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'{{Short description|German actress and writer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}} {{for multi|the MEP|Erika Mann (politician)|the architect from Kenya|Erica Mann}} {{Infobox person | birth_name = Erika Julia Hedwig Mann | name = Erika Mann | image = Erika Mann NYWTS.jpg | caption = Mann {{Circa|1938}} | birth_date = {{Birth date|1905|11|05|df=y}} | birth_place = [[Munich]], [[German Empire]] | death_date = {{Death date and age|1969|08|27|1905|11|05|df=y}} | death_place = [[Zürich]], Switzerland | resting_place = [[Kilchberg, Zürich|Kilchberg]] cemetery, Zürich | occupation = Writer, war correspondent, actress | spouse = {{Marriage|[[Gustaf Gründgens]] |1926|1929}}<br />{{Marriage|[[W. H. Auden]] |1935|1969}} | children = | website = | parents = [[Thomas Mann]]<br />[[Katia Mann]] }} '''Erika Julia Hedwig Mann''' (November 5, 1905 – 27 August 1969) was a German actress and writer, daughter of the novelist [[Thomas Mann]]. Erika lived a bohemian lifestyle in Berlin and became a critic of [[Nazism|National Socialism]]. After Hitler came to power in 1933, she moved to Switzerland, and married the poet [[W. H. Auden]], purely to obtain a British passport and so avoid becoming stateless when the Germans cancelled her citizenship. She continued to attack Nazism, most notably with her 1938 book ''School for Barbarians'', a critique of the Nazi education system. During [[World War II]], Mann worked for the BBC and became a war correspondent attached to the Allied forces after [[D-Day]]. She attended the [[Nuremberg trials]] before moving to America to support her exiled parents. Her criticisms of American foreign policy led to her being considered for deportation. After her parents moved to Switzerland in 1952, she also settled there. She wrote a biography of her father and died in Zurich in 1969. ==Biography== ===Early life=== Erika Mann was born in [[Munich]], the first-born daughter of writer and later [[Nobel Prize]] winner Thomas Mann and his wife, [[Katia Mann|Katia]] (née Pringsheim), the daughter of an intellectual German family of Jewish heritage.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=http://spartacus-educational.com/Erika_Mann.htm|title=Erika Mann|work=Spartacus Educational|access-date=13 October 2017|language=en|archive-date=13 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171013173047/http://spartacus-educational.com/Erika_Mann.htm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1601049|title=Mann, Erika Julia Hedwig : American National Biography Online - oi|website=oxfordindex.oup.com|year=2000|language=en|doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1601049|access-date=29 January 2019|last1=Frisch|first1=Shelley|series=American National Biography Online|archive-date=29 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190129122950/http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1601049|url-status=live}}</ref> She was named after Katia Mann's brother Erik, who died early, Thomas Mann's mother [[:de:Julia Löhr|Julia Mann]], and her great-grandmother [[Hedwig Dohm]]. She was baptized [[Protestant]], just as her mother had been. Thomas Mann expressed in a letter to his brother [[Heinrich Mann]] his disappointment about the birth of his first child: <blockquote>It is a girl; a disappointment for me, as I want to admit between us, because I had greatly desired a son and will not stop doing so. [...] I feel a son is much more full of poetry [''poesievoller''], more than a sequel and restart for myself under new circumstances.<ref>Thomas Mann/Heinrich Mann: ''Briefwechsel 1900–1949'', S.&nbsp;109</ref></blockquote> Nevertheless, he later candidly confessed in the notes of his diary, that he "preferred, of the six, the two oldest [Erika and [[Klaus Mann|Klaus]]] and [[Elisabeth Mann-Borgese|little Elisabeth]] with a strange decisiveness".<ref>Thomas Mann: ''Tagebücher 1918–1921'', Eintrag vom 10. März 1920</ref> In Erika he had a particular trust, which later showed itself in that she exercised a great influence on the important decisions of her father.<ref>Marcel Reich-Ranicki: Thomas Mann und die Seinen, S.&nbsp;184</ref> Her particular role was also known by her siblings, as her brother [[Golo Mann]] remembered: "Little Erika must salt the soup".<ref>Golo Mann: ''Meine Schwester Erika''. In Erika Mann, Briefe&nbsp;II, S.&nbsp;241</ref> This reference to the twelve-year-old Erika from the year 1917 was an often-used phrase in the Mann family. After Erika's birth came that of her brother Klaus, with whom she was personally close her entire life. They went about "like twins", and Klaus described their closeness as follows: "our solidarity was absolute and without reservation".<ref>Klaus Mann: ''Der Wendepunkt'', S.&nbsp;102</ref> Eventually there were four more children in total, including Golo, [[Monika Mann|Monika]], Elisabeth, and [[Michael Mann (scholar)|Michael]]. The children grew up in Munich. On their mother's side the family belonged to the influential urban upper class, and their father came from a commercial family from [[Lübeck]] and already had published the successful novel ''[[Buddenbrooks]]'' in 1901. The Mann home was a gathering-place for intellectuals and artists, and Erika was hired for her first theater engagement before finishing her ''[[Abitur]]'' at the [[Deutsches Theater (Berlin)|Deutsches Theater]] in [[Berlin]]. ===Education and early theatrical work=== In 1914, the Mann family obtained a villa on 1 Poschingerstraße in [[Bogenhausen]], which in the family would come to be known as "Poschi." From 1912 to 1914, Erika Mann attended a private school with her brother, joining for a year the Bogenhausener Volksschule, and from 1915 to 1920 she attended the [[Höhere Mädchenschule]] am St. Annaplatz. In May 1921, she transferred to the Munich-based [[Städtisches Luisengymnasium München|Luisengymnasium]]. Together with her brother Klaus, she befriended children in the neighborhood, including [[Bruno Walter]]'s daughters, Gretel and Lotte Walter, as well as [[:de:Ricki Hallgarten|Ricki Hallgarten]], the son of a [[Jews|Jewish]] intellectual family. Erika Mann founded an ambitious theater troupe, the Laienbund Deutscher Mimiker. While still a student at the Munich Luisengymnasium, [[Max Reinhardt]] engaged her to appear on the stage of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin for the first time. The partially mischievous pranks that she undertook in the so-called "Herzogpark-Bande" ("[[Herzogpark]] gang") with Klaus and her friends prompted her parents to send both her and Klaus to a [[Progressive education|progressive]] residential school, the [[:de:Bergschule Hochwaldhausen|Bergschule Hochwaldhausen]], located in [[Vogelsberg Mountains|Vogelsberg]] in [[Upper Hesse|Oberhessen]]. This period in Erika Mann's schooling lasted from April to July 1922; subsequently she returned to the Luisengymnasium. In 1924 she passed the [[Abitur]], albeit with poor marks, and began her theatrical studies in Berlin that were again interrupted, because of her numerous engagements in [[Hamburg]], Munich, Berlin and elsewhere. ===1920s and 1930s=== In 1924, Erika Mann began theater studies in Berlin and acted there and in [[Bremen (city)|Bremen]]. In 1925, she played in the première of her brother Klaus's play ''[[:de:Anja und Esther|Anja und Esther]]''. The play, about a group of four friends who were in love with each other, opened in October 1925 to considerable publicity. In 1924 the actor [[Gustaf Gründgens]] had offered to direct the production and play one of the lead male roles, alongside Klaus, with Erika and [[Pamela Wedekind]] as the female leads. During the year they worked on the play together, Klaus was engaged to Wedekind and Erika became engaged to Gründgens. Erika and Pamela were also in a relationship together, as were, for a time, Klaus and Gustaf. For their honeymoon, in July 1926, Erika and Gründgens stayed in a hotel that Erika and Wedekind had used as a couple shortly before, with the latter checking in dressed as a man.<ref name=CToibin>{{cite journal|author=Colm Tóibín|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n21/colm-toibin/i-could-sleep-with-all-of-them|title=I Could Sleep with All of Them|date=6 November 2008|access-date=10 May 2017|journal=[[London Review of Books]]|volume=30|issue=21|author-link=Colm Tóibín|archive-date=20 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180120043204/https://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n21/colm-toibin/i-could-sleep-with-all-of-them|url-status=live}}</ref> Erika's marriage to Gründgens was short-lived and they were soon living apart before divorcing in 1929. Erika Mann would later have relationships with [[Therese Giehse]], [[Annemarie Schwarzenbach]] and [[Betty Knox]], with whom she served as a war correspondent during World War II.<ref name="RMPettis">{{cite web |author=Ruth M. Pettis |url=http://www.glbtqarchive.com/arts/mann_e_A.pdf |title=Mann, Erika (1905-1969) |publisher=glbtq Archives |year=2005 |access-date=10 May 2017 |archive-date=12 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170112121839/http://glbtqarchive.com/arts/mann_e_A.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1927, Erika and Klaus undertook a trip around the world,<ref name=":0" /> which they documented in their book ''Rundherum; Das Abenteuer einer Weltreise''. The following year, she became active in journalism and politics. She was involved as an actor in the 1931 film about [[lesbian]]ism, ''[[Mädchen in Uniform (1931 film)|Mädchen in Uniform]]'', directed by [[Leontine Sagan]], but left the production before its completion. In 1932 she published ''Stoffel fliegt übers Meer'', the first of seven children's books. In 1932, Erika Mann was denounced by the [[Brownshirts]] after she read a pacifist poem to an anti-war meeting. She was fired from an acting role after the theatre concerned was threatened with a boycott by the Nazis. Mann successfully sued both the theatre and also a Nazi-run newspaper.<ref name="LFeigel">{{cite book|author= Lara Feigel|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2017|title=The Bitter Taste of Victory, Life, Love and Art in the Ruins of the Reich|isbn=978-1-4088-4513-4}}</ref> Also in 1932 Mann had a role, alongside Therese Giehse, in the film ''[[Peter Voss, Thief of Millions (1932 film)|Peter Voss, Thief of Millions]]''. In January 1933, Erika, Klaus and Therese Giehse founded a [[Kabarett|cabaret]] in Munich called ''[[:de:Die Pfeffermühle|Die Pfeffermühle]]'', for which Erika wrote most of the material, much of which was [[anti-Fascist]]. The cabaret lasted two months before the Nazis forced it to close and Mann left Germany.<ref name="LFeigel"/> She was the last member of the Mann family to leave Germany after the Nazi regime was elected. She saved many of Thomas Mann's papers from their Munich home when she escaped to [[Zurich]]. In 1936, ''Die Pfeffermühle'' opened again in Zurich and became a rallying point for German exiles. In 1935, it became apparent that the Nazis were intending to strip Mann of her German citizenship;- her uncle, [[Heinrich Mann]], was the first person to be stripped of German citizenship when the Nazis took office.<ref name="Lebor">{{cite book|author=Adam Lebor & Roger Boyles|publisher=Simon & Schuster|year=2000|title=Surriving Hitler, Choices, Corruption and Compromise in the Third Reich|isbn=0-684-85811-8}}</ref> She asked [[Christopher Isherwood]] if he would marry her so she could become a British citizen. He declined but suggested she approach the gay poet [[W. H. Auden]], who readily agreed to a [[marriage of convenience]] in 1935.<ref name="Snyderr"/> Mann and Auden never lived together, but remained on good terms throughout their lives and were still married when Mann died; she left him a small bequest in her will.<ref name=DMartin>{{cite magazine|author=David Martin & Edward Mendelson|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/04/24/why-auden-married/|title=Why Auden Married|date=24 April 2014|access-date=10 May 2017|magazine=[[The New York Review of Books]]|archive-date=26 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171026164005/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/04/24/why-auden-married/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=BEEBhis>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/auden_wh.shtml|title=WH Auden (1907-1973)|year=2014|access-date=10 May 2017|work=[[BBC History]]|archive-date=11 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170311080348/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/auden_wh.shtml|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1936, Auden introduced Therese Giehse, Mann's lover, to the writer [[John Hampson (novelist)|John Hampson]] and they too married so that Giehse could leave Germany.<ref name=DMartin/> In 1937, Mann moved to New York, where ''Die Pfeffermühle'' (as ''The Peppermill'') opened its doors again. There Erika Mann lived with Therese Giehse, her brother Klaus and Annemarie Schwarzenbach, amid a large group of artists in exile that included [[Kurt Weill]], [[Ernst Toller]] and [[Sonia Sekula]]. In 1938, Mann and Klaus reported on the [[Spanish Civil War]], and her book ''[[:de:Zehn Millionen Kinder. Die Erziehung der Jugend im Dritten Reich|School for Barbarians]]'', a critique of Nazi Germany's educational system, was published.<ref name="Snyderr">{{cite book|author=Louis L Snyder|publisher=Marlowe & Co|year=1976|title= Encyclopedia of the Third Reich|isbn=1569249172}}</ref> The following year, they published ''[[Escape to Life]]'', a book about famous German exiles. ===World War II=== [[File:Female war correspondents World War II.jpg|thumb|Female war correspondents in 1944, with Erika Mann on the far right and [[Betty Knox]] third from right]] During [[World War II]], Mann worked as a journalist in London, making radio broadcasts, in German, for the [[BBC]] throughout the [[The Blitz|Blitz]] and the [[Battle of Britain]]. After [[D-Day]], she became a war correspondent attached to the Allied forces advancing across Europe. She reported from recent battlefields in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.<ref name="LFeigel"/> She entered Germany in June 1945 and was among the first Allied personnel to enter [[Aachen]]. As soon as it was possible, she went to Munich to register a claim for the return of the Mann family home. When she arrived in Berlin on 3 July 1945, Mann was shocked at the level of destruction, describing the city as "a sea of devastation, shoreless and infinite".<ref name="LFeigel"/> She was equally angry at the complete lack of guilt displayed by some of the German civilians and officials that she met. During this period, as well as wearing an American uniform, Mann adopted an Anglo-American accent. Mann attended the [[Nuremberg trial]] each day from the opening session, on 20 November 1945, until the court adjourned a month later for Christmas. She was present on 26 November when the first film evidence from an extermination camp was shown in the court room.<ref name="LFeigel"/> She interviewed the defense lawyers and ridiculed their arguments in her reports and made clear that she thought the court was indulging the behaviour of the defendants, in particular [[Hermann Göring]].<ref name="RMPettis"/> When the court adjourned for Christmas, Mann went to Zurich to spend time with her brother, Betty Knox and Therese Giehse. Mann's health was poor and on 1 January 1946, she collapsed and was hospitalised. Eventually, she was diagnosed with [[pleurisy]]. After a spell recovering at a spa in [[Arosa]], Mann returned to Nuremberg in March 1946 to continue covering the war crimes trial.<ref name="LFeigel"/> In May 1946, Mann left Germany for [[California]] to help look after her father who was being treated for lung cancer.<ref name="Snyderr"/> ===Later life=== [[File:Grabstein von Erika Mann.jpg|thumb|Gravestone of Erika Mann in [[Kilchberg, Zürich|Kilchberg]]]] From America, Mann continued to comment on, and write about, the situation in Germany. She considered it a scandal that Göring had managed to commit suicide and was furious at the slow pace of the [[denazification]] process. In particular, Mann objected to what she considered the lenient treatment of cultural figures, such as the conductor [[Wilhelm Furtwängler]], who had stayed in Germany throughout the Nazi period.<ref name="GMacDonogh">{{cite book|author=Giles MacDonogh|publisher=John Murray|year=2007|title=After the Reich - From the Liberation of Vienna to the Berlin Airlift|isbn=978-0-7195-6770-4}}</ref> Her views on Russia and on the [[Berlin Airlift]] led to her being branded a Communist in America.<ref name="LFeigel"/> Both Klaus and Erika came under an [[FBI]] investigation into their political views and rumored [[homosexuality]]. In 1949, becoming increasingly depressed and disillusioned over postwar Germany's occupation, Klaus Mann died by suicide. This event devastated and enraged Erika Mann.<ref name="RMPettis"/> In 1952, due to the anti-communist [[red scare]] and the numerous accusations from the [[House Un-American Activities Committee|House Committee on Un-American Activities]], the Mann family left the US and she moved back to Switzerland with her parents. She had begun to help her father with his writing and had become one of his closest confidantes. After the deaths of her father and her brother Klaus, Erika Mann became responsible for their works. Mann died in Zürich on 27 August 1969 from a brain tumour<ref name=":0" /> and is buried at Friedhof Kilchberg in Zürich, also the site of her parents' graves.<ref>Wilson, Scott. ''Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons'', 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 29738). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.</ref><ref name=CRWhitney>{{cite web|author=Craig R. Whitney|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/18/us/thomas-mann-s-daughter-an-informer.html|title=Thomas Mann's Daughter an Informer|date=18 July 1993|access-date=10 May 2017|work=[[The New York Times]]|archive-date=18 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170818220907/http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/18/us/thomas-mann-s-daughter-an-informer.html|url-status=live}}</ref> She was 63. ==Biographical films== *''Escape to Life: The Erika & Klaus Mann Story'' (2000) ==Published works == *''All the Way Round: A Light-hearted Travel Book'' (with Klaus Mann, 1929) *''The Book of the Riviera: Things You Won't Find in Baedekers'' (with Klaus Mann, 1931) *''School for Barbarians: Education Under the Nazis'' (1938) *''[[Escape to Life]]'' (1939) *''The Lights go Down'' (1940) *''The Other Germany'' (with Klaus Mann, 1940) *''A Gang of Ten'' (1942) *''The Last Year of Thomas Mann. A Revealing Memoir by His Daughter, Erika Mann'' (1958) ==See also== *[[Dohm–Mann family tree]] *[[Exilliteratur]] ==References== {{Reflist}} ==Further reading== * Martin Mauthner: ''German Writers in French Exile, 1933-1940'', Vallentine Mitchell, London, 2007, ({{ISBN|978 0 85303 540 4}}). ==External links== *{{Commons category-inline|Erika Mann}} {{Thomas Mann|state=collapsed}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Mann, Erika}} [[Category:1905 births]] [[Category:1969 deaths]] [[Category:20th-century essayists]] [[Category:20th-century German actresses]] [[Category:20th-century German novelists]] [[Category:20th-century German screenwriters]] [[Category:20th-century German women writers]] [[Category:20th-century LGBT people]] [[Category:Actresses from Munich]] [[Category:Denaturalized citizens of Germany]] [[Category:Exilliteratur writers]] [[Category:German autobiographers]] [[Category:German essayists]] [[Category:German people of Brazilian descent]] [[Category:German people of Jewish descent]] [[Category:German travel writers]] [[Category:German women essayists]] [[Category:German women novelists]] [[Category:German women screenwriters]] [[Category:Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States]] [[Category:Jewish German actresses]] [[Category:Jewish women writers]] [[Category:Bisexual actresses]] [[Category:Bisexual novelists]] [[Category:Bisexual screenwriters]] [[Category:Bisexual Jews]] [[Category:German LGBT novelists]] [[Category:German LGBT screenwriters]] [[Category:Mann family|Erika]] [[Category:War correspondents of World War II]] [[Category:Women autobiographers]] [[Category:Women travel writers]] [[Category:Women war correspondents]]'