Salon kontrovers: Briefe – schreiben und lesen - Trotz Zwist vereint – der Briefwechsel zwischen Thomas Mann und seiner ältesten Tochter Erika Mann
Despite discord united – the correspondence between Thomas Mann and his eldest daughter Erika Mann
Cooperation event with S. Fischer Verlag for the 150th birthday and 70th death anniversary of Thomas Mann in 2025
Read by Peter Schröder and Birgitta Assheuer
Concept and introduction: Ruthard Stäblein
The correspondence of Thomas Mann can only be understood in the context of a “family constellation.” Especially the exchange of letters with his eldest daughter Erika Mann.
But how did this family come to be? Thomas Mann, born in Lübeck in 1875, published the family novel "Buddenbrooks" in 1901. Despite the success, he feels lonely and like his hero of the same name, Tonio Kröger, "dying tired of representing the human without participating in the human." He feels like Tonio Kröger in a conflict: "a citizen lost in art, a bohemian longing for the good upbringing." From this conflict, he seeks to free himself by starting a family that gives him stability to continue writing. His dilemma: He must keep his secret longing for young men in check, sublimating the “primitive stuff,” this hated "sexuality," cultivating it as best as he can. And so he can continue to write. Thus, he woos Katia Pringsheim, who comes from a noble, bourgeois, wealthy, German-Jewish family from Munich. He marries the 21-year-old, who would rather continue studying mathematics and playing tennis. Already 9 months after the honeymoon, the eldest, Erika, is born. In 1906, another year later, Klaus follows. Then Golo, Monika, Elisabeth, and Michael.
Thomas Mann writes the first letter in 1919 and one of his last letters to his eldest daughter Erika in 1954. The Mann family addresses each other in childish language: Mielein, that’s mother Katia, Pielein, father. Ofei, grandfather. And Eri, that’s Erika. Father and daughter complement and help each other, even when there is a quarrel in between. The father pays the debts of an extravagant trip to the USA. The daughter is angry because the father takes almost three years before he clearly and publicly speaks out against the Nazis. In exile in the USA, the daughter helps the father with English. She gives speeches against the barbaric Nazis – on the same channel – on the BBC.
Like the father, Erika hides her homosexual tendencies behind a sham marriage. Twice even. But in stark contrast to the father, she lives out her lesbian love affairs. Due to the anti-communist crusade during the McCarthy era, Erika returns with her father to Switzerland in 1952 – and not to the post-war Germany that they found suspicious. And she is buried right next to her father at their last residence in the Kilchberger cemetery.
Despite discord united.
Photo: Erika Mann (photograph, around 1938) © Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection (public domain via Wikimedia Commons)
The event is sold out, no tickets are available.
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
