ERIKA MANN
died on this date. Who was Erika Mann? Mann was the daughter of Thomas
Mann and Katia Mann and led one of the most eventful lives you've
probably never heard of. She was born in Munich and had a privileged
childhood. The Mann home was a gathering-place for intellectuals and
artists. She was hired for her first theater engagement before finishing
her Abitur at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. On July 24, 1926, she
married German actor Gustaf Gründgens, but they divorced in 1929. In
1927, she and Klaus undertook a trip around the world, which they
documented in their book Rundherum; Das Abenteuer einer Weltreise. The
following year, she began to be active in journalism and in politics.
She was involved as an actor in the Lesbian film Mädchen in Uniform
(1931, Leontine Sagan) but left the production before its completion. In
1932 she published the first of many children's books. Shortly
thereafter she became involved in several Lesbian affairs in her private
life. Her first noted affair was with actress Pamela Wedekind, whom she
met in Berlin, and was engaged with her brother Klaus. She later became
involved with director Therese Giehse, and journalists Betty Cox and
Annemarie Schwarzenbach, whom she served with as a war correspondent
during World War II. As was later written, her relationships were both
sexually passionate and intellectually stimulating. Mann enjoyed being
in the company of women who were intelligent, and with whom she could
converse with on any number of international topics.
In 1933, she,
Klaus, and Therese Giehse had founded a cabaret in Munich called Die
Pfeffermühle, for which Erika wrote most of the material, much of which
was anti-Fascist. Erika 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 the exiles. In 1935 she undertook a marriage of convenience to
the homosexual English poet W. H. Auden, in order to obtain British
citizenship. She and Auden never lived together, but remained friends
and technically married until Erika's death.
In 1937, she
crossed over to New York, where Die Pfeffermühle (as The Peppermill)
opened its doors again. They lived (with Therese Giehse and her brother
Klaus Mann and Miro) in a large group of artists in exile with people
like Kurt Weill, Ernst Toller, and Sonja Sekula. In 1938, she and Klaus
reported on the Spanish Civil War, and her book School for Barbarians
about Nazi Germany's educational system was published. The following
year, they published Escape to Life, a book about famous German exiles.
During the war, she was active as a journalist in England. After World
War II, Mann was one of the few women who covered the Nuremberg Trials.
Following the war, both Klaus and Erika came under an FBI investigation
into their political views and rumored homosexuality. In 1949, becoming
increasingly depressed and disillusioned over post-war torn Germany,
Klaus Mann committed suicide. This event devastated Erika.