22 Facts About Klaus Mann

Klaus Heinrich Thomas Mann was a German writer and dissident.

Klaus Mann was the son of Thomas Mann, a nephew of Heinrich Mann and brother of Erika Mann and Golo Mann.

Klaus Mann's books Escape to Life, and The Turning Point have attained a historical importance as frequently cited primary documents of the experience of exile undergone by members of the German intelligentsia and arts community who fled the Third Reich.

Klaus Mann's father was baptized as a Lutheran, while his mother was from a family of secular Jews.

Klaus Mann began writing short stories in 1924 and the following year became drama critic for a Berlin newspaper.

Klaus Mann made several trips abroad with Annemarie, the final one to a Soviet writers' congress in Moscow in 1934.

Since young adulthood, Klaus Mann used drugs, mostly opiates, to which he later became heavily addicted.

Klaus Mann underwent drug detoxification in Budapest during his travels, and at the Kilchberg Sanatorium in Switzerland.

In 1932 Klaus Mann wrote the first part of his autobiography, which was well received until Hitler came to power.

In 1933 Klaus Mann participated with Erika in a political cabaret, called Die Pfeffermuhle, which came to the attention of the Nazi regime.

Klaus Mann served as editor-in-chief from 1933 to 1935, when Die Sammlung' ceased publication, in part due to disagreements between Klaus Mann and his father, as well as other contributors, over frequent politically motivated content.

Klaus Mann's work Escape to Life, co-authored by his sister Erika, who at the time was a successful writer for the BBC, was the culmination of his efforts to unite German intellectuals against the de-humanizing politics of the German National Socialists.

In 1933 Klaus Mann made acquaintance with Julien Green, who was a successful French author, and engaged in the French Resistance.

In November 1934 Klaus Mann was stripped of German citizenship by the Nazi regime.

In 1936, Klaus Mann wrote his most famous novel, Mephisto, which was first published in Amsterdam.

In 1940 Klaus Mann founded another literary magazine for German writers living in exile in the United States, Decision.

Klaus Mann eventually moved to his father's house in Pacific Palisades when he was unable to support himself financially.

Klaus Mann was engaged in psychological warfare designing leaflets intended for German soldiers stationed in Italy and North Africa.

Klaus Mann died in Cannes from an overdose of sleeping pills on 21 May 1949, following further drug treatment.

Klaus Mann's death is generally reported as a suicide, linked to financial pressures, opiate addiction, and disillusionment over his treatment by the USA as a homosexual, and supposed communist, but Mann's biographer Frederic Spotts argues that the engaged author's communications and attitude preceding his sudden overdose suggest accident rather than suicide.

Klaus Mann was buried in Cannes at the Cimetiere du Grand Jas.

Klaus Mann remained active in literary circles, and his personal and spiritual connections with Andre Gide, and later examination of Gide in his work Avant la Lettre shed significant light on his time and himself.