Nobel laureate Thomas Mann published his first collection of short stories just four years after finishing high school, and finished his first novel, the classic Buddenbrooks, when he was 26. The recurring theme of his work was the isolation of the artist, and this was a theme of his own life as well. Politically, his works evolved from the bombastically pro-German World War I Reflections of an Un-Political Man to An Appeal to Reason's moderate embrace of democracy. His most cited work is his famous call for resistance to the Nazis in an open letter, Neue Züriche Zeitung, published in 1936. Within months of its publication, Mann's German citizenship was revoked, and he came to America, where during World War II he recorded propaganda for the Allies to be broadcast into Germany. After the war, suspected of being a communist and aware that his movements were being watched by the FBI, Mann fled America and settled in Switzerland, where he lived his last years.
[1] Baptized June 11, 1875 at St. Mary's Church, Lübeck. His wife, Katia Pringsheim, was originally Jewish but later joined the Lutheran faith. See Hermann Kurzke, Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art: A Biography (2005).
Father: Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann (merchant, d. 1891)
Mother: Julia da Silva-Bruhns (b. 1851, m. 1869, d. 1923)
Brother: Carl Viktor Mann (gov't worker)
Brother: Carla Augusta Olga Maria Mann
Sister: Julia Elisabeth Therese Mann
Brother: Ludwig Heinrich Mann (author, b. 1871, d. 1950)
Wife: Katharina Pringsheim ("Katja" or "Katia", Jewish, m. 1904, until his death, six children)
Son: Klaus Mann (author, b. 18-Nov-1906, d. 22-May-1949 suicide, gay)
Daughter: Erika Mann (actress, b. 9-Nov-1905, m. 1935 to W. H. Auden, for emigration purposes, d. 1969)
Daughter: Monika Mann
Daughter: Elisabeth Mann-Borgese (b. 24-Apr-1918, d. 8-Feb-2002)
Son: Golo Mann (historian, b. 27-Mar-1909, d. 7-Apr-1994)
High School: Lübeck Gymnasium, Lübeck, Germany (1894)
Nobel Prize for Literature 1929
Dutch Treat Club
International PEN
League of American Writers
Citizenship Revoked by German government (1936)
Naturalized Czechoslovakian Citizen (1936)
Naturalized US Citizen (1944)
Creole Ancestry Maternal
German Ancestry
Portuguese Ancestry Maternal
Risk Factors: Hemorrhoids
Author of books:
Der kleine Herr Friedemann (Little Herr Friedemann) (1897)
Buddenbrooks (1901)
Tristan (1902)
Königliche Hoheit (Royal Highness) (1909)
Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice) (1911)
Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain) (1924)
Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (Reflections of an Un-Political Man) (1918)
Gesang vom Kindchen (The Song of a Child) (1919)
Herr und Hund (Bashan and I) (1919)
Unordnung und frühes Leid (Disorder and Early Sorrow) (1928)
Mario und der Zauberer (Mario and the Magician) (1930)
Appell an die Vernunft (An Appeal to Reason) (1930)
Letter to the Dean of the Philosophical Faculty of Bonn (1937)
Lotte in Weimar (The Beloved Returns) (1939)
Joseph und seine Brüder (Joseph and His Brothers) (1943)
Joseph der Ernährer (Joseph, the Provider) (1944)
Doktor Faustus (1947)
Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man) (1954)
Wrote plays:
Fiorenza (1904)
AKA Paul Thomas Mann