Thomas Mann (Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century)

Early Life

Thomas Mann was born in Lübeck, Germany (later West Germany), an important city since the days of the Hanseatic League, on June 6, 1875. His father, Johann Heinrich Mann, was an apparently prosperous grain merchant, who operated a family business dating back to the eighteenth century. His mother, Julia da Silva-Bruhns, was from Rio de Janeiro, a half Portuguese Creole. Johann Heinrich Mann was a senator and twice was mayor of Lübeck, while Frau Mann was romantic, temperamental, and musically gifted. He would serve as the prototype for the phlegmatic,...

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