazism as a German pact with the devil.
Katia
Her sanatorium stay in Davos provided the germ of 'The Magic Mountain'.
💡 Did you know? Katia Mann ran the household with six children and kept the writer free of daily cares all his life.
Heinrich Mann
The writing brothers' relationship was fraught for years; their wartime quarrel was buried only late.
💡 Did you know? His brother Heinrich's „Der Untertan“ is a sharp satire of imperial Germany; the brothers were at times estranged.
his homoerotic leanings
Mann had directed that the sealed notebooks be opened only 20 years after his death.
💡 Did you know? Opened only 20 years after his death, the diaries revealed Mann's lifelong suppressed homoerotic feelings.
Joseph and His Brothers
Sixteen years of work, largely in exile, for Mann 'the work of my life'.
💡 Did you know? Mann worked over 16 years on the biblical Joseph tetralogy: his most extensive work.
Foto: Nobel Foundation · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann (1875 to 1955) was one of the most important German writers of the 20th century. He won the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature, chiefly for „Buddenbrooks.“
💡 Did you know? From American exile Mann became the leading German voice against Hitler: broadcasting straight into the Reich via the BBC.
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