Luiz Heinrich Mann (German: [ˈhaɪnʁɪç ˈman]; March 27, 1871 – March 11, 1950), best known as simply Heinrich Mann, was a German writer known for his socio-political novels. From 1930 until 1933, he was president of the fine poetry division of the Prussian Academy of Arts. His fierce criticism of the growing Fascism and Nazism forced him to flee Germany after the Nazis came to power during 1933. He was the elder brother of writer Thomas Mann.

Early life

Born in Lübeck, as the oldest child of Senator Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann, grain merchant and finance minister of the Free City of Lübeck, a state of the German Empire, and Júlia da Silva Bruhns. He was the elder brother of the writer Thomas Mann with whom he had a lifelong rivalry. The Mann family was an affluent family of grain merchants of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck. After the death of his father, his mother relocated the family to Munich, where Heinrich began his career as a freier Schriftsteller (free writer). In 1914, he married a Czech actress, Maria «Mimi» Kanova. They divorced in 1930. Mimi died from the consequences of a five-year detention in the concentration camp Theresienstadt.

Work

Mann’s essay on Émile Zola and the novel Der Untertan (published over the years 1912–1918) earned him much respect during the Weimar Republic in the left-wing circles, since they demonstrated the author’s anti-war and deafeatist stance during the World War I, and since the latter satirized Imperial German society; both the novel and the essay became a major impulse for Thomas Mann to write Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man, a work supporting the efforts of the German Empire in the war and condemning Heinrich as one of «Civilisation’s Literary Men» (Zivilisationsliteraten), the writers who served the West in its struggle against German «Culture»; later Thomas called the novel an example of «national slander» and «ruthless ruthless aestheticism», while the novel had such admirers as Kurt Tucholsky. During the revolution, Heinrich became a major supporter of Kurt Eisner, a social democrat revolutionary who proclaimed Bavaria a Socialist republic; after Eisner’s assassination by a far-right activist, Mann spoke at Eisner’s funeral.

Later, in 1930, his book Professor Unrat was freely adapted into the movie Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel). Carl Zuckmayer wrote the script, and Josef von Sternberg was the director. Mann wanted his paramour, the actress Trude Hesterberg, to play the main female part as the «actress» Lola Lola (named Rosa Fröhlich in the novel), but Marlene Dietrich was given the part, her first sound role.

Together with Albert Einstein and other celebrities during 1932, Mann was a signatory to the «Urgent Call for Unity», asking the voters to reject the Nazis. Einstein and Mann had previously co-authored a letter during 1931 condemning the murder of Croatian scholar Milan Šufflay.

Mann became persona non grata in Nazi Germany and left even before the Reichstag fire of 1933. He went to France where he lived in Paris and Nice. During the German occupation, he made his way to Marseille, where he was aided by Varian Fry in September 1940 to escape to Spain. Assisted by Justus Rosenberg, he and his wife Nelly Kröger, his nephew Golo Mann, Alma Mahler-Werfel and Franz Werfel hiked for six hours across the border at Port Bou. After arriving in Portugal, the group stayed in Monte Estoril, at the Grande Hotel D’Itália, between September 18 and October 4, 1940. On October 4, 1940, they boarded the S.S. Nea Hellas, headed for New York City.

The Nazis burnt Heinrich Mann’s books as «contrary to the German spirit» during the infamous book burning of May 10, 1933, which was instigated by the then Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

Later life

During the 1930s and later in American exile, Mann’s literary popularity waned. Nevertheless, he wrote Die Jugend des Königs Henri Quatre and Die Vollendung des Königs Henri Quatre as part of the Exilliteratur. The two novels described the life and importance of Henry IV of France and were acclaimed by his brother Thomas Mann, who spoke of the «great splendour and dynamic art» of the work. The plot, based on Europe’s early modern history from a French perspective, anticipated the end of French–German enmity.

His second wife, Nelly Mann (1898–1944), died by suicide in Los Angeles.

Heinrich Mann died on March 11, 1950, sixteen days before his 79th birthday, in Santa Monica, California, lonely and without much money, just months before he was to relocate to East Berlin to become president of the German Academy of Arts. His ashes were later taken to East Germany and were interred at the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery in a grave of honor.

Popular culture

Mann was portrayed by Alec Guinness in the television adaptation of Christopher Hampton’s play Tales from Hollywood (1992).

In Die Manns – Ein Jahrhundertroman (2001) he was played by Jürgen Hentsch.

List of works

Novels

1894 — “In the same family” (German: In einer Familie)
1900 — “The Land of Jelly Shores” (“The Promised Land”) (German: Im Schlaraffenland)
1903 — “Goddesses, or Three Novels of the Duchess of Assy” (German: Die Göttinnen oder die drei Romane der Herzogin von Assy)
«Diana» (German: Diana)
«Minerva» (German: Minerva)
«Venus» (German: Venus)
1905 — “Teacher Vile, or the End of a Tyrant” (German: Professor Unrat oder Das Ende eines Tyrannen)
1907 — Between the Races (Zwischen den Rassen)
1909 — “Small Town” (German: Die kleine Stadt)
«Empire» (German: Kaiserreich, trilogy)
1912-1914 — Loyal Subject (German: Der Untertan)
1916-1917 — The Poor (German: Die Armen)
1925 — Head (German: Der Kopf)
1930 — Big deal
1931 — Essays of spirit and action (Essays Geist und Tat)
1932 — A Serious Life (Ein ernstes Leben)
1935 — The Young Years of King Henry IV (Die Jugend des Königs Henri Quatre)
1938 — The Mature Years of King Henry IV (Die Vollendung des Königs Henri Quatre)
1943 — Lidice
1949 — Breathing

Film adaptations

The Blue Angel, directed by Josef von Sternberg (Germany, 1930, based on the novel Professor Unrat)

Der Untertan, directed by Wolfgang Staudte (East Germany, 1951, based on the novel Der Untertan)

The Blue Angel, directed by Edward Dmytryk (USA, 1959, based on the novel Professor Unrat)

Madame Legros, directed by Michael Kehlmann (West Germany, 1968, TV film, based on the play Madame Legros)

Man of Straw, directed by Herbert Wise (UK, 1972, TV miniseries, based on the novel Der Untertan)

Im Schlaraffenland, directed by Kurt Jung-Alsen (East Germany, 1975, TV film, based on the novel Im Schlaraffenland)

Belcanto oder Darf eine Nutte schluchzen?, directed by Robert van Ackeren (West Germany, 1977, based on the novel Empfang bei der Welt)

Die Verführbaren, directed by Helmut Schiemann (East Germany, 1977, TV film, based on the novel Ein ernstes Leben)

Le Roi qui vient du sud, directed by Marcel Camus and Heinz Schirk (France, 1979, TV miniseries, based on the novel Die Jugend des Königs Henri Quatre)

In the Land of Cockaigne, directed by Fritz Umgelter (West Germany, 1981, TV film, based on the novel Im Schlaraffenland)

Suturp – Eine Liebesgeschichte, directed by Gerd Keil (East Germany, 1981, TV film, based on the short story Suturp)

Die traurige Geschichte von Friedrich dem Großen, directed by Alexander Lang (East Germany, 1983, TV film, based on the unfinished Die traurige Geschichte von Friedrich dem Großen)

Varieté, directed by Martin Eckermann (East Germany, 1985, TV film, based on the play Varieté)

Endstation Harembar, directed by Rainer Wolffhardt (Germany, 1992, TV film, based on the novel Ein ernstes Leben)

Henri 4, directed by Jo Baier (Germany, 2010, based on the novels Die Jugend des Königs Henri Quatre and Die Vollendung des Königs Henri Quatre)