Thomas Mann:With the Buddenbrooks to the Nobel Prize in Literature

Almost three decades after the publication of "Buddenbrooks", Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his debut novel. Other of his great works were created in exile. A portrait.

by Stefanie Grossmann

On June 6, 1875, Thomas Mann was born as the second eldest son in the Hanseatic city. He grew up with four siblings. The parents couldn't be more different:the father, a Hanseatic patrician, represents middle-class Lübeck. As a merchant, he successfully runs the family business, is a consul and finally a senator. The mother is completely different:she embodies the exact opposite of the father. Thomas Mann describes his mother as "... extraordinarily beautiful, with an unmistakable Spanish turnure,...". Her southern temperament and her interest in music and literature contrast with her father's commercial representation.

Thomas Mann's aversion to school

Thomas Mann describes his childhood as "cherished and happy". Like his brother Heinrich, however, he does not like going to school:"Even in secondary school I was as lazy as the Westerwald:lazy, stubborn and full of slovenly mockery about the whole thing, hated by the teachers of the venerable institution ...". Like his brother Heinrich, he left school before graduating from high school. In doing so, he also shows his aversion to bourgeois Lübeck. Thomas Mann opposes the narrowness of the gloomy Gothic buildings, which are reflected again and again in his novels, but also against the narrowness of the school, which leaves no room for idleness and reading.

Moving to Munich

Two years after her husband's death in 1891, her mother moved to Munich with her three youngest siblings. The Bavarian metropolis is the "City of the Arts" and is considered cosmopolitan and a meeting point for bohemians. Thomas Mann followed his mother in 1893 and began a traineeship at a fire insurance company. He also publishes his first novella. Since Thomas Mann receives a monthly pension from his father's assets when he reaches the age of majority, he does not need to pursue a regular job. He can devote himself entirely to writing.

The "Buddenbrooks" are made in Italy

In 1896 he followed his brother Heinrich to Italy. It was here that he began writing his most widely read novel, Buddenbrooks. For this he not only uses excerpts from salon conversations from the Lübeck period, he also collects cooking recipes and the biographies of all family members, friends and enemies. Many of the figures in this "ancestral chronicle" bear the traits of family members or Lübeck citizens. Because of the ironic depiction of the portrayed and the detailed description of the city of Lübeck, although he never mentions her by name, the work is considered by many Lübeck residents to be a "nest polluter novel". But some felt that not naming the city was an affront. This is one of the reasons why the relationship with the famous poet remained tense for a long time.

In 1900 he completed the work, which was published by Fischer Verlag in 1901. The two-volume first edition met with only a few responses. The one-volume second edition from 1903 brings the breakthrough and makes Thomas Mann known. In 1929 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature for the "Buddenbrooks". The jury justified its decision by saying that the work has "gained increasing recognition over the years as a classic work of contemporary literature."

Married to Katia Pringsheim

Back in Munich, Thomas Mann worked for a year in 1898 for the satirical magazine "Simplicissimus". He enjoyed the artistic life in Schwabing and from 1899 he maintained a close relationship with the artist Paul Ehrenberg, for whom he had homoerotic feelings. But the painter remained unreachable for Thomas Mann. He later processed his experiences in literary terms in "Death in Venice". In 1905 he married Katharina "Katia" Pringsheim from a respected Munich family. But behind this marriage there is more will than desire for him. Through the marriage, his life runs in order, Katia and he have six children.

After a long creative crisis comes "Der Zauberberg"

Despite starting a family and being a successful writer, Mann is unstable. Outwardly he maintains his facade as a patriarch, he only confides his feelings in his diary. He doubts himself and his ability, which also has a literary effect. Although his own standards are high, his next big successful novel, "The Magic Mountain", does not appear until 25 years after "Buddenbrooks".

Emigration and Exile

Politically, Mann takes a late position. At first he defended the First World War and welcomed the strengthening of the right-wing parties from 1920. But after the assassination of Rathenau in 1922 there was no longer any doubt:over the years he developed from an apolitical reactionary to a "late" democrat. At the end of the 1930s, anti-fascism and socialism strengthened in him. In 1933, on the advice of his children Erika and Klaus, Thomas Mann did not return to Germany after a lecture tour. But emigration is difficult for the Manns. You lose your German citizenship and almost all of your belongings.

Her path takes her via Sanary-sur-Mer in France, via Zurich and finally in 1938 to the USA. The first stop is Princeton, where Mann lectures at the university. Three years later, the company moves to Pacific Palisades, California. In 1944 Thomas Mann received American citizenship. During these years he wrote his old age novel "Doktor Faustus" - a symbol of Germany's fate. In these years Thomas Mann is particularly productive, numerous autobiographical writings appear in which he takes a political position, as in his radio speeches to the Germans.

Return to Europe

In 1949 he visited Germany for the first time after the Second World War. The occasion is the awarding of the Goethe Prize by the City of Frankfurt to the poet on August 28. Thomas Mann is enthusiastically applauded and is henceforth regarded as a symbol of a reconciled new beginning.

• CV of Thomas Mann
• The Thomas Mann Portal

The suicide of his son Klaus casts a shadow over his triumphant return. Thomas Mann sees no fault of third parties in the suicide, but justifies this in his son's "compulsion to die". He stays away from the funeral. He only confides family problems, such as the frequency of suicides in his own family, to the diary.

When Mann was suspected of being a communist in the USA during the McCarthy era, he returned to Europe for good in 1952. He makes peace with the old continent, including Germany. During a spa stay he is looking for a domicile in Switzerland. First he settles in Erlenbach, later in the familiar Kilchberg near Zurich. Mann worked tirelessly to the end, in 1954 "The Confessions of Felix Krull the Impostor" was published and in 1955 he held two speeches about Schiller.

Lübeck awards Thomas Mann honorary citizenship

Thomas Mann's biographer, Klaus Schröter, describes May 20, 1955 as a "great, touching moment in his life, which is about to get ready." The home town is finally recognizing the merits of the great writer - according to Schröter an important gesture of reconciliation:"He thanked this reunion, which made peace with his homeland." Just a few weeks later, on August 12, 1955, Thomas Mann died in the cantonal hospital in Zurich.