Thomas Mann

Paul Thomas Mann (born 6 June 1875 in Lübeck; died 12 August 1955 in Zürich) was a German author.

Mann was born in 1875 in Lübeck as son of a salesman and senator of the city of Lübeck, into a rich and conservative family. In 1891 his father died. In 1894 Mann left school. He went to Munich, were his mother and his brothers and sister had been since 1893. He worked as an insurance salesman and wrote poems and prose by the way.

In 1898 he published his first works and began Die Buddenbrooks influenced by work of Arthur Schopenhauer, published in 1901. In 1906 he married, although he was not clear about his sexual orientation. In the World War I, Mann agreed with the war, but not enthusiastically. In the time of the Weimar Republic he defended democratic ideas.

In 1929 he won the Nobel Prize for literature. In 1933 the Nazis burned books of his brother Heinrich Mann. Because of this both Thomas and Heinrich and their family moved to the United States in 1934. He lost his German citizenship, but got Czechoslovakian citizenship in the United States. In 1944 he became a US citizen.

He worked for the Allies in the radio during the World War II. In 1952 he had to give a talk to the Committee on Un-American Activities. He was very disappointed in the United States and returned to Europe, to Switzerland, in 1953. In the 1950s he visited Germany sometimes. He died of atherosclerosis in Zürich, Switzerland.

Works

Novels 
 Buddenbrooks - Verfall einer Familie (1901)
 Königliche Hoheit (1909)
 Der Zauberberg (1924)
 Joseph und seine Brüder – Tetralogie (1933-1943)
 Die Geschichten Jaakobs (1933)
 Der junge Joseph (1934)
 Joseph in Ägypten (1936)
 Joseph der Ernährer (1943)
 Lotte in Weimar (1939)
 Doktor Faustus (1947)
 Der Erwählte (1951)
 Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (1954)

Short stories and short novels 
 Vision. Prosa-Skizze, 1893
 Gefallen, 1894
 Der Wille zum Glück, 1896
 Enttäuschung, 1896
 Der Tod, 1897
 Der kleine Herr Friedemann, 1897
 Der Bajazzo, 1897
 Tobias Mindernickel, 1898
 Der Kleiderschrank, 1899
 Gerächt. Novellistische Studie, 1899
 Luischen, 1900
 Der Weg zum Friedhof, 1900
 Gladius Dei, Novelle 1902
 Tonio Kröger, Novelle 1903
 Tristan, Novelle 1903
 Die Hungernden, 1903
 Das Wunderkind, 1903
 Ein Glück, 1904
 Beim Propheten, 1904
 Schwere Stunde, 1905
 Anekdote, 1908
 Das Eisenbahnunglück, 1909
 Wie Jappe und Do Escobar sich prügelten, 1911
 Der Tod in Venedig, 1912
 Herr und Hund. Ein Idyll, 1918
 Gesang vom Kindchen. Ein Idyll, 1919
 Wälsungenblut, 1921
 Unordnung und frühes Leid, 1926
 Mario und der Zauberer, 1930
 Die vertauschten Köpfe - Eine indische Legende, 1940
 Das Gesetz, 1944
 Die Betrogene, 1953

Dramas 
 Fiorenza

Essays 
 Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, 1918
 Das Problem der Freiheit, 1937
 Versuch über Schiller, 1955
 Über Goethe

Related pages

 Death in Venice (opera)

1875 births
1955 deaths
American LGBT people
American essayists
American novelists
Bisexual people
Czechoslovak people
German essayists
German LGBT people
German Nobel Prize winners
Writers from Schleswig-Holstein
LGBT Nobel Prize winners
LGBT novelists
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Lübeck
Refugees from Nazism
Short story writers
Deaths from atherosclerosis