Alcohol, drugs and gay sex! Shocking disclosures about Thomas Mann and his family!

: 21 July 2018

Cancer, suicide, depression, emigration, homosexuality… The Manns are the most significant German family of the 20^th century. They’re called “The Kennedys of Germany” and although they solved their problems pretty much like any other family, everything can be turned into tabloid material, right? It could maybe look like this:

WAS HE GAY?! DID HIS WIFE KNOW?

It is clear from Thomas Mann’s diary that he was interested in men, but he repressed his sexuality and there is no evidence that he had sex with men. But his wife Katia must have known it! She managed his correspondence and accompanied him to social events. Without his wife Thomas was helpless and fell into depressions. Gay as he might have been, though, he gave his wife no less than six children. Great job, Tom!

SUICIDE OR ACCIDENT?

His mother Katia loved him more than any other sibling, but his father couldn’t stand him. That was the fate of the youngest member of the family, Michael. After his love affair with the piano player Yealtah Menuhin was revealed, almost destroying his marriage and being kept out of the courts only through family intervention, he dedicated himself to German studies. When he proof-read his father’s diary, the content crushed him!

Before he was born, the doctors recommended his mother abortion. And the end of his life was also surrounded in drama. After an argument with his wife he poisoned himself with medical drugs and alcohol. He was found by his adopted Indian daughter Raju, lying dead in party clothes, in his bed. The official explanation was accidental overdose, but his siblings were convinced that is was suicide! He had suffered because of his father’s diary and often spoke and wrote about suicide.

Thomas Mann

SHE MARRIED A GAY MEN FOR CITIZENSHIP!

Erika, Thomas and Katia’s eldest child, established in 1933 the political cabaret “Pfeffermuehle” and like the whole family was soon forced to leave Germany. Unlike the rest of the family, she was never granted Czechoslovak citizenship. To gain the British, she married the gay W. H. Auden. It probably didn’t matter much, since she used to have fun with women as well as with men!

WHAT ARE YOU HIDING FROM US, TOM?!

Thomas Mann kept diaries all his life. The ones he wrote during the Weimer republic he destroyed with his own hands. What was in there that he wanted erased? Love affairs, maybe? The homosexual theme of his Death in Venice would point to that. Or maybe he’d had secret Nazi sympathies? Maybe he hadn’t made a clear cut from the Nazis to have his books published? His firm rejection of Nazis was expressed later, but the beginnings might have been completely different. We’ll never know the truth! Thomas took it with him to the grave! The work of lung cancer was finished by a heart attack!

HE WAS GAY AND WANTED TO DIE!

Thomas’ son Klaus, unlike his father, was openly gay. But when as an emigrant he tried to join the U.S. armed forces, he had to hide his sexuality! He had been already rejected once, because they thought he was a communist. When he finally became a soldier, he had to endlessly pretend. He used to show his buddies a woman friend’s sexy picture, to make them believe he really had his girl!

He had political plans, as well. Shortly before he died, he wrote in a letter to his sister: “I would make sure that only the gays get all the good jobs!”. The end of his life was marked by drugs and suicide attempts. After he died from a sleeping pills overdose, his parents skipped his funeral!

HATRED BETWEEN SISTERS!

Not going to funerals in their own family was something of a tradition with the Manns. When Thomas’ daughter Monika published her biography right after her father’s death, the rest of the family turned against her. The hardest hatred came from her own sister, Erika, who forbade her in a letter to ever write about the family. She warned her she would reject her publicly! The enmity between sisters lasted until the grave; Erika’s funeral went on without her younger sister. She just refused to go!

THERE'S MORE WE KNOW!

There’s more to this family story than what you’ve just read. A lot more. Join us to find out what the Manns were really like. For this year’s Prague Pride festival, we have prepared several events which will reveal to you this world-format family in all its aspects. It will be more personal than history lessons and more accurate than the headlines in a tabloid!

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