Heinrich Mann
Heinrich Mann (1871-1950) was a prominent German author and political thinker, known for his incisive critique of authoritarianism and materialism. Born in Lübeck as the eldest son of a senator and a Brazilian artist, Mann was raised in an affluent environment that fostered his artistic inclinations. He briefly trained as a book dealer before turning to writing after his father's death. His works, such as "Professor Unrat" and "Der Untertan," often employed humor to critique societal norms and the political climate of his time.
Mann was a vocal opponent of World War I and the rise of National Socialism, predicting the unification of Europe while advocating for democracy and justice. His personal life was marked by tragedy, including the suicide of his sister and the eventual loss of his second wife. After fleeing Germany in 1933, he continued to publish works denouncing fascism from France and later the United States. Despite facing challenges in his later years, Mann's literary contributions earned him recognition, including the National Prize in East Germany. He passed away in 1950, leaving behind a legacy as a significant intellectual figure of his era.
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Subject Terms
Heinrich Mann
Novelist
- Born: March 27, 1871
- Birthplace: Luebeck, Germany
- Died: March 12, 1950
- Place of death: Santa Monica, California
Biography
Luiz Heinrich Mann was the oldest of five children born to Senator Johann Heinrich Mann and his wife, Julia da Silva-Bruhns. Heinrich developed an astounding ability to predict Germany’s political future, and became actively involved in trying to offset both World War I and National Socialism. With uncanny foresight, he also predicted that Europe would eventually become unified. His famous siblings were Thomas Mann, who won the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature, and Carla Mann, an actress.
The children enjoyed a privileged upbringing in one of the most beautiful homes in Lübeck, Germany. The Manns were affluent grain merchants. However, the senator’s part- Brazilian wife had brought an artistic strain into the family. Cognizant of this, he arranged that the hundred-year-old business would be liquidated after his death.
In 1889, Heinrich’s father sent him to Dresden to train as a book dealer. Heinrich broke that off after a year, and also left a subsequent placement with the S. Fischer publishing house in Berlin.
His father’s sudden death in 1891 provided Mann with enough money that he could pursue his career as a writer. He traveled to Paris, where he immersed himself in French culture and politics, and also to Italy, where the freer lifestyle intensified his criticism of German authoritarianism and materialism. Mann believed in the principles fought for in the French Revolution. However, he believed in obtaining truth and justice through peaceful, democratic means. Mann captured the tyranny and pedantry of his schoolteachers with biting humor in the novels that made him famous: Professor Unrat oder das Ende eines Tyrannen (1905; filmed as The Blue Angel) and Der Untertan: Roman (1918).
Mann was devastated by the suicide of his sister Carla in 1910, and was so vehemently opposed to World War I that he temporarily broke off communications with his brother Thomas, who abhorred politics. Mann’s first wife was the actress Maria Kanova. They married in 1914, making their home in Munich. Their daughter, Henriette Maria Leonie Mann, was born in 1916. Heinrich left them in 1928 and moved to Berlin, where he met his second wife, Nelly Kroeger. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power, they left for France, and in 1940, they fled to the United States. When Mann’s contract with Warner Brothers expired, they were impoverished. Nelly committed suicide in 1944.
While in France, Mann continued to publish essays opposing Germany. He also wrote two historical novels based on the life of the French King Henry IV, whose focus on peace and the welfare of his subjects contrasted starkly with the fascism sweeping Europe. In 1945, Mann wrote his memoirs, Ein Zeitalter wird besichtigt (overview of an era).
Mann’s rapid writing contains stylistic lapses, and his sense of humor is sometimes alienating, particularly in his novel Lidice (1943), about the Czechoslovakian town obliterated by the Nazis in retaliation for the murder of Reinhard Heydrich. Mann was a member of the P.E.N. Club (Poets, Essayists, and Novelists), and in 1949 he was awarded East Germany’s National Prize First Class for Art and Literature. He was invited to become the first president of the East German Academy of the Arts in Berlin but died of a stroke while preparing to leave California.