Thomas Mann
1875-1955
- Writer
Thomas Mann was born into a family of patricians in Lübeck on 11 June 1875. He broke off grammar school and moved to Munich with his mother. Once there, he started working for an insurance company. Yet with the success of his written works, he quit his job. Thomas Mann published Buddenbrooks - his greatest prose tome - in 1901. It earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. Another influential novel, The Magic Mountain, was published in 1924 and translated into numerous languages. Mann’s political views transformed during the Weimar Republic. In contrast to his “Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen” essay, promoting conservative values, the government’s war goals, and the Kaiserreich, he later became a defender of the democracy. He joined the fight against national socialism before the Nazis seized power. After emigrating to Switzerland and the US, he continued his career in literature. After the war, Mann decided to not make a permanent move back to Germany. He died in Zurich in 1955.