Thomas Mann – Photo gallery
Thomas Mann – Other resources
Links to other sites
Thomas Mann Archives of the ETH Zurich
On Thomas Mann from Pegasos Author’s Calendar
Thomas Mann – Banquet speech
English
German
Thomas Mann’s speech at the Nobel Banquet at Grand Hôtel, Stockholm, December 10, 1929
(Translation)
Now my turn to thank you has come, and I need not tell you how much I have looked forward to it. But alas, at this moment of truth I am afraid that words will fail my feelings, as is so often the case with born non-orators.
All writers belong to the class of non-orators. The writer and the orator are not only different, but they stand in opposition, for their work and the achievement of their effects proceed in different ways. In particular the convinced writer is instinctively repelled, from a literary standpoint, by the improvised and noncomittal character of all talk, as well as by that principle of economy which leaves many and indeed decisive gaps which must be filled by the effects of the speaker’s personality. But my case is complicated by temporary difficulties that have virtually foredoomed my makeshift oratory. I am referring, of course, to the circumstances into which I have been placed by you, gentlemen of the Swedish Academy, circumstances of marvellous confusion and exuberance. Truly, I had no idea of the thunderous honours that are yours to bestow! I have an epic, not a dramatic nature. My disposition and my desires call for peace to spin my thread, for a steady rhythm in life and art. No wonder, if the dramatic firework that has crashed from the North into this steady rhythm has reduced my rhetorical abilities even beneath their usual limitations. Ever since the Swedish Academy made public its decision, I have lived in festive intoxication, an enchanting topsy-turvy, and I cannot illustrate its consequences on my mind and soul better than by pointing to a pretty and curious love poem by Goethe. It is addressed to Cupid himself and the line that I have in mind goes: «Du hast mir mein Gerät verstellt und verschoben.» Thus the Nobel Prize has wrought dramatic confusion among the things in my epic household, and surely I am not being impertinent if I compare the effects of the Nobel Prize on me to those that passion works in a well-ordered human life.
And yet, how difficult it is for an artist to accept without misgivings such honours as are now showered upon me! Is there a decent and self-critical artist who would not have an uneasy conscience about them? Only a suprapersonal, supra-individual point of view will help in such a dilemma. It is always best to get rid of the individual, particularly in such a case. Goethe once said proudly, «Only knaves are modest.» That is very much the word of a grand seigneur who wanted to disassociate himself from the morality of subalterns and hypocrites. But, ladies and gentlemen, it is hardly the whole truth. There is wisdom and intelligence in modesty, and he would be a silly fool indeed who would find a source of conceit and arrogance in honours such as have been bestowed upon me. I do well to put this international prize that through some chance was given to me, at the feet of my country and my people, that country and that people to which writers like myself feel closer today than they did at the zenith of its strident empire.
After many years the Stockholm international prize has once more been awarded to the German mind, and to German prose in particular, and you may find it difficult to appreciate the sensitivity with which such signs of world sympathy are received in my wounded and often misunderstood country.
May I presume to interpret the meaning of this sympathy more closely? German intellectual and artistic achievements during the last fifteen years have not been made under conditions favourable to body and soul. No work had the chance to grow and mature in comfortable security, but art and intellect have had to exist in conditions intensely and generally problematic, in conditions of misery, turmoil, and suffering, an almost Eastern and Russian chaos of passions, in which the German mind has preserved the Western and European principle of the dignity of form. For to the European, form is a point of honour, is it not? I am not a Catholic, ladies and gentlemen; my tradition is like that of all of you; I support the Protestant immediateness to God. Nevertheless, I have a favourite saint. I will tell you his name. It is Saint Sebastian, that youth at the stake, who, pierced by swords and arrows from all sides, smiles amidst his agony. Grace in suffering: that is the heroism symbolized by St. Sebastian. The image may be bold, but I am tempted to claim this heroism for the German mind and for German art, and to suppose that the international honour fallen to Germany’s literary achievement was given with this sublime heroism in mind. Through her poetry Germany has exhibited grace in suffering. She has preserved her honour, politically by not yielding to the anarchy of sorrow, yet keeping her unity; spiritually by uniting the Eastern principle of suffering with the Western principle of form – by creating beauty out of suffering.
Allow me at the end to become personal. I have told even the first delegates who came to me after the decision how moved and how pleased I was to receive such an honour from the North, from that Scandinavian sphere to which as a son of Lübeck I have from childhood been tied by so many similarities in our ways of life, and as a writer by so much literary sympathy and admiration for Northern thought and atmosphere. When I was young, I wrote a story that young people still like: Tonio Kröger. It is about the South and the North and their mixture in one person, a problematic and productive mixture. The South in that story is the essence of sensual, intellectual adventure, of the cold passion of art. The North, on the other hand, stands for the heart, the bourgeois home, the deeply rooted emotion and intimate humanity. Now this home of the heart, the North, welcomes and embraces me in a splendid celebration. It is a beautiful and meaningful day in my life, a true holiday of life, a «högtidsdag», as the Swedish language calls any day of rejoicing. Let me tie my final request to this word so clumsily borrowed from Swedish: Let us unite, ladies and gentlemen, in gratitude and congratulations to the Foundation, so beneficial and important the world over, to which we owe this magnificent evening. According to good Swedish custom, join me in a fourfold hurrah to the Nobel Foundation!
Prior to the speech, Professor J. E. Johansson made the following comments: «Thomas Mann has described the phenomena which are accessible to us without the help of models of electrons and atoms. His investigations concern human nature as we have learned to know it in the light of conscience. Thus his field is many centuries old; but Thomas Mann has shown that it offers no fewer new problems of great interest today. I take it that he does not feel a stranger in a group where everybody considers, as Alfred Nobel did, the human endeavour of the study of the relations among phenomena as the basis of all civilization, and I am quite sure that he will not feel an alien in a country so close to his own.»
Thomas Mann – Documentary
Thomas Mann – Bibliography
Works in German (large selection) |
Der kleine Herr Friedemann : Novellen. – Berlin : Fischer, 1898 |
Buddenbrooks : Verfall einer Familie : Roman. – 2 vol. – Berlin : Fischer, 1901 |
Tristan : Sechs Novellen. – Berlin : Fischer, 1903 |
Fiorenza. – Berlin : Fischer, 1906 |
Bilse und ich. – München : Bonsels, 1906 |
Königliche Hoheil. – Berlin : Fischer, 1909 |
Der kleine Herr Friedemann und andere Novellen. – Berlin : Fischer, 1909 |
Der Tod in Venedig : Novelle. – München : Hyperion, 1912 |
Das Wunderkind : Novellen. – Berlin : Fischer, 1914 |
Friedrich und die große Koalition. – Berlin : Fischer, 1915 |
Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen. – Berlin : Fischer, 1918 |
Herr und Hund ; Gesang vom Kindchen : Zwei Idyllen. – Berlin : Fischer, 1919 |
Wälsungenblut. – München : Phantasus, 1921 |
Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull : Buch der Kmdheit. – Wien : Rikola, 1922. – Enlarged as Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull : Der Memoiren erster Teil (Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1954) |
Rede und Antwort : Gesammelte Abhandlungen und kleine Aufsätze. – Berlin : Fischer, 1922 |
Von deutscher Republik. – Berlin : Fischer, 1923 |
Okkulte Erlebnisse. – Berlin : Häger, 1924 |
Der Zauberberg : Roman. – 2 vol. – Berlin : Fischer, 1924 |
Lübeck als geistige Lebensform. – Lübeck : Quitzow, 1926 |
Kino : Romanfragment. – Gera : Blau, 1926 |
Pariser Rechenschaft. – Berlin : Fischer, 1926 |
Unordnung und frühes Leid. – Berlin : Fischer, 1926 |
Zwei Festreden. – Leipzig : Reclam, 1928 |
Hundert Jahre Reclam : Festrede. – Leipzig : Reclam, 1928 |
Sieben Aufsätze. – Berlin : Fischer, 1929 |
Mario und der Zauberer : Ein tragisches Reiseerlebnis. – Berlin : Fischer, 1930 |
Lebensabriß. – Paris : Harrison, 1930 |
Die Forderung des Tages: Reden und Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1925-1929. – Berlin : Fischer, 1930 |
Deutsche Ansprache : Ein Appell an die Vernunft. – Berlin : Fischer, 1930 |
Goethe als Repräsentant des bürgerlichen Zeitalters : Rede. – Wien : Bermann-Fischer, 1932 |
Goethes Laufbahn als Schriftsteller : Vortrag. – München : Oldenbourg, 1933 |
Die Geschichten Jaakobs. – Berlin : Fischer, 1933 |
Der junge Joseph. – Berlin : Fischer, 1934 |
Leiden und Größe der Meister. – Berlin : Fischer, 1935 |
Freud und die Zukunft : Vortrag. – Wien : Bermann-Fischer, 1936 |
Joseph in Ägypten. – Wien : Bermann-Fischer, 1936 |
Ein Briefwechsel. – Zürich : Oprecht, 1937 |
Freud, Goethe, Wagner : Three Essays / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1937 |
Stockholmer Gesamtausgabe der Werke. – 12 vol. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1938-1956 |
Dieser Friede. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1938 |
Schopenhauer. – Stockholm Bermann-Fischer, 1938 |
Vom künftigen Sieg der Demokratie. – Zürich : Oprecht, 1938 |
Achtung, Europa! : Aufsätze zur Zeit. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1938 |
Lotte in Weimar. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1939 |
Die vertauschten Köpfe : Eine indische Legende. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1940 |
Dieser Krieg : Aufsatz. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1940 |
Deutsche Hörer! : 25 Radiosendungen nach Deutschland. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1942 |
Joseph, der Ernährer. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1943 |
Deutsche Hörer! : 55 Radiosendungen nach Deutschland. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1945 |
Das Gesetz : Erzählung. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1944 |
Adel des Geistes : Sechzehn Versuche zum Problem der Humanität. – Stockholm: Bermann-Fischer, 1945 |
Leiden an Deutschland : Tagebuchblätter aus den Jahren 1933 und 1934. – Los Angeles : Pazifische Presse/New York: Rosenberg, 1946 |
Deutschland und die Deutschen : Vortrag. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1947 |
Doktor Faustus : Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn, erzählt von einem Freunde. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1947 |
Nietzsches Philosophie im Lichte unserer Erfahrung : Vortrag. – Berlin : Suhrkamp, 1948 |
Neue Studien. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1948 |
Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus : Roman eines Romans. – Amsterdam : Bermann-Fischer, 1949 |
Goethe und die Demokratie. – Zürich : Oprecht, 1949 |
Meine Zeit : 1875-1950. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1950 |
Der Erwählte : Roman. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1951 |
Lob der Vergänglichkeit. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1952 |
Die Begegnung : Erzählung. – Olten : Vereinigung Oltner Bücherfreunde, 1953 |
Die Betrogene : Erzählung. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1953 |
Der Künstler und die Gesellschaft : Vortrag. – Wien : Frick, 1953 |
Altes und Neues : Kleine Prosa aus fünf Jahrzehnten. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1953 |
Adel des Geistes : Zwanzig Versuche zum Problem der Humanität. – Berlin : Aufbau, 1955 |
Ansprache im Schillerjahr 1955. – Berlin : Aufbau, 1955 |
Das Eisenbahnunglück : Novellen. – München : Piper, 1955 |
Versuch über Schiller : Seinem Andenken zum 150. Todestag in Liebe gewidmet. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1955 |
Nachlese : Prosa 1951-1955. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1956 |
Meerfahrt mit Don Quijote. – Wiesbaden : Insel, 1956 |
Sorge um Deutschland : Sechs Essays. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1957 |
Wagner und unsere Zeit : Aufsätze, Betrachtungen, Briefe / Hrsg. von Erika Mann. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1963 |
Notizen : Zu Felix Krull, Königliche Hoheit, Versuch über das Theater, Maja, Geist und Kultur, Ein Elender, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, Doktor Faustus und anderen Werken / Hrsg. von Hans Wysling. – Heidelberg : Winter, 1973 |
Thomas Mann : Tagebücher. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1977 – |
Notizbücher : Edition in zwei Bänden / Hrsg. von Hans Wysling und Yvonne Schmidlin. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1991-1992 |
Essays. – 6 vol. / Nach den Erstdr., textkritisch durchges., kommentiert und hrsg. von Hermann Kurzke und Stephan Stachorski. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1993-1997 |
Translations into English (large selection) |
Royal Highness : a Novel of German Court Life / translated by A. Cecil Curtis. – New York : Knopf, 1916 |
Bashan and I / translated by Herman George Scheffauer. – London : Collins, 1923. – Republ. as A Man and His Dog 1930 |
Buddenbrooks / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – 2 vol. – New York : Knopf, 1924 |
Death in Venice / . – New York : Knopf, 1925 |
The Magic Mountain. – 2 vol. – translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1927 |
Children and Fools / translated by Herman George Scheffauer. – New York : Knopf, 1928 |
Early Sorrow / translated by Herman George Scheffauer. – London Secker, 1929 |
Mario and the Magician / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – London : Secker, 1930 |
Past Masters and Other Papers / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1933 |
Joseph and His Brothers / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1934 |
Young Joseph / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1935 |
Stories of Three Decades / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1936 |
An Exchange of Letters / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1937 |
The Coming Victory of Democracy / translated by Agnes E. Meyer. – London : Secker & Warburg, 1938 |
Joseph in Egypt / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1938 |
This Peace / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1938 |
The Beloved Returns / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1940. – Republ. as Lotte in Weimar 1940 |
This War / translated by Eric Sutton. – New York : Knopf, 1940 |
Transposed Heads : A Legend of India. – translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1941 |
Order of the Day : Political Essays and Speeches of Two Decades / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter, Agnes E. Meyer and Eric Sutton. – New York : Knopf, 1942 |
Listen, Germany ! : Twenty-five Radio Messages to the German People over B.B.C. / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1943 |
Joseph the Provider / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1944 |
The Tables of the Law / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1945 |
Essays of Three Decades / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1947 |
Doctor Faustus : the Life of the German Composer, Adrian Leverkühn, as Told by a Friend / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1948 |
The Holy Sinner / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1951 |
The Black Swan / translated by Willard R. Trask. – New York : Knopf, 1954 |
Confessions of Feliz Krull, Confidence Man : The Early Years / translated by Denver Lindley. – New York : Knopf, 1955 |
Last Essays / translated by Richard and Clara Winston, Tania and James Stern, and H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1959 |
A Sketch of My Life / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1960 |
Stories of a Lifetime. – 2 vol. / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – London : Secker & Warburg, 1961 |
The Story of a Novel : the Genesis of Doctor Faustus / translated by Richard and Clara Winston. – New York : Knopf, 1961 |
Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man / translated by Walter D. Morris. – New York : Ungar, 1983 |
Pro and Contra Wagner / translated by Allan Blunden. – Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1985 |
Death in Venice and Other Stories / translated by David Luke. – New York : Bantam, 1988 |
Buddenbrooks : the Decline of a Family / translated by John E. Woods. – New York : Knopf, 1993 |
Doctor Faustus / translated by John E. Woods. – New York : Knopf, 1997 |
Death in Venice and Other Tales / translated by Joachim Neugroschel. – New York : Viking, 1998 |
Death in Venice : complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives / edited by Naomi Ritter. – Boston : Bedford Books, 1998 |
Death in Venice, Tonio Kroger, and Other Writings / edited by Frederick A. Lubich, foreword by Harold Bloom. – New York : Continuum, 1999 |
Death in Venice / translated by Michael Heim. – New York : Ecco, 2004 |
Joseph and His Brothers : the Stories of Jacob, Young Joseph, Joseph in Egypt, Joseph the Provider / translated from the German by John E. Woods. – New York : Everyman’s Library, 2005 |
The Magic Mountain / translated from the German by John E. Woods. – New York : Knopf, 2005 |
Critical studies (a selection) |
Mendelssohn, Peter de, Der Zauberer : Das Leben des deutschen Schriftstellers Thomas Mann. – Erster Teil: 1875-1918. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1975 |
Thomet, Ulrich, Das Problem der Bildung im Werk Thomas Manns. – Bern : Lang, 1975 |
Luft, Hermann, Der Konflikt zwischen Geist und Sinnlichkeit in Thomas Manns Tod in Venedig. – Bern : Lang, 1976 |
Rieckmann, Jens, Der Zauberberg : eine geistige Autobiographie Thomas Manns. – Stuttgart : Heinz, 1977 |
Jendreiek, Helmut, Thomas Mann : Der demokratische Roman. – Düsseldorf : Bagel, 1977 |
Sandt, Lotti, Mythos und Symbolik im Zauberberg von Thomas Mann. – Bern : Haupt, 1979 |
Koopmann, Helmut, Der schwierige Deutsche : Studien zum Werk Thomas Manns. – Tübingen : Niemeyer, 1988 |
Bruhn, Gert, Das Selbstzitat bei Thomas Mann : Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von Fiktion und Autobiographie in seinem Werk. – New York : Peter Lang, 1992 |
Sprecher, Thomas, Thomas Mann in Zürich. – München : Fink, 1992 |
Fetzer, John F., Changing Perceptions of Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus : Criticism 1947-1992. – Columbia, SC : Camden, 1996 |
Heilbut, Anthony, Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature. – Berkeley : Univ. of California Press, 1997 |
Scaff, Susan von Rohr, History, Myth, and Music : Thomas Mann’s Timely Fiction. – Columbia, SC : Camden House, 1998 |
Wolters, Dierk, Zwischen Metaphysik und Politik : Thomas Manns Roman ‘Joseph und seine Brüder’ in seiner Zeit. – Tübingen : Niemeyer, 1998 |
Thomas-Mann-Handbuch / herausgegeben von Helmut Koopmann. – Stuttgart : Kröner, 1990 |
Kurzke, Hermann, Thomas Mann : das Leben als Kunstwerk. – München : Beck, 1999 |
Elsaghe, Yahya, Die imaginäre Nation : Thomas Mann und das ‘Deutsche’. – München : Fink, 2000 |
Höbusch, Harald, Thomas Mann : Kunst, Kritik, Politik 1893-1913. – Tübingen : Francke, 2000 |
Maar, Michael, Das Blaubartzimmer : Thomas Mann und die Schuld. – Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp, 2000 |
Breloer, Heinrich, & Königstein, Horst, Die Manns : ein Jahrhundertroman. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 2001 |
Kinkel, Elke, Thomas Mann in Amerika : Interkultureller Dialog im Wandel? : Eine rezeptions- und übersetzungskritische Analyse am Beispiel des Doktor Faustus. – Frankfurt am Main : Peter Lang, 2001 |
Kurzke, Hermann, Thomas Mann : Life as a Work of Art : a Biography / translated by Leslie Wilson. – London : Allen Lane, 2002 |
Hoffschulte, Martina, “Deutsche Hörer!” : Thomas Manns Rundfunkreden (1940 bis 1945) im Werkkontext. – Münster : Telos-Verl., 2003 |
Shookman, Ellis, Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice : a Novella and Its Critics. – Rochester, NY : Camden House, 2003 |
Shookman, Ellis, Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice : a Reference Guide. – Westport, CT : Greenwood, 2004 |
Mundt, Hannelore, Understanding Thomas Mann. – Columbia, SC : Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2004 |
Görtemaker, Manfred, Thomas Mann und die Politik. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 2005 |
Vaget, Hans Rudolf, Seelenzauber : Thomas Mann und die Musik. – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 2006 |
The Swedish Academy, 2010
Thomas Mann – Banquet speech
English
German
Thomas Mann’s speech at the Nobel Banquet at Grand Hôtel, Stockholm, December 10, 1929
(in German)
Der Augenblick zu danken ist nun auch für mich gekommen, ein er sehnter Augenblick, ich brauche es nicht zu sagen. Und nun, wo er da ist, wo es gilt, nun steht zu fürchten, dass das Wort sich dem Gefühle versagt, wie es bei geborenen Nichtrednern zu gehen pflegt. Zu den geborenen Nichtrednern zähle ich die Schriftsteller überhaupt: es bestehen tiefe Unterschiede, ja Gegensätze zwischen den Produktions- und Wirkungsarten des Redners und des Schriftstellers, und namentlich wird das Improvisatorische, das literarische Ungefähr alles Redens, das Prinzip künstlerischer Aussparung, das Vieles, ja Entscheidendes der nachhelfenden Persönlichkeitswirkung zur Ergänzung offen lässt, den Instinkten der entschiedenen Schriftstellerpersönlichkeit zuwider sein. In meinem Falle aber kommen temporäre Unzuträglichkeiten hinzu, die meinem Zur-Not-Rednertum wenig Hoffnung lassen, sich zu bewähren: Die Umstände, in die Sie selbst, meine Herren von der Schwedischen Akademie, mich versetzt haben, turbulente Umstände, herrlich verwirrende und umstürzend lebensfestliche Umstände. Wirklich, ich habe mir keine Vorstellung gemacht von der Donnergewalt der Ehrung, die Sie in Händen halten und zu vergeben haben. Ich bin eine epische, keine dramatische Natur. Das ruhige Fortspinnen meines Fadens, das Gleich mass in Leben und Kunst ist es im Grunde, was meinen Wünschen und Anlagen entspricht. Kein Wunder, dass der dramatische Lebens-Knalleffekt, der da von Norden her in dies Gleichmass hineinschmetterte, meine rednerische Fertigkeit noch über das gewohnte Mass einschränkt. Seit der im Schoss der Schwedischen Akademie gefasste Beschluss in die Welt ging, lebe ich in einem immerwährenden Festtrubel, einem bezaubernden Drüber und Drunter, dessen seelische und geistige Folgen ich am besten kennzeichne, indem ich an ein seltsam schönes Liebesgedicht von Goethe erinnere. Es ist an Kupido selbst gerichtet, und ich meine die Zeile: »Du hast mir mein Gerät verstellt und verschoben». So hat der Nobelpreis mir mein episches Hausgerät dramatisch verstellt und verschoben, – und, nicht wahr, ich trete der mir verliehenen Ehrung nicht zu nahe, wenn ich ihre Wirkungen denen der Liebesleidenschaft in einem geordneten Menschenleben vergleiche.
Dennoch, wie schwer ist es für einen Künstler, solchen Ehrungen, wie sie jetzt auf mich niederrauschen, mit guter Miene Stand zu halten! Gibt es ein anständiges, selbstkritisches Künstlertum, das ein gutes Gewissen dabei hätte? Nur der überpersönliche, überindividuelle Gesichtspunkt kann da helfen. Vom Individuellen loszukommen, ist immer Wohltat, besonders in solchem Fall. Von Goethe stammt das stolze Wort: »Nur die Lumpe sind bescheiden». Das ist das Wort eines sehr grossen Herrn, der damit eine gewisse Heuchler- und Duckmäusermoral von sich abwehren wollte. Aber, meine Damen und Herren, das Wort hat nicht unbedingte Gültigkeit.
Bescheidenheit hat auch etwas mit Gescheitheit, mit Intelligenz zu tun; und der, meine ich, müsste ein rechter Dummkopf sein, der sich aus Ehrungen, wie der mir zugefallenen, eine Quelle des Eigendünkels und der Aufgeblasenheit machen wollte. Ich tue wohl daran, den Weltpreis, der mehr oder weniger zufällig auf meinen Namen lautet, meinem Lande und Volke zu Füssen zu legen, diesem Lande und Volk, mit dem meinesgleichen sich heute nur fester noch verbunden fühlt, als zur Zeit seiner klirrendsten Machtentfaltung. Dem deutschen Geist, der deutschen Prosa insbesondere, gilt dieses Jahr der Stockholmer Weltpreis, nach langen Jahren wieder einmal, und Sie machen sich schwer eine Vorstellung von der sensitiven Empfänglichkeit dieses verwundeten und vielfach unverstandenen Volkes für solche Zeichen der Weltsympathie.
Darf ich mir anmassen, den Sinn dieser Sympathie etwas näher zu deuten: Was in Deutschland in den letzten anderthalb Jahrzehnten geistig, künstlerisch geleistet wurde, ist nicht im Schutz günstiger Umstände, nicht unter gesicherten seelischen und materiellen Verhältnissen geleistet worden; kein Werk konnte in Sicherheit und Behagen sich runden und reifen, sondern die Bedingungen der Kunst und des Geistes waren diejenigen schärfster allgemeiner Problematik, waren Bedingungen der Not, der Aufgewühltheit und des Leidens, eines fast östlichen, fast russischen Leidenswirrsals, in welchem der deutsche Geist das westliche, das europäische Prinzip gewahrt hat, die Ehre der Form. Denn, nicht wahr, Form, das ist eine europäische Ehrensache! – Ich bin kein Katholik, meine Herren und Damen, meine Überlieferung ist, wie wahrscheinlich die Ihrer aller, die protestantische Gottesunmittelbarkeit. Dennoch habe ich einen Lieblingsheiligen. Ich will Ihnen seinen Namen nennen, es ist der Heilige Sebastian – Sie wissen, jener Jüngling am Pfahl, den Schwerter und Pfeile von allen Seiten durchdringen, und der in Qualen lächelt. Anmut in der Qual – dies Heldentum ist es, das Sankt Sebastian symbolisiert. Das Bild mag kühn sein, aber ich bin versucht, dies Heldentum für den deutschen Geist, die deutsche Kunst in Anspruch zu nehmen und zu vermuten, dass die der literarischen Leistung Deutschlands zugefallene Weltehrung diesem sublimen Heldentum gilt. Deutschland hat durch seine Dichtung Anmut bewiesen in der Qual. Es hat die Ehre gewahrt: politisch, indem es nicht in Schmerzensanarchie zerfiel, indem es das Reich bewahrte; und geistig, indem es das östliche Prinzip des Leidens zu einen vermochte mit dem westlichen Prinzip der Form, indem es in Leiden Schönes hervorbrachte.
Und nun lassen Sie mich zum Schluss noch einmal persönlich sprechen. Schon den ersten Unterrednern, die mich nach gefallener Entscheidung aufsuchten, habe ich ausgesprochen, wie sehr es mich rührt und mir genugtut, dass diese Auszeichnung mir gerade aus Norden kam, aus dieser skandinavischen Sphäre, mit der mich als Lübecker Kind von jung auf so viel Übereinstimmung der Lebensform, als Schriftsteller so viel literarische Sympathie und Bewunderung für nordischen Geist und Tonfall verbindet. Als junger Mensch habe ich eine Erzählung geschrieben, die immernoch jungen Menschen wohlgefällt, den Tonio Kroger. Sie handelt vom Süden und vom Norden und von der Mischung beider in einer Person: einer konfliktvollen und produktiven Mischung. Der Süden, das ist in dieser Geschichte der Inbegriff alles geistig-sinnlichen Abenteuers, der kalten Leidenschaft des Künstlertums; der Norden dagegen der Inbegriff aller Herzlichkeit und bürgerlichen Heimat, alles tief ruhenden Gefühls, aller innigen Menschlichkeit. Und nun umfängt und empfängt sie mich denn als strahlendes Fest, diese Herzensheimat des Nordens. Das ist ein schöner, sinnvoller Tag in meinem Leben, ein rechtes Lebensfest, ein »högtidsdag», wie die schwedische Sprache ausdrucksvoll das Fest überhaupt nennt. An dieses, der schwedischen Sprache mit Unbeholfenheit entliehene Wort lassen Sie mich die Bitte knüpfen, zu der ich schliesslich komme. Vereinigen wir uns, meine Damen und Herren, in Dank und Glückwünschen für die segen volle und weltbedeutende Stiftung, der wir diesen herrlichen Abend verdanken. Nach gut schwedischer Sitte wollen Sie mit mir einstimmen in ein vierfaches Hurra auf die Nobelstiftung. Die Nobelstiftung Hurra, hurra, hurra, hurra!
Thomas Mann – Nominations
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1929
Thomas Mann
Nominated on 5 occasions for the Nobel Prize in
- Literature 1924, by Gerhart Hauptmann
- Literature 1928, by Anders Österling
- Literature 1929, by Anders Österling
- Literature 1948, by Hjalmar Gullberg
- Literature 1948, by Einar Löfstedt
Submitted 2 nominations, for the Nobel Prize in
Explore a visualization of the nominations
Search for nominees and nominators in the Nomination Archive
MLA style: “Thomas Mann – Nominations”. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 22 Jun 2018.
Thomas Mann – Facts
Thomas Mann – Biographical
I was born in Lübeck on June 6, 1875, the second son of a merchant and senator of the Free City, Johann Heinrich Mann, and his wife Julia da Silva Bruhns. My father was the grandson and great-grandson of Lübeck citizens, but my mother first saw the light of day in Rio de Janeiro as the daughter of a German plantation owner and a Portuguese-Creole Brazilian. She was taken to Germany at the age of seven.
I was designated to take over my father’s grain firm, which commemorated its centenary during my boyhood, and I attended the science division of the «Katharineum» at Lübeck. I loathed school and up to the very end failed to meet its requirements, owing to an innate and paralyzing resistance to any external demands, which I later learned to correct only with great difficulty. Whatever education I possess I acquired in a free and autodidactic manner. Official instruction failed to instill in me any but the most rudimentary knowledge.
When I was fifteen, my father died, a comparatively young man. The firm was liquidated. A little later my mother left the town with the younger children in order to settle in the south of Germany, in Munich.
After finishing school rather ingloriously, I followed her and for the time being became a clerk in the office of a Munich insurance company whose director had been a friend of my father’s. Later, by way of preparing for a career in journalism, I attended lectures in history, economics, art history, and literature at the university and the polytechnic. In between I spent a year in Italy with my brother Heinrich, my elder by four years. During this time my first collection of short stories, Der kleine Herr Friedemann (1898) [Little Herr Friedemann], was published. In Rome, I also began to write the novel Buddenbrooks, which appeared in 1901 and which since then has been such a favourite with the German public that today over a million copies of it are in circulation.
There followed shorter stories, collected in the volume Tristan (1903), of which the North-South artist’s novella Tonio Kroger is usually considered the most characteristic, and also the Renaissance dialogues Fiorenza (1906), a closet drama which, however, has occasionally been staged.
In 1905 I married the daughter of Alfred Pringsheim, who had the chair of mathematics at the University of Munich. On her mother’s side my wife is the granddaughter of Ernst and Hedwig Dohm, the well-known Berlin journalist and his wife, who played a leading role in the German movement for women’s emancipation. From our marriage have come six children: three girls, of whom the eldest has gone into the theatre, and three boys, of whom the eldest has also devoted himself to literature.
The first literary fruit of my new status was the novel Königliche Hoheit (1909) [Royal Highness], a court story that provides the frame for a psychology of the formal-representative life and for moral questions such as the reconciliation of an aristocratic, melancholic consciousness with the demands of the community. Another novelistic project followed, the Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (1922) [Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man]. It is based on an idea of parody, that of taking an element of venerable tradition, of the Goethean, self-stylizing, autobiographic, and aristocratic confession, and translating it into the sphere of the humorous and the criminal. The novel has remained a fragment, but there are connoisseurs who consider its published sections my best and most felicitous achievement. Perhaps it is the most personal thing I have written, for it represents my attitude toward tradition, which is simultaneously loving and destructive and has dominated me as a writer.
In 1913 the novella Tod in Venedig [Death in Venice] was published, which beside Tonio Kroger is considered my most valid achievement in that genre. While I was writing its final sections I conceived the idea of the «Bildungsroman» Der Zauberberg (1924) [The Magic Mountain], but work on it was interrupted in the very beginning by the war.
Although the war did not make any immediate demands on me physically, while it lasted it put a complete stop to my artistic activity because it forced me into an agonizing reappraisal of my fundamental assumptions, a human and intellectual self-inquiry that found its condensation in Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen [Reflections of an Unpolitical Man], published in 1918. Its subject is the personally accented problem of being German, the political problem, treated in the spirit of a polemical conservatism that underwent many revisions as life went on. An account of the development of my socio-moral ideas is found in the volumes of essays Rede und Antwort (1922) [Question and Answer], Bemühungen (1925) [Efforts], and Die Forderung des Tages (1930) [Order of fhe Day].
Lecture tours abroad began immediately after the borders of countries neutral or hostile during the war had been re-opened. They led me first to Holland, Switzerland, and Denmark. The spring of 1923 saw a journey to Spain. In the following year I was guest of honour of the newly established PEN Club in London; two years later I accepted an invitation of the French branch of the Carnegie Foundation, and I visited Warsaw in 1927.
Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1924, after many prolonged delays the two volumes of Der Zauberberg were published. The interest of the public, as revealed by the hundred printings the book ran into within a few years, proved that I had chosen the most favourable moment to come to the fore with this composition of ideas epically conceived. The problems of the novel did not essentially appeal to the masses, but they were of consuming interest to the educated, and the distress of the times had increased the receptivity of the public to a degree that favoured my product, which so wilfully played fast and loose with the form of the novel.
Soon after the completion of the Betrachtungen I added to my longer narratives a prose idyll, the animal story Herr und Hund (1919) [Bashan and I]. Der Zauberberg was followed by a bourgeois novella from the period of revolution and inflation, Unordnung und frühes Leid (1926) [Disorder and Early Sorrow]; Mario und der Zauberer [Mario and the Magician], written in 1929, is for the time being my last attempt at compositions of this size. It was written during my work on a new novel which in subject matter and intention is far different from all earlier works, for it leaves behind the bourgeois individual sphere and enters into that of the past and myth. The Biblical story for which the title Joseph und seine Brüder is planned, and of which individual sections have been made known through public readings and publications in journals, seems about half completed. A study trip connected with it led me to Egypt and Palestine in February-March-April, 1930.
Ever since his early days the author of this biographical sketch has been encouraged in his endeavours by the kind interest of his fellow men as well as by official honours. An example is the conferment of an honorary doctor’s degree by the University of Bonn in 1919; and, to satisfy the German delight in title, the Senate of Lübeck, my home town, added the title of professor on the occasion of a city anniversary. I am one of the first members, nominated by the state itself, of the new literary division of the Prussian Academy of Arts; my fiftieth birthday was accompanied by expressions of public affection that I can remember only with emotion, and the summit of all these distinctions has been the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature by the Swedish Academy last year. But I may say that no turmoil of success has ever dimmed the clear apprehension of the relativity of my deserts or even for a moment dulled the edge of my self-criticism. The value and significance of my work for posterity may safely be left to the future; for me they are nothing but the personal traces of a life led consciously, that is, conscientiously.
Biographical note on Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) moved to Switzerland in 1933 shortly after the Nazis had come to power and begun a campaign of abuse against him. He was formally expatriated in 1936. In 1937 the University of Bonn deprived him of his honorary doctorate (restored in 1946), which aroused Mann to a famous and moving reply in which he epitomized the situation of the German writer in exile. Mann, who had anticipated and warned against the rise of fascism during the Weimar Republic (e.g., in Mario and the Magician), continued to combat it in many pamphlets and talks throughout the period of the Nazi regime and the Second World War. He became an American citizen in 1940 and, from 1941 to 1953, lived in Santa Monica, California. After the war he frequently revisited Europe: in 1949 he received the Goethe Prizes of Weimar (East Germany) and Frankfurt (West Germany), but when he finally returned to Europe he settled near Zürich, where he died in 1955.
Among the chief works of Mann’s later years are the novels Lotte in Weimar (1939) [The Beloved Returns], in which the fictional account of a meeting of the lovers of Werther grown old provides the framework for a psychologically and technically ingenious portrait of the old Goethe; Joseph und seine Brüder (1933-43) [Joseph and his Brothers], a version of the Old Testament story which interweaves myth and psychology; and Dr. Faustus (1947), the story of an artist who chooses to pay with self-destruction for the powers of genius, a fate that echoes the last days of the Third Reich; the collections of essays Leiden und Grösse der Meister (1935)[ Suffering and Greatness of the Masters]; and the essay on Schiller, Versuch über Schiller (1955). A complete edition of his works in twelve volumes was published in Berlin (1956) and in Frankfurt (1960).
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Thomas Mann died on August 12, 1955.
Transcript from an interview with Thomas C. Südhof
Interview with Thomas C. Südhof, 6 December 2013, during the Nobel Week in Stockholm, Sweden.
Could you explain your Nobel Prize awarded work to young students?
Thomas Südhof: To actually explain that one has to sort of introduce the subject in little broader terms. A person, I think most people would agree, is a person because of in the end of a person’s brain, which is where people think, plan and where all perceptions are collected and processed. I am a neuroscientist, I work on how the brain works which is an unbelievable big challenge because it’s a really quite amazing organ. In principle how the brain works is easy enough to explain. Billions and billions of nerve cells that constantly talk to each other and by talking to each other process information and at some point, come to some decision of doing something. What we have been doing over decades now, ever since I started in science, trying to understand how nerve cells in the brain communicate with each other so our contribution to science in a broad sense was to shed light on how a nerve cell speaks to another nerve cell and the way a nerve cell does that is via the specialized connection that is formed between these cells and the brain and that connection is called a synapse. And a synapse transfers information and processes information from one nerve cell to the next. It is a specialized junction between nerve cells that is not only there to relay information but also to change information, its own little nano computer. if you want to call it that. What we have done is to try to understand better how one cell sends out the information to the next cell at the synapse and ideally how also it processes that information and our major contributions I believe was in figuring out the basic fundamental molecular processes that govern this ability of a nerve cell in all brains, in all cells and in all animals.
So basically, the communication is in the brain?
Thomas Südhof: Fundamentally our work deals with trying to understand how brain cells communicate, yes. How exactly, what is the molecular basis, what are the genes, how do they work? What is the atomic structure? How are they regulated? How does their activity effect the overall brain? And how does that change in disease?
What were you doing when you got the message of being awarded the Nobel Prize?
Thomas Südhof: The question of what I was doing when I got the Nobel Prize call, a question that has been asked a thousand times. I think many people have listen to the call that was recorded and which I didn’t know and put on the website and I was driving in the middle of Spain trying to find a small city where I was supposed to go for a conference. Most people who live in the United States, if they have the fortune or luck or both to get such a call, most people are sleeping except if they expect it, and the usual procedure is as I understand, that you first get the call and then you are called and the recording is only done for the time you are called again, so most people are prepared. They know what they are going to do and my co-laureates already had showered when they got the call, so the situation was a little different for me because the first call never reached me. Adam Smith, who is part of Nobel Media I understand, was actually the one who called me and my first thought was quite honestly skeptic, skepticism, I was skeptic about the call, I felt that there was something not quite … It didn’t sound right that somebody with high-English accent would call you about that, so I was a little cautious, I was also a little sleepy because I hadn’t slept the night before of course, I was flying. I had to gather my wits and try to figure out whether that was actually a truthful call or a prank call.
At what point did you realize your work was a breakthrough?
Thomas Südhof: The question of sort of a major discovery point or single event is often asked. Most Nobel Prizes are given, I believe, for technical advances or because such moments are identifiable in the discovery of techniques, monoclonal antibodies, patch clamping and so on. Much fewer Nobel Prizes are actually given for discoveries of how something works, which is because, in my personal view, most discoveries of how something works are not discoveries that can be incapsulated in a single moment. The discoveries that require an incremental advance over many different experiments. If you want to understand the process, you can’t understand it in a single experiment. You have to approach it from many different angles. In my personal case the work that we performed that I think led to this prize was actually work that initiated 25 years ago and there were a lot of important observations, but in the end the promise of these observations only materialized or became more concrete very recently because continuing experiments in our lab backed them up, expanded them, explained them and gave them substance. I actually don’t think that there was any single eureka moment in my career, there were many small eureka moments, but not just one discovery, it’s in fact the whole question I am working on and I think that our work has contributed to understanding a process that involves or necessitates, more than understanding one little thing or one big thing, but understanding really how it works.
Who is your role model, and why?
Thomas Südhof: There is many people who have inspired me during my career. When I grew up I was probably most inspired by some of the teachers who I most admired, like music teachers for example, not science teachers I am afraid. I greatly admire and was tremendously influenced as a role model if you like by my mentors Joe Goldstein and Mike Brown who were my mentors in my post-doctoral training and who are Nobel Laureates. I think I have always admired people who have had the ability yo actually make discoveries that allow us to understand something and not only to discover a new approach and a new technique and I see this with Brown and Goldstein. I can also see that for example in the work that Bert Sakmann did after he won the Nobel Prize, which he won as you probably know for patch clamping, but afterwards he became a true, well actually he developed neuroscience in a way that I found very inspiring and so those are people I could mention here.
Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
Thomas Südhof: The one thing that I always feel I would like to always express is that what I appreciated about the Nobel Prize in particular and what I think is absolutely essential for science, not only science, but for our societies and maybe even for civilization in a broad sense is that science operates purely or should operate purely by the idea of figuring out what the truth is about real things, but it is done by humans and humans are by their very nature never always truthful. I really appreciate about the Nobel Prize that historically it is has always been unbelievably well done, in the sense that the selection was … I can’t say this about my own case, but about previous cases were really based on scholarship and I think that is an enormous achievement. I think that that’s really what constitutes the value of the prize and I can only really congratulate the Nobel, I don’t know actually who does this, but I can only congratulate them on doing such a wonderful job.
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