Klaus Mann

Klaus Mann
Klaus Heinrich Thomas Mann (18 November 1906 – 21 May 1949) was a German writer and dissident. He was the son of Thomas Mann, a nephew of Heinrich Mann and brother of Erika Mann (with whom he maintained a lifelong close relationship) and Golo Mann. He is well known for his 1936 novel, Mephisto.
Background
Born in Munich, Klaus Mann was the son of German writer Thomas Mann and his wife, Katia Pringsheim. His father was baptized as a Lutheran, while his mother was from a family of secular Jews. Due to his being the grandson of Júlia da Silva Bruhns, he was also of Portuguese-Indigenous Brazilian partial descent.
Life and career
Mann began writing short stories in 1924 and the following year became drama critic for a Berlin newspaper. His first literary works were published in 1925.
Mann's early life was described by him as romantic, in beautiful upper-class surroundings (Je suis de mon temps. Kind dieser Zeit) but his homosexuality complicated his early adulthood, and he developed a difficult relationship with his father. After only a short time in various schools, he traveled with his sister Erika Mann, a year older than himself, around the world, visiting the U.S. in 1927; they reported on the trip in essays published as a collaborative travelogue entitled Rundherum in 1929. During his early travels often by car throughout Europe and North Africa as well as America and Asia, Erika was at the wheel or determined the itinerary and thus compensated for his inability to make personal and useful decisions. That assistance by his dearly-loved sister continued even into his later adulthood but could not save him from his own self-destructive behaviors and excessive drug use.
In 1924 he had become engaged to his childhood friend Pamela Wedekind, the eldest daughter of the playwright Frank Wedekind, who was also a close friend of his sister Erika. The engagement was broken off in January 1928.
During the time Erika travelled with Klaus to North Africa in 1929, they met Annemarie Schwarzenbach, a Swiss writer and photographer, who remained close to them for the next few years. Klaus made several trips abroad with Annemarie, the final one to a Soviet writers' congress in Moscow in 1934. During this time and after direct contact with Russian authors and intellectuals, he initiated his critical thinking towards communist ideals and totalitarian ideologies.
Since young adulthood, Klaus was using drugs, mostly opiates, to which he later became heavily addicted. His diaries document an attempted morphine-injection in 1933 when Hitler took power. Initially, the aspiring writer used opium, Eukodal and later heroin to possibly increase his creative energy, as this was often the case for artists and intellectuals in literary circles at the time. He underwent drug detoxification in Budapest during his frantic travels and at the Kilchberg Sanatorium in Switzerland. After 1936, during his stay in New York his drug use and sexual adventures became unconstrained.
In 1932 Klaus wrote the first part of his autobiography, which was well received until Hitler came to power.
In 1933 Klaus participated with Erika in a political cabaret, called Die Pfeffermühle (The Pepper-Mill), which came to the attention of the Nazi regime. The play, which included a daring critique of Hitler, was first performed in Munich and subsequently in Zurich. To escape prosecution he left Germany in March 1933 for Paris, later visiting Amsterdam and Switzerland, where his family had a house. The same year, Klaus Mann and Annemarie Schwarzenbach, together with Fritz Landshoff and Dutch publisher Emanuel Querido, founded Die Sammlung, a literary magazine, first published in September 1933 in Amsterdam. It was primarily affiliated with a number of influential German writers who fled from the Hitler regime during the first years of the establishment and consolidation of Nazi rule. But also other internationally acclaimed authors such as Aldous Huxley and Heinrich Mann contributed with essays and editorial work. The magazine was funded by the wealthy Annemarie Schwarzenbach and his father Thomas Mann, while Klaus served as its editor-in-chief from 1933 to 1935, when Die Sammlungs activity ceased. The publication ended also due to disagreements between Klaus and his father Thomas Mann as well as other contributors because of the frequent politically-motivated content.
Klaus Mann not only played an important role in the consolidation of the German Exilliteratur but also communicated with authors who remained in Germany after 1933. In a letter exchange with Gottfried Benn, whose ambivalence towards Nazi rule was well known, Klaus expressed concern about Benn's continued membership in the national German academy of writers, pointing out the moral dilemma it posed, even urging him to leave the country to join the German intellectuals in exile. His work Escape to Life, co-authored by his sister Erika, who at the time was a successful writer for the BBC, was the culmination of his efforts to unite German intellectuals against the de-humanizing politics of the German National Socialists.
In 1933 Klaus Mann also made acquaintance with Julien Green, who was a successful French author, and engaged in the French Resistance. Green, who lived in America, attempted to rationalize his homosexual tendencies in the context of religion. Text published by Green indicated a shared sexual behavior with a preference for underaged men. From the homosexual relationships Klaus experienced during his life, however, he tended to seek a bond with men equal to his age or older.
In November 1934 Klaus was stripped of German citizenship by the Nazi regime. He became a Czechoslovak citizen. In 1936, he moved to the United States, living in Princeton, New Jersey, and New York. In the summer of 1937, he met his partner for the rest of the year, Thomas Quinn Curtiss, who was later a longtime film and theater reviewer for Variety and the International Herald Tribune. In 1940 Klaus Mann founded another literary magazine for German writers living in exile in the United States, Decision. It lasted for only a year, but consolidated American intellectual opposition to the war with Sherwood Anderson, W. Somerset Maugham, Vincent Sheean and Robert E. Sherwood onto its board of directors. At the time, he was living in February House, and his housemates W. H. Auden and Carson McCullers provided editorial and layout assistance. He eventually moved to his father's house in Pacific Palisades when he was unable to support himself financially.
Mann's novel Der Vulkan was published in 1939 at the onset of World War 2, and was another attempt by him to portray not only Germans but other European exiles during that time. Despite considered one of his best novels, it never generated any significant sales and was only translated into French.
Mann became a U.S. citizen in 1943. The process of naturalization was delayed because of an investigation the FBI conducted into Klaus Mann's political and sexual activities; he was openly gay but not an adherent of marxist ideologies. Throughout his life in the U.S., he identified himself as a liberal antifascist and cosmopolitan. In World War II, he served as a staff sergeant of the 5th U.S. Army and the British Corps in Italy. During that crucial time of World War II, Klaus was engaged in psychological warfare designing leaflets intended for German soldiers stationed in Italy and North Africa. In Italy, he was also involved with difficult interrogations of German POWs, including seasoned SS officers.
In his second 1942 autobiography (Der Wendepunkt, the Turning Point), he critically observed the segregation of white army personnel from their black counterparts at Camp Ritchie. In summer 1945, he was sent by units of the U.S. 5th Army and the British 8th Army to Germany. Klaus Mann, a German-American, used the publication Stars and Stripes to report from Postwar-Germany. As he visited liberated concentration camps in official function, he was one of the first eye-witnesses to report on the horrors of mass extermination during Nazi rule in Germany. Audiovisual documents of his emotional reporting at these sites in the later 1940s became historical records and are still regarded today as a verification of these crimes against humanity.
Mann's most famous novel, Mephisto, was written in 1936 and first published in Amsterdam. The novel is a thinly disguised portrait of his former brother-in-law, the actor Gustaf Gründgens. The literary scandal surrounding it made Mann posthumously famous in West Germany, as Gründgens' adopted son brought a legal case to have the novel banned after its first publication in West Germany in the early 1960s. After seven years of legal hearings, the West German Supreme Court upheld the ban, although it continued to be available in East Germany and abroad. The ban was lifted, and the novel published in West.
Death
Mann died in Cannes from an overdose of sleeping pills on 21 May 1949, following further drug treatment.
In spite of speculation that he committed suicide because of financial pressures, and opiate addiction, Mann's biographer Frederic Spotts argues that the engaged author's communications and attitude preceding his sudden overdose suggest accident rather than suicide. He was buried in Cannes at the Cimetière du Grand Jas.
A number of biographies of Klaus Mann appeared much later after his suicide in Cannes in 1949. Aside of one German language author, such as Nicole Schaenzler, all biographies were written and edited by English or American contributors. Due to the fact that he wrote frequent autobiographical content, Klaus Mann's work can best be understood from what he wrote about himself. A separation of his literary achievements, which were mostly unsuccessful during his time, and his life are impossible. Even in the 1940s Klaus Mann remained active in literary circles, particularly his personal and spiritual connections with André Gide, and his later examination of Gide in his work Avant la Lettre (1943) shed more light on his time and himself than biographies published much later by English biographers. Later also, K. Mann was celebrated as a modern liberal or transnational who attempted to break down national boundaries. Such post-modern interpretations often contrast his own biographical notes; Klaus Mann essentially felt German and had positive memories of his upbringing in Bavaria. In a pursuit to describe post-war Germany after the destructions of Word War 2, he attempted to find his origins while collecting painful impressions from a Germany, occupied by foreign military forces and impacted by the loss of its original borders
Bibliography
Novels & Autobiographies
Der fromme Tanz, 1925
Anja und Esther, 1925
Kindernovelle, 1926 [published in the U.S. as The 5th Child, 1927]
Revue zu Vieren, 1927
Alexander, Roman der Utopie, 1929
Auf der Suche nach einem Weg, 1931
Kind dieser Zeit, 1932
Treffpunkt im Unendlichen, 1932
Journey into Freedom, 1934
Symphonie Pathétique, 1935
Mephisto, 1936
Vergittertes Fenster, 1937
Escape to Life, 1939 (with Erika Mann)
Der Vulkan, 1939
The Turning Point, 1942
Avant la lettre, 1943
André Gide and the Crisis of Modern Thought, 1943
The Chaplain, 1945
Essays & travel reports
Vor dem Leben, Erzählungen. Enoch Verlag, Hamburg 1925 (heute enthalten in Maskenscherz. Die frühen Erzählungen).
Kindernovelle, Erzählung. Enoch, Hamburg 1926 (ebd.).
Rundherum. Ein heiteres Reisebuch. (Mit Erika Mann). S. Fischer, Berlin 1929. Neuausgabe Rowohlt, Reinbek 1996, ISBN 3-499-13931-6.
Abenteuer. Novellen. Reclam, Leipzig 1929.
Auf der Suche nach einem Weg. Aufsätze. Transmare Verlag, Berlin 1931.
Das Buch von der Riviera (Mit Erika Mann). aus der Reihe: Was nicht im „Baedeker“ steht, Band XII. Piper, München 1931. Neuausgabe Rowohlt, Reinbek 2003, ISBN 3-499-23667-2; Neuausgabe Kindler, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-463-40715-9.
Die Sammlung. Literarische Monatsschrift. (Unter dem Patronat von André Gide, Aldous Huxley, Heinrich Mann herausgegeben von Klaus Mann.) Querido, Amsterdam. September 1933 – August 1935. Neuausgabe Rogner und Bernhard Verlag, München 1986 bei Zweitausendeins. Zwei Bände. ISBN 3-8077-0222-9.
Vergittertes Fenster. Novelle (über die letzten Tage von Ludwig II. von Bayern). Querido Verlag, Amsterdam 1937; danach S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1960 (heute enthalten in Speed. Die Erzählungen aus dem Exil.)
Escape to Life Deutsche Kultur im Exil. (Zusammen mit Erika Mann). Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1939. Neuausgabe Rowohlt, Reinbek 1991, ISBN 3-499-13992-8.
The Other Germany. (Zusammen mit Erika Mann), Modern Age, New York 1940 (Volltext im Internet Archive).
Decision. A Review of Free Culture. Ed. by Klaus Mann. New York, Januar 1941 – Februar 1942.
André Gide and the Crisis of Modern Thought. Creative Age, New York 1943 (dt.: Andre Gide und die Krise des modernen Denkens). Neuausgabe Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995, ISBN 3-499-15378-5.
Heart of Europe. An Anthology of Creative Writing in Europe 1920–1940. Ed. by Hermann Kesten and Klaus Mann. L. B. Fischer, New York 1943.
André Gide: Die Geschichte eines Europäers. Steinberg, Zürich 1948.
Die Heimsuchung des europäischen Geistes. Essay 1948. Neuausgabe bei Transit Buchverlag 1993, ISBN 3-88747-082-6 (auch enthalten in Auf verlorenem Posten. S. 523–542).
Film adaptations
Mephisto, directed by István Szabó (1981, based on the novel Mephisto)
Treffpunkt im Unendlichen, directed by Heinrich Breloer and (1984, TV film, based on the novel Treffpunkt im Unendlichen)
Flight North, directed by (1986, based on the novel Journey into Freedom)
The Volcano, directed by Ottokar Runze (1999, based on the novel Der Vulkan)
See also
Dohm–Mann family tree
Exilliteratur
References
Further reading
Hauck, Gerald Günter. Reluctant Immigrants: Klaus and Erika Mann In American Exile, 1936-1945. 1997.
Huneke, Samuel Clowes. 'The Reception of Homosexuality in Klaus Mann's Weimar Era Work.' Monatshefte für deutschsprachige Literatur und Kultur. Vol. 105, No. 1, Spring 2013. 86–100. doi: 10.1353/mon.2013.0027
Keller, James Robert. The Role of Political and Sexual Identity in the Works of Klaus Mann. New York: Peter Lang, 2001.
Mann, Klaus. Il cappellano , by Pier Giorgio Ardeni and Alberto Gualandi, Pendragon 2018
Mauthner, Martin. German Writers in French Exile, 1933–1940 London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006
Schicker, Juliane. 'Decision. A Review of Free Culture' – Eine Zeitschrift zwischen Literatur und Tagespolitik. München: Grin, 2008.
Spotts, Frederic. Cursed Legacy: The Tragic Life of Klaus Mann New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.
Harpole, Kimberley, and Waltraud Maierhofer. 'Women Performing the American 'Other' in Erika and Klaus Mann's Rundherum (1929). [https://mulpress.mcmaster.ca/sophiejournal/article/download/3155/2722 ''Sophie Journal .] Vol.4, 2017. 1-32.
External links
The Works, Diaries and Letters are in the Munich Literatur-Archiv "Monancensia"
Tagebuch 1931–1949 – Titel – Mann Digital – Monacensia – Digital
1906 births
1949 deaths
1949 suicides
20th-century American Jews
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
20th-century American essayists
20th-century German dramatists and playwrights
20th-century diarists
20th-century German male writers
20th-century German short story writers
20th-century German LGBT people
20th-century American LGBT people
20th-century American male writers
American male dramatists and playwrights
American male non-fiction writers
American diarists
American male novelists
Burials at the Cimetière du Grand Jas
Drug-related suicides in France
Exilliteratur writers
German autobiographers
German diarists
German gay writers
German literary critics
German male dramatists and playwrights
German male non-fiction writers
German male novelists
German male short story writers
German people of Jewish descent
German short story writers
German war correspondents
Jewish American dramatists and playwrights
Jewish American novelists
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
American LGBT dramatists and playwrights
Klaus
Klaus
People educated at the Wilhelmsgymnasium (Munich)
Writers from the Kingdom of Bavaria
Ritchie Boys
War correspondents of World War II
Writers from Munich
United States Army personnel of World War II
United States Army soldiers
American gay writers
German people of Portuguese descent
American people of Portuguese-Jewish descent