Apart from completing the final volumes of Joseph and Doctor Faustus in the USA, Thomas Mann relentlessly continued to engage in political activities. Heinrich Mann, who barely escaped occupied Europe, lived a short distance away. Today it is home to the Thomas Mann Cultural Center.

In 1930, the Mann family acquired a summer home on the Curonian Spit in Nida with a view of the lagoon, where they spent three wonderful summer vacations. In the 1920s, Thomas Mann held numerous lectures and readings within Europe and abroad. His novel The Magic Mountain, which he set in a posh sanatorium in Davos, portrays a panorama of European society of the time, while representing his artistic view of the issues discussed in it. At the same time, he also focused on the problems of Europe as a whole.

After realizing his error, he became a fervent champion of democracy during the Weimar Republic. During World War I, he had embraced German nationalist and conservative views. For Thomas Mann the matter was more complex. In the 1920s, Thomas Mann’s eldest children, Klaus and Erika, sided with their uncle’s point of view. Early on, he had advocated for a European perspective, which culminated in his active role in Franco-German reconciliation.

His brother Heinrich Mann, for example, had opposed the war from the start. Thomas Mann and his family stood at the center of conflicting ideological, political and artistic beliefs, whereby their differing opinions became quite apparent. With the First World War and ensuing Weimar Republic their worldview grew from a national to a European one.

The magic mountain author thomas