Hero*ines

Thomas Mann

* 6th June 1875 in Lübeck, today Germany

† 12th August 1955 in Zürich, today Switzerland

Erika Mann

* 9th November 1905 in Munich, today Germany

† 27th August 1969 in Zürich, today Switzerland

Klaus Mann

* 18th November 1906 in Munich, today Germany

† 21st May 1949 in Cannes, today France

Golo Mann

* 27th March 1909 in Munich, today Germany

† 7th April 1994 in Leverkusen, today Germany

Paul Thomas Mann, the father of the family, was a German writer, and one of the most important novelists of the 20th century. His most famous works include Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain, and his last completed work Dr. Faustus. In 1929, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Buddenbrooks. Before his marriage to Katia Pringsheim in 1905, Mann wrote of his homoerotic infatuations in letters and diaries, but he never acted upon his homosexuality.

His children Erika, Klaus, and Golo were also successful writers. They became a close-knit family through their joint struggle against National Socialism. Together, they fled from Germany via France and Switzerland to the USA.

Erika Mann was an actress, cabaret artist, writer, and editor. In 1933, together with her brother Klaus, her lover Therese Giehse, and some other friends, she founded the political-literary cabaret Die Pfeffermülle in Munich. Erika Mann was bisexual.

Klaus Mann wrote seven novels (Mephisto among others), two autobiographies and several plays. In 1937, he met his longtime life companion, American film and literary critic Thomas Quinn Curtiss. Klaus Mann was gay.

Golo Mann was a historian, publicist, and writer. One of his most famous works was German History of the 19th and 20th Centuries, published in 1958. As early as 1923, Golo Mann discovered his homoerotic inclination while attending the boarding school, Schloss Salem. He never acted on his homosexuality, but a few days before his death he admitted to it in an interview.