Monika Mann
Monika Mann ( born June 7, 1910 in Munich, † March 17, 1992 in Leverkusen, Germany ) was a German writer.
Life
The daughter of Thomas Mann and Katia applies not only to Golo and Michael as one of the unloved children of the family man. Thomas Mann known in his diary frankly that he " prefer the sixes three, the two elders ( Klaus and Erika ) and Elisabethchen with a strange decisiveness. " And her mother wrote in 1939 about Monika to her son Klaus: "I am determined, no unkind word to say in my life about them, and to behave nice and helpful " in the notes and letters her family, she has often been described as weird and strange ". [ ... ] it is after three week stay here ( in parents' house ), but all the old, dull whimsical Mönle, completely idle, the pantry bemausend [ ... ]. " Within the family was Monika man " called Mönle ".
After school, most recently in Salem near Lake Constance, she graduated in Lausanne training as a pianist and studied music and art history in Florence. She emigrated with her family in 1933 via France to Switzerland. In 1934 she graduated in Florence a private piano studies with the composer Luigi Dallapiccola. There she met her future husband, the Hungarian-Jewish art historian Jeno Lányi (1902-1940), know. 1938 left the couple Italy to London, where married in March 1939. After bombing the Wehrmacht on the London Lányis decided to emigrate. During the crossing from Liverpool to Canada in September 1940 with the British ship City of Benares was torpedoed this from a German submarine and sank. Her husband drowned while Monika man survived the disaster. By his own admission, she heard three more times to call him after her. They even drove 20 hours in a lifeboat in the ocean, to a British warship took up the few survivors and brought to Scotland. After another cruise on the Cameronia she reached on October 28, 1940 Port of New York City, where she was expected by her parents. She spent the next years in the United States with her family and moved in 1942 then alone to New York City. Since 1944 to 1945 she intermittently an apartment together with Kadidja Wedekind.
In 1947 she began to professionalise their writing, to the dismay of Thomas Mann, who did not believe in her writing talent. And Katia Mann expressed in 1949 in another letter to Klaus: " She was not like this last delusion take, on the other hand, if it stiffens it and her half- talented, tasteful uncertain, next previous products released with the assistance of her name, which is quite conceivable, it is again not a right. " in this devastating judgment that in Katia Mann mid-1950s " peculiar literary gift " abwandelte, certainly played with the concern that family Interna could reach the public. Presumably they disliked even the sometimes irreverent tone in which Monika commented on their relatives, for example, she said in an interview that her brother Michael had " unfortunately totgesoffen ", and her sister Elisabeth Mann Borgese throw "all " their money in the ocean ".
1948 Monika man suffered a psychological crisis and was brought by her sister Gretchen Moser at the request of the parents in the Ananda Ashram in La Crescenta in Los Angeles, but where she lived only a few days until she found refuge with friends.
Monika man received in June 1952, the American citizen, but returned in September back to Europe and lived for a stay of several months in Bordighera in Rome. She wrote an autobiography in 1955, the past and the present in which it actually was critical especially on Thomas Mann. While the records her father died, she knew this time with a † in the manuscript. " My father's death is still too close to me, but that I wanted a lot of say about him. Only one thing - his presence was strong. His absence was strong. But his absence is full of presence. And his presence was not fully absence? " The book was in 1956 at the same time with Erika Mann The last year. Report of my father published. Both books were discussed positively in the October issue of the journal Merkur, where Monika 's book " a claim personal lift ". Katia man let the reviewers know that: "From as source material may future literary historians do not consider the little book [ ... ] ." In your opinion, it WOULD " offensive " and was compared to Thomas Mann " decided inadmissible ", also " of all six children she stood him farthest ", and Erika Mann, who had made it after the death of the father the task of literary over the look inside to watch her family, said: "And the breathlessness to benefit with the same two TMs daughters looking from this death, - they too will one comment. The reading course would prove who was legitimized here. " In making this judgment, however, both could ignore the fact that it was an autobiographical work, that reflects the view of the author, which excludes a purely factual account of the father.
Monika man lived from the end of 1954 on Capri in Italy for many years with the fisherman Antonio Spadaro together, she also dedicated her book. In addition to past and present, she wrote several other books, otherwise she wrote mainly poem similar short texts; one of the most famous is The Father. In 1958 she again took to the German nationality.
In 1986, after the death of their partner on 13 December 1985, she had to be home, the villa Monacone leave, and moved into the former Mann's parents' house to her brother Golo Mann for a short time in Switzerland.
In the late 1980s it was recorded at the home of Ingrid Beck- man, the adoptive son of Golo Mann, Hans Beck- man 's widow, in Leverkusen, Germany, and died there. Monika man was buried in the family grave in Kilchberg.
Works (selection)
- Past and present. Memories. Kindler, Munich 1956; Rowohlt, Reinbek 2001, ISBN 3-499-23087-9.
- The start. A diary. Steinklopfer -Verlag, Fürstenfeldbruck 1960
- Polka dots in all. Hegner, Cologne / Olten 1963
- Wonder of childhood. Images and impressions. Hegner, Cologne / Olten 1966
- The last prisoner. A true legend in onore a (last) composers. Lemke, other jurisdictions 1967
- The moving house. From the life of a citizen of the world. Edited and with an afterword by Karin Andert. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2007, ISBN 978-3-49924513-8 (interviews, articles and letters )