Switzerland
What citizenship did Thomas Mann hold from 1918 to 1933?
Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955 ) was a German novelist , short story writer , social critic , philanthropist , essayist , and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate . His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual . His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized versions of German and Biblical stories , as well as the ideas of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Nietzsche , and Arthur Schopenhauer . Mann was a member of the Hanseatic Mann family and portrayed his family and class in his first novel , Buddenbrooks . His older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann and three of Manns six children , Erika Mann , Klaus Mann and Golo Mann , also became significant German writers . When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 , Mann fled to Switzerland . When World War II broke out in 1939 , he moved to the United States , then returned to Switzerland in 1952 . Mann is one of the best-known exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur , German literature written in exile by those who opposed the Hitler regime . Life . Paul Thomas Mann was born to a bourgeois family in Lübeck , the second son of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann ( a senator and a grain merchant ) and his wife Júlia da Silva Bruhns , a Brazilian woman of German and Portuguese ancestry , who emigrated to Germany with her family when she was seven years old . His mother was Roman Catholic but Mann was baptised into his fathers Lutheran religion . Manns father died in 1891 , and after that his trading firm was liquidated . The family subsequently moved to Munich . Mann first studied science at a Lübeck Gymnasium ( secondary school ) , then attended the Ludwig Maximillians University of Munich as well as the Technical University of Munich , where , in preparation for a journalism career , he studied history , economics , art history and literature . Mann lived in Munich from 1891 until 1933 , with the exception of a year spent in Palestrina , Italy , with his elder brother , the novelist Heinrich . Thomas worked at the South German Fire Insurance Company in 1894–95 . His career as a writer began when he wrote for the magazine Simplicissimus . Manns first short story , Little Mr Friedemann ( Der Kleine Herr Friedemann ) , was published in 1898 . In 1905 , Mann married Katia Pringsheim , who came from a wealthy , secular Jewish industrialist family . She later joined the Lutheran church . The couple had six children . Pre-war and Second World War period . In 1912 , he and his wife moved to a sanatorium in Davos , Switzerland , which was to inspire his 1924 novel The Magic Mountain . He was also appalled by the risk of international confrontation between Germany and France , following the Agadir Crisis in Morocco , and later by the outbreak of the First World War . In 1929 , Mann had a cottage built in the fishing village of Nidden , Memel Territory ( now Nida , Lithuania ) on the Curonian Spit , where there was a German art colony and where he spent the summers of 1930–1932 working on Joseph and His Brothers . Today the cottage is a cultural center dedicated to him , with a small memorial exhibition . In 1933 , while travelling in the South of France , Mann heard from his eldest children Klaus and Erika in Munich , that it would not be safe for him to return to Germany . The family ( except these two children ) emigrated to Küsnacht , near Zürich , Switzerland , but received Czechoslovak citizenship and a passport in 1936 . In 1939 , following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia , he emigrated to the United States . He moved to Princeton , New Jersey , where he lived on 65 Stockton Street and began to teach at Princeton University . In 1942 , the Mann family moved to 1550 San Remo Drive in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles , California . The Manns were prominent members of the German expatriate community of Los Angeles , and would frequently meet other emigres at the house of Salka and Bertold Viertel in Santa Monica , and at the Villa Aurora , the home of fellow German exile Lion Feuchtwanger . On 23 June 1944 Thomas Mann was naturalized as a citizen of the United States . The Manns lived in Los Angeles until 1952 . Anti-Nazi broadcasts . The outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939 , prompted Mann to offer anti-Nazi speeches ( in German ) to the German people via the BBC . In October 1940 he began monthly broadcasts , recorded in the U.S . and flown to London , where the BBC broadcast them to Germany on the longwave band . In these eight-minute addresses , Mann condemned Hitler and his paladins as crude philistines completely out of touch with European culture . In one noted speech he said , The war is horrible , but it has the advantage of keeping Hitler from making speeches about culture . Mann was one of the few publicly active opponents of Nazism among German expatriates in the U.S . In a BBC broadcast of 30 December 1945 , Mann expressed understanding as to why those peoples that had suffered from the Nazi regime would embrace the idea of German collective guilt . But he also thought that many enemies might now have second thoughts about revenge . And he expressed regret that such judgment cannot be based on the individual . Last years . With the start of the Cold War he was increasingly frustrated by rising McCarthyism . As a suspected communist , he was required to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee , where he was termed one of the worlds foremost apologists for Stalin and company . He was listed by HUAC as being affiliated with various peace organizations or Communist fronts . Being in his own words a non-communist rather than an anti-communist , Mann openly opposed the allegations : As an American citizen of German birth I finally testify that I am painfully familiar with certain political trends . Spiritual intolerance , political inquisitions , and declining legal security , and all this in the name of an alleged state of emergency . .. . That is how it started in Germany . As Mann joined protests against the jailing of the Hollywood Ten and the firing of schoolteachers suspected of being Communists , he found the media had been closed to him . Finally he was forced to quit his position as Consultant in Germanic Literature at the Library of Congress and in 1952 he returned to Europe , to live in Kilchberg , near Zürich , Switzerland . He never again lived in Germany , though he regularly traveled there . His most important German visit was in 1949 , at the 200th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , attending celebrations in Frankfurt am Main and Weimar , as a statement that German culture extended beyond the new political borders . Death . Following his 80th birthday , Mann went on vacation to Noordwijk ( the Netherlands ) . On 18 July 1955 , he began to experience pain and unilateral swelling in his left leg . The condition of thrombophlebitis was diagnosed by Dr . Mülders from Leiden and confirmed by Dr . Wilhelm Löffler . Mann was transported to a Zürich hospital , but soon developed a state of shock ( circulatory ) . On 12 August 1955 , he died . Postmortem , his condition was found to have been misdiagnosed . The pathologic diagnosis , made by Christoph Hedinger , showed he had actually suffered a perforated iliac artery aneurysm resulting in a retroperitoneal hematoma , compression and thrombosis of the iliac vein . ( At that time , lifesaving vascular surgery had not been developed. ) On 16 August 1955 , Thomas Mann was buried in Village Cemetery , Kilchberg , Zürich , Switzerland . Legacy . Manns work influenced many later authors , such as Yukio Mishima . Many institutions are named in his honour , for instance the Thomas Mann Gymnasium of Budapest . Career . Blanche Knopf of Alfred A . Knopf publishing house was introduced to Mann by H . L . Mencken while on a book-buying trip to Europe . Knopf became Manns American publisher , and Blanche hired scholar Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter to translate Manns books in 1924 . Lowe-Porter subsequently translated Manns complete works . Blanche Knopf continued to look after Mann . After Buddenbrooks proved successful in its first year , they sent him an unexpected bonus . Later in the 1930s , Blanche helped arrange for Mann and his family to emigrate to America . Nobel Prize in Literature . Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929 , after he had been nominated by Anders Österling , member of the Swedish Academy , principally in recognition of his popular achievement with the epic Buddenbrooks ( 1901 ) , The Magic Mountain ( Der Zauberberg , 1924 ) and his numerous short stories . ( Due to the personal taste of an influential committee member , only Buddenbrooks was cited at any great length. ) Based on Manns own family , Buddenbrooks relates the decline of a merchant family in Lübeck over the course of four generations . The Magic Mountain ( Der Zauberberg , 1924 ) follows an engineering student who , planning to visit his tubercular cousin at a Swiss sanatorium for only three weeks , finds his departure from the sanatorium delayed . During that time , he confronts medicine and the way it looks at the body and encounters a variety of characters , who play out ideological conflicts and discontents of contemporary European civilization . The tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers is an epic novel written over a period of sixteen years , and is one of the largest and most significant works in Manns oeuvre . Later , other novels included ( 1939 ) , in which Mann returned to the world of Goethes novel The Sorrows of Young Werther ( 1774 ) ; Doctor Faustus ( 1947 ) , the story of composer Adrian Leverkühn and the corruption of German culture in the years before and during World War II ; and Confessions of Felix Krull ( Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull , 1954 ) , which was unfinished at Manns death . Throughout his Dostoevsky essay , he finds parallels between the Russian and the sufferings of Friedrich Nietzsche . Speaking of Nietzsche , he says : his personal feelings initiate him into those of the criminal.. . in general all creative originality , all artist nature in the broadest sense of the word , does the same . It was the French painter and sculptor Degas who said that an artist must approach his work in the spirit of the criminal about to commit a crime . Nietzsches influence on Mann runs deep in his work , especially in Nietzsches views on decay and the proposed fundamental connection between sickness and creativity . Mann held that disease is not to be regarded as wholly negative . In his essay on Dostoevsky we find : but after all and above all it depends on who is diseased , who mad , who epileptic or paralytic : an average dull-witted man , in whose illness any intellectual or cultural aspect is non-existent ; or a Nietzsche or Dostoyevsky . In their case something comes out in illness that is more important and conductive to life and growth than any medical guaranteed health or sanity.. . in other words : certain conquests made by the soul and the mind are impossible without disease , madness , crime of the spirit . Sexuality . Manns diaries reveal his struggles with his homosexuality , which found reflection in his works , most prominently through the obsession of the elderly Aschenbach for the 14-year-old Polish boy Tadzio in the novella Death in Venice ( Der Tod in Venedig , 1912 ) . Anthony Heilbuts biography Thomas Mann : Eros and Literature ( 1997 ) uncovered the centrality of Manns sexuality to his oeuvre . Gilbert Adairs work The Real Tadzio ( 2001 ) describes how , in the summer of 1911 , Mann had stayed at the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido of Venice with his wife and brother , when he became enraptured by the angelic figure of Władysław ( Władzio ) Moes , a 10-year-old Polish boy ( see also The real Tadzio on the Death in Venice page ) . Manns diary records his attraction to his own 13-year-old son , Eissi – Klaus Mann : Klaus to whom recently I feel very drawn ( 22 June ) . In the background conversations about man-to-man eroticism take place ; a long letter is written to Carl Maria Weber on this topic , while the diary reveals : In love with Klaus during these days ( 5 June ) . Eissi , who enchants me right now ( 11 July ) . Delight over Eissi , who in his bath is terribly handsome . Find it very natural that I am in love with my son .. . Eissi lay reading in bed with his brown torso naked , which disconcerted me ( 25 July ) . I heard noise in the boys room and surprised Eissi completely naked in front of Golos bed acting foolish . Strong impression of his premasculine , gleaming body . Disquiet ( 17 October 1920 ) . Mann was a friend of the violinist and painter Paul Ehrenberg , for whom he had feelings as a young man ( at least until around 1903 when there is evidence that those feelings had cooled ) . The attraction that he felt for Ehrenberg , which is corroborated by notebook entries , caused Mann difficulty and discomfort and may have been an obstacle to his marrying an English woman , Mary Smith , whom he met in 1901 . In 1950 , Mann met the 19 year old waiter Franz Westermeier , confiding to his diary Once again this , once again love . In 1975 , when Manns diaries were published , creating a national sensation in Germany , the retired Westermeier was tracked down in the United States : he was flattered to learn he had been the object of Manns obsession , but also shocked at its depth . Although Mann had always denied his novels had autobiographical components , the unsealing of his diaries revealing how consumed his life had been with unrequited and sublimated passion resulted in a reappraisal of his work . Klaus Mann had dealt openly from the beginning with his own homosexuality in his literary work , critically referring to his fathers sublimation in his diary , whereas daughter Erika Mann and younger son Golo Mann came out only later in their lives . Cultural references . The Magic Mountain . Several literary and other works make reference to Manns book The Magic Mountain , including : - Frederic Tutens novel Tintin in the New World , features many characters ( such as Clavdia Chauchat , Mynheer Peeperkorn and others ) from The Magic Mountain interacting with Tintin in Peru . - Alice Munros short story Amundsen in which a character makes a reference to The Magic Mountain during a conversation on tuberculosis . - Andrew Crumeys novel Mobius Dick ( 2004 ) , which imagines an alternative universe where an author named Behring has written novels resembling Manns . These include a version of The Magic Mountain with Erwin Schrödinger in place of Castorp . - Haruki Murakamis novel Norwegian Wood , in which the main character is criticized for reading The Magic Mountain while visiting a friend in a sanatorium . - The song Magic Mountain by the band Blonde Redhead - The painting Magic Mountain ( after Thomas Mann ) by Christiaan Tonnis ( 1987 ) . The Magic Mountain is also a chapter in Tonniss 2006 book Krankheit als Symbol ( Illness as a Symbol ) . - The 1941 film 49th Parallel , in which the character Philip Armstrong Scott unknowingly praises Manns work to an escaped World War II Nazi U-boat commander , who later responds by burning Scotts copy of The Magic Mountain . - Ken Keseys novel , Sometimes a Great Notion ( 1964 ) , character Indian Jenny purchases a Thomas Mann novel and tries to find out .. . just where was this mountain full of magic.. . ( p . 578 ) . - Renata Adlers novel Speedboat , in which a ministers wife says to a courteous , bearded boy , “How I envy you , .. . reading The Magic Mountain for the first time.” - Hayao Miyazakis 2013 film The Wind Rises , in which an unnamed German man at a mountain resort invokes the novel as cover for furtively condemning the rapidly arming Hitler and Hirohito regimes . After he flees to escape the Japanese secret police , the protagonist , who fears his own mail is being read , refers to him as the novels Mr . Castorp . The film is partly based on another Japanese novel , set like The Magic Mountain in a tuberculosis sanatorium . - Father John Mistys 2017 album Pure Comedy contains a song titled , So Im Growing Old on Magic Mountain in which a man , near death , reflects on the passing of time and the disappearance of his Dionysian youth in homage to the themes in Manns novel . - Viktor Frankls book Mans Search for Meaning relates the time-experience of Holocaust prisoners to TB patients in The Magic Mountain : How paradoxical was our time-experience ! In this connection we are reminded of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain , which contains some very pointed psychological remarks . Mann studies the spiritual development of people who are in an analogous psychological position , i.e. , tuberculosis patients in a sanatorium who also know no date for their release . They experience a similar existence—without a future and without a goal . Death in Venice . Several literary and other works make reference to Death in Venice , including : - The 2006 movie A Good Year directed by Ridley Scott , starring Russell Crowe and Albert Finney , which features a paperback version of Death in Venice ; it is the book Christie Roberts is reading at her deceased fathers vineyard . - Woody Allens film Annie Hall ( 1977 ) . - Alexander McCall Smiths novel Portuguese Irregular Verbs ( 1997 ) has a final chapter entitled Death in Venice and refers to Thomas Mann by name in that chapter . - Philip Roths novel The Human Stain ( 2000 ) . - Joseph Hellers 1994 novel , Closing Time , which makes several references to Thomas Mann and Death in Venice . - Alan Bennetts play The Habit of Art , in which Benjamin Britten visits W . H . Auden to discuss the possibility of Auden writing the libretto for Brittens opera version of Death in Venice . - Rufus Wainwrights 2001 song Grey Gardens , which mentions the character Tadzio in the refrain . - David Rakoffs essay Shrimp which appears in his 2010 collection Half Empty makes a humorous comparison between Manns Aschenbach and E.B . Whites Stuart Little . - Two main characters in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl make a spoof film titled , Death in Tennis . Other . - Hayavadana ( 1972 ) , a play by Girish Karnad was based on a theme drawn from The Transposed Heads and employed the folk theatre form of Yakshagana . A German version of the play , was directed by Vijaya Mehta as part of the repertoire of the Deutsches National Theatre , Weimar . A staged musical version of The Transposed Heads , adapted by Julie Taymor and Sidney Goldfarb , with music by Elliot Goldenthal , was produced at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia and the Lincoln Center in New York in 1988 . - Manns 1896 short story Disillusionment is the basis for the Leiber and Stoller song Is That All There Is? , famously recorded in 1969 by Peggy Lee . - In a 1994 essay , Umberto Eco suggests that the media discuss Whether reading Thomas Mann gives one erections as an alternative to Whether Joyce is boring . - In The Simpsons episode Them , Robot , Waylon Smithers threatens the children at Springfield Elementary with not reading Death in Venice to them . - In the Family Guy episode Road to Europe , a pro-Fascist German tour guide argues with Brian Griffin about Manns reasons for fleeing Germany , erroneously stating : Nope , nope . He left to manage a Dairy Queen . Brian attempts to correct him , but the tour guide then begins angrily screaming at Brian in German . - Manns life in California during World War II , including his relationships with his older brother Heinrich Mann and Bertolt Brecht is a subject of Christopher Hamptons play Tales from Hollywood . Political views . During World War I , Mann supported Kaiser Wilhelm IIs conservatism , attacked liberalism and supported the war effort , calling the Great War a purification , a liberation , an enormous hope . Yet in Von Deutscher Republik ( 1923 ) as a semi-official spokesman for parliamentary democracy , Mann called upon German intellectuals to support the new Weimar Republic . He also gave a lecture at the Beethovensaal in Berlin on 13 October 1922 , which appeared in Die neue Rundschau in November 1922 in which he developed his eccentric defence of the Republic , based on extensive close readings of Novalis and Walt Whitman . Thereafter , his political views gradually shifted toward liberal left and democratic principles . He initially gave his support to the left-liberal German Democratic Party before shifting further left and urging unity behind the Social Democrats . In 1930 , Mann gave a public address in Berlin titled An Appeal to Reason in which he strongly denounced Nazism and encouraged resistance by the working class . This was followed by numerous essays and lectures in which he attacked the Nazis . At the same time , he expressed increasing sympathy for socialist ideas . When the Nazis came to power in 1933 , Mann and his wife were on holiday in Switzerland . Due to his strident denunciations of Nazi policies , his son Klaus advised him not to return . In contrast to those of his brother Heinrich and his son Klaus , Manns books were not among those burnt publicly by Hitlers regime in May 1933 , possibly since he had been the Nobel laureate in literature for 1929 . In 1936 , the Nazi government officially revoked his German citizenship . During the war , Mann made a series of anti-Nazi radio-speeches , published as Listen , Germany! . They were recorded on tape in the United States and then sent to the United Kingdom , where the BBC transmitted them , hoping to reach German listeners . Views on Russian communism and Nazi-fascism . Mann expressed his belief in the collection of letters written in exile , Listen , Germany ! ( Deutsche Hörer! ) , that equating Russian communism with Nazi-fascism on the basis that both are totalitarian systems was either superficial or insincere in showing a preference for fascism . He clarified this view during a German press interview in July 1949 , declaring that he was not a communist , but that communism at least had some relation to ideals of humanity and of a better future . He said that the transition of the communist revolution into an autocratic regime was a tragedy while Nazism was only devilish nihilism . Literary works . Play . 1905 : Fiorenza Prose sketch . 1893 : Vision Short stories . - 1894 : Gefallen - 1896 : The Will to Happiness - 1896 : Disillusionment ( Enttäuschung ) - 1896 : Little Herr Friedemann ( Der kleine Herr Friedemann ) - 1897 : Death ( Der Tod ) - 1897 : The Clown ( Der Bajazzo ) - 1897 : The Dilettante - 1898 : Tobias Mindernickel - 1899 : The Wardrobe ( Der Kleiderschrank ) - 1900 : Luischen ( Little Lizzy ) – written in 1897 - 1900 : The Road to the Churchyard ( Der Weg zum Friedhof ) - 1903 : The Hungry - 1903 : The Child Prodigy ( Das Wunderkind ) - 1904 : A Gleam - 1904 : At the Prophets - 1905 : A Weary Hour - 1907 : Railway Accident - 1908 : Anecdote ( Anekdote ) - 1911 : The Fight between Jappe and the Do Escobar Novels . - 1901 : Buddenbrooks ( Buddenbrooks – Verfall einer Familie ) - 1909 : Royal Highness ( Königliche Hoheit ) - 1924 : The Magic Mountain ( Der Zauberberg ) - 1939 : - 1947 : Doctor Faustus ( Doktor Faustus ) - 1951 : The Holy Sinner ( Der Erwählte ) Series . The Blood of the Walsungs 1 . The Blood of the Walsungs ( Wӓlsungenblut ) ( 1905 ) 2 . The Blood of the Walsungs ( 2nd edition , 1921 ) Felix Krull 1 . Felix Krull ( Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull ) ( written in 1911 , published in 1922 ) 2 . Confessions of Felix Krull , ( Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull . Der Memoiren erster Teil ; expanded from 1911 short story ) , unfinished ( 1954 ) Joseph and His Brothers ( Joseph und seine Brüder ) ( 1933–43 ) 1 . The Stories of Jacob ( Die Geschichten Jaakobs ) ( 1933 ) 2 . Young Joseph ( Der junge Joseph ) ( 1934 ) 3 . Joseph in Egypt ( Joseph in Ägypten ) ( 1936 ) 4 . Joseph the Provider ( Joseph , der Ernährer ) ( 1943 ) Novella . - 1902 : Gladius Dei - 1903 : Tristan - 1903 : Tonio Kröger - 1912 : Death in Venice ( Der Tod in Venedig ) - 1918 : A Man and His Dog ( Herr und Hund ) , sometimes translated as Bashan and I - 1925 : Disorder and Early Sorrow ( Unordnung und frühes Leid ) - 1930 : Mario and the Magician ( Mario und der Zauberer ) - 1940 : The Transposed Heads ( Die vertauschten Köpfe – Eine indische Legende ) - 1944 : The Tables of the Law – a commissioned work ( Das Gesetz ) - 1954 : The Black Swan ( Die Betrogene : Erzählung ) Essays . - 1915 : Frederick and the Great Coalition ( Friedrich und die große Koalition ) - 1918 : Reflections of an Unpolitical Man ( Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen ) - 1922 : The German Republic ( Von deutscher Republik ) - 1930 : A Sketch of My Life ( Lebensabriß ) – autobiographical - 1950 : Michelangelo according to his poems ( Michelangelo in seinen Dichtungen ) - 1947 : Essays of Three Decades , translated from the German by H . T . Lowe-Porter . [ 1st American ed. ] , New York , A . A . Knopf , 1947 . Reprinted as Vintage book , K55 , New York , Vintage Books , 1957 . - Nietzsches Philosophy in the Light of Recent History Miscellaneous . - 1937 : The Problem of Freedom ( Das Problem der Freiheit ) , speech - 1938 : The Coming Victory of Democracy – collection of lectures - 1938 : This Peace ( Dieser Friede ) , pamphlet - 1938 : Schopenhauer , philosophy and music theory on Arthur Schopenhauer - 1943 : Listen , Germany ! ( Deutsche Hörer! ) – collection of letters Compilations in English . - 1936 : Stories of Three Decades ( 24 stories written from 1896 to 1929 , trans . H . T . Lowe-Porter ) - 1988 : Death in Venice and Other Stories ( trans . David Luke ) . Includes : Little Herr Friedemann ; The Joker ; The Road to the Churchyard ; Gladius Dei ; Tristan ; Tonio Kroger ; Death in Venice . - 1997 : Six Early Stories ( trans . Peter Constantine ) . Includes : A Vision , Prose Sketch ; Fallen ; The Will to Happiness ; Death ; Avenged , Study for a Novella ; Anecdote . - 1998 : Death in Venice and Other Tales ( trans . Joachim Neugroschel ) . Includes : The Will for Happiness ; Little Herr Friedemann ; Tobias Mindernickel ; Little Lizzy ; Gladius Dei ; Tristan ; The Starvelings : A Study ; Tonio Kröger ; The Wunderkind ; Harsh Hour ; The Blood of the Walsungs ; Death in Venice . - 1999 : Death in Venice and Other Stories ( trans . Jefferson Chase ) . Includes : Tobias Mindernickel ; Tristan ; Tonio Kröger ; The Child Prodigy ; Hour of Hardship ; Death in Venice ; Man and Dog .