Golo Mann

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Golo Mann (March 27, 1909 - April 7, 1994 Leverkusen) was a popular historian, publicist and writer. He was the third child of novelist Thomas Mann.

1 Life
2 Notes
3 Works
4 External Links
5 See also

[edit] Life

Angelus Gottfried Thomas Mann, called Golo by contraction of his Christian names, was born on March 27, 1909 in Munich. He was the third child of German novelist Thomas Mann and his wife Katia Mann. He had an elder sister, Erika Mann, an elder brother, Klaus Mann, and three younger siblings, Monika, Elisabeth and Michael.

In her diary his mother describes him in his early years as sensitive, nervous and frightened.^[1] His father hardly concealed his disappointment and rarely mentioned the son in his diary. Golo Mann in turn described him later: Indeed he was able to radiate some kindness, but mostly it was silence, strictness, nervousness or rage.^[2] Concerning his siblings he was most tightly connected with Klaus, whereas he disliked the dogmatism and radical views of sister Erika.^[3]

As an average pupil he received a classical education at the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Munich beginning with September 1918, revealing talents in History, Latin and especially in reciting poems, the latter being a passion for life.^[4] Increasingly sensing his parents‘ home as a burden, he attempted a kind of break-out by joining the Boy Scouts in spring 1921. On one of the holiday marches he became victim of a slight homosexual infringement by his group leader.^[5]

New horizons opened up in 1923, when Golo Mann entered the boarding school in Salem, feeling liberated from home and enjoying the new educational approach. Here, in the countryside off Lake Constance, he developed an enduring passion for foot-travelling through the mountains, although he suffered from a life-long knee-injury.

In 1925 Golo Mann was haunted by a severe mental crisis that overshadowed the rest of his life: In those days the doubt entered my life, or rather: broke in with tremendous power (…) I was seized by darkest melancholy.^[6]

Upon the final school exams in 1927 he commenced his studies of Law in Munich, moving the same year to Berlin and switching to History and Philosophy. He used the summer of 1928 to learn French in Paris and to get to know “real work“ during six weeks in a coal mine at the East German Niederlausitz, abruptly coming to a halt for the reason of new knee injuries.^[7]

At last Mann entered the University of Heidelberg in the spring of 1929. Here he followed the advice of his academical teacher Karl Jaspers to graduate in Philosophy on the one hand and to study History and Latin with the prospect of becoming a school teacher on the other. He nevertheless found the time to join a socialist student group in the autumn of 1930. In May 1932 Mann finished his dissertation Concerning the terms of the individual and the ego in Hegel‘s works, that was only rated with an average cum laude. Nevertheless his parents bought him a small car that he used for extended rides across Germany.^[8]

Golo Mann intended to finish his universal studies in Hamburg and Göttingen, but dark clouds were arriving over Germany. That was especially the case for Thomas Mann, who never hesitated to articulate his dislike for so-called National Socialism, and for his family. While his parents already lived abroad, Golo Mann looked after the family house in Munich in April 1933, helped his three younger siblings leaving the country and brought the greater part of his parents‘ savings via Karlsruhe and the German embassy in Paris to Switzerland.

On May 31, 1933 Golo Mann left Germany heading for French town Bandol near Toulon. He spent the summer at the mansion of US-American novelist Seabrook near Sanary-sur-Mer and lived six further weeks at the new family house in Küsnacht near Zurich. In November he joined the École Normale Supérieure at Saint-Cloud near Paris for two intensive, instructive years^[9] as lecturer for German language. At that time he worked for the emigrants‘ journal Die Sammlung (The collection) founded by his brother Klaus.

In November 1935 Golo Mann accepted a call from the University of Rennes to lecture in German language and literature. Many travels to Switzerland prove that the relationship to his father was more at ease, because in the meantime Thomas Mann had learned to appreciate his son‘s political knowledge. But it was only when Golo Mann helped editing his father‘s diaries in later years that he realised fully how much he had gained in acceptance.^[10] In a confidential note to German critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki he once wrote: It was inevitable that I had to wish his death; but I was completely broken-hearted when he passed away.^[11]

In 1936 Thomas Mann and his family were deprivated of their German citizenship. Help came by Czech businessman and admirer Rudolf Fleischmann, who arranged the naturalization to his Bohemian town of Prosec and subsequently the Czech citizenship. Golo Mann wanted to take the occasion and continue his studies in Prague, but soon stopped the experiment.^[12]

Early in 1939 the emigrant traveled to Princeton, New Jersey, where his father worked as guest professor. Although war was drawing closer he hesitantly returned to Zurich in August to become editor of the emigrants‘ journal Maß und Wert (Measure and Value).

As a reaction to Adolf Hitler‘s invasion in Paris in May 1940 Golo Mann decided to fight against the German invaders and to join a Czech military unit on French soil as a volunteer. But upon crossing the border he was arrested at Annecy and brought to French concentration camp Les Milles, a brickyard near Aix-en-Provence. In the beginning of August he was released by intervention of a US-American committee. On September 13 he untertook a daring escape from Perpignan across the Pyrenees to Spain. With him were his uncle Heinrich Mann, the latter‘s wife Nelly Kröger, Alma Mahler-Werfel and Franz Werfel. They crossed the Atlantic from Lisbon to New York in October on board of the Greek steamer Nea Hellas.

In the United States Golo Mann, for the time being, was damned to inactivity. He stayed at his parents‘ house in Princeton, then in New York, before moving with them in 1941 to Pacific Palisades, California. In the autumn of 1942 he finally got the chance to teach History at Men‘s College in Olivet, Michigan.

As did his brother Klaus Mann before, Golo Mann joined the US-Army in 1943: After basic training at Fort McClellan, Alabama, he worked at the Office of Strategic Services in Washington DC. In his capacity as intelligence officer it was his duty to collect and translate relevant information.

In April 1944 he was sent to London where he made radio commentaries for the German language division of American Broadcasting Station. For the last months of World War II he worked in same function for a military propaganda station in Luxemburg, before he helped organising the foundation of Radio Frankfurt. During this period he worked with Robert Lochner, who thought very highly of him. At his journeys across Germany he reacted shocked about the extent of destruction evoked especially by the bombardment of the allies.

In 1946 he left the US-Army by own request. He nevertheless kept a job as civil control officer, watching the War Trial at Nuremburg in this capacity. In the same year his first book of higher value was published, a biography of 19th century diplomat Friedrich von Gentz in English language.

In the autumn of 1947 Golo Mann became assistant professor for History at Men‘s College in Claremont, California. In hindsight he recalled the nine-year-involvement as the happiest of my life, on the other hand he complained: My students are scornful, unfriendly and painfully stupid as never before.^[13] The engagement in California was interrupted by several residences in German-speaking Europe.

So in 1956/1957 he spent many weeks at the tavern Zur Krone at Altnau on the shores of Lake Constance to write down his German History of the 19th and 20th century. It was released in 1958 and became an instant bestseller. It also marked the final return to Europe because Golo Mann became guest professor at the University of Münster for two winter terms in a row.

In the autumn of 1960 he ascended to the college of Stuttgart as professor in ordinary for Political Sciences. It soon became clear that he felt unsatisfied with the machinery at the universities: In those years I had a feeling of immense, but fruitless effort without getting any echo. This led to a depression that made me surrender the professorship in 1963.^[14]

In the following years Golo Mann worked as a free-lance historian and publicist, suffering in both capacities from chronic overwork that increasingly damaged not only his work but also his health. He now took residence at his parents‘ house in Kilchberg near Lake of Zurich, where he lived until 1993 - sharing the house for most years with his mother.

In his publicistic work he always praised first German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer for his integration course towards France and the USA. He nevertheless critised Adenauers insincerity concerning a reunification with East Germany, so that he came to support the new relaxation ideas of Willy Brandt. He even sometimes worked for Brandt as a ghostwriter.

Golo Mann nevertheless perceived the emergence of the students‘ movement as a heavy threat for democracy. So he gradually became alienated from Brandt in 1973, reproaching him with passivity towards alleged communist infiltration in his Social Democratic Party.

The almost life-long passion for the best-known field-marshal of the Thirty Years War culminated in 1971 with the release of monumental biography Wallenstein. It is considered as a masterpiece of narrating science of history for its pictorial language.

In a surprising discontinuity to former political engagement for Willy Brandt, Golo Mann supported controversial politician Franz-Josef Strauß in his rally for Chancellor in 1980, hoping for a more decisive fight against radical left-wing activies. Some of German fellow-publicists reacted alienated, and Golo Mann himself surmised the negative effects. He wrote in his diary: I will have to pay for it like Kaiser Wilhelm did for his ‘Daily Telegraph Affair‘.^[15]

In 1986 his adopted son Hans Beck-Mann died, a pharmacist he got to know in 1955 and supported financially with his studies. In November of the same year followed the release of successful semi-autobiography Erinnerungen und Gedanken. Eine Jugend in Deutschland (Memories and Thoughts. A Youth in Germany). He immediately started work at a sequel that was sadly never finished.

In the meantime, the East German regime lifted its ban on Golo Mann at the beginning of 1989. Not only that his Wallenstein-biography finally appeared in GDR after 18 years - he was even allowed to read from it on invitation from the East German Minister of Education. When the time for reunification came only one year later, he reacted dispassionately: No delight in German unity. They are bound to fool around once more, even if I won‘t live to see it.^[16]

In March of 1990 Golo Mann had a heart attack after a public lecture. In the same year it became evident that he suffered from prostate cancer. Because of his ill health he moved to Leverkusen in 1992, where he was nursed by his daughter-in-law Ingrid Beck-Mann. A few years prior to his death he acknowledged his homosexuality in a TV-interview although he never lived to the end of it.

On April 7, 1994 Golo Mann died in Leverkusen aged 85. His urn was buried in Kilchberg, but - in fulfilling his last will - apart from the family grave.

[edit] Notes

^ Golo Mann, Erinnerungen und Gedanken. Eine Jugend in Deutschland, Frankfurt/Main 1986, p.10f.
^ ibd., p.41.
^ Urs Bitterli, Golo Mann. Instanz und Außenseiter, Reinbek 2005, p.620.
^ Golo Mann, Erinnerungen und Gedanken. Eine Jugend in Deutschland. p.25.
^ ibd., p.113f.
^ ibd., p.193-197
^ ibd., Chapter Eine neue Erfahrung (a new experience), p.265-278.
^ ibd., p.430, 462ff
^ Golo Mann, Erinnerungen und Gedanken. Lehrjahre in Frankreich, Frankfurt/Main 1999, p.129.
^ Urs Bitterli, Golo Mann. Instanz und Außenseiter, Reinbek 2005, p.547.
^ ibd., p.548.
^ ibd., p.66f.
^ ibd., p.140f.
^ ibd., S204.
^ ibd., p.534.
^ ibd., p.695.