Władysław Moes

Władysław Moes ( born November 17, 1900 in Wierbka, † 17 December 1986 in Warsaw) was the prototype for the character Tadzio in Thomas Mann's story Death in Venice.

Moe came from a family of Polish upper class. He was the fourth of six children of Baron Alexander Julius Moes. As a young boy he fell to the writer Henryk Sienkiewicz. In 1911, he met at the Lido of Venice the writer Thomas Mann, from July 1911 to July 1912 his story then wrote Death in Venice. While the protagonist of the story finds the boy look sickly and probably will not grow old, reached Moes, who lived later from his paper mill, despite at times of adverse life circumstances to a great age. Only by Luchino Visconti film adaptation of the man 's story (1971 ) learned Moes of the consequences of his childhood holidays to the world literature.