News archive 2012 to 2019

On 27 November, the third Thomas Mann Lecture at ETH Zurich was held. The lecture focussed on the visual media that Thomas Mann used very early and consciously for his public self-portrayal as an author.

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In cooperation with the Thomas Mann Archive and the German Literature Archive Marbach, the exhibition "external pageThomas Mann in Amerikacall_made" will take place at Zurich's Strauhof from 24 October 2019 to 19 January 2020.

DownloadEvent Flyer (PDF, 126 KB)vertical_align_bottom(German only)

Digitized manuscripts, typescripts, notes, drafts, working materials and letters of the Nobel laureate in Literature are being made accessible to the public in stages. New items now accessible online include the documents available in the archives on the creation of Thomas Mann’s “Königliche Hoheit” (‘Royal Highness’) novel, the early stories, the essays from the years 1914 to 1926 and the letters from the period from 1914 to 1923.

An overview of all documents accessible online can be found on the website of the Thomas Mann Archives.

More of these personal papers will be made available online gradually over the coming years. Up to now, it was only possible for users to research the metadata for these documents. For legal reasons, it was only possible to view the digitized originals in the reading room of the Thomas Mann Archives.

The online offering has been developed by the Thomas Mann Archives in agreement and collaboration with the heirs and their spokesperson Prof. Dr. Frido Mann as well as with external pageS.Fischer Verlagcall_made, which has been publishing the works of Thomas Mann since 1897. See also the current article at external pagehttps://www.hundertvierzehn.de/call_made.

ETH Zurich's Thomas Mann Archives safeguard and maintain Thomas Mann's literary legacy, which they have been mediating for academic research and the interested public since they were founded in 1956. Additions are constantly made to the holdings.

From 28 April to 3 November 2019, an original Thomas Mann fountain pen, including a marble holder and inkwell, will be on display in the exhibition "Wortkünstler. Weltbürger. Weggenosse. Hermann Hesse & Thomas Mann" at the Hermann Hesse Museum in Calw.
external pageInformation about the exhibitioncall_made

With the Annual Report 2018, the Thomas Mann Archive presents a review of the events of the past year as well as facts and figures.

DownloadTo the Annual Report 2018 (PDF, 4.2 MB)vertical_align_bottom (German only)

As part of the exhibition "Through walls and layers. Cross Sections in Art and Science" the agate slice Thomas Mann used on his desk can be seen. The exhibition at ETH Zurich’s Collection of Prints and Drawings runs from 2 May to 30 June 2019:

There will be two special events related to Thomas Mann:

• "The Agate Disk by Thomas Mann" Art on Monday noon, 27 May 12:30-13:00
• "In Focus-The Cut as a Universal Principle of Images Tuesday, June 18 18:30-19:30

Talk at the “Prix Nobel: un esprit européen” congress

The Head of the Thomas Mann Archives, Dr Katrin Bedenig, gave a presentation at an international congress on “external pagePrix Nobel: un esprit européencall_made” in Mulhouse (France) on 20 June. The title of her talk was “Thomas Mann as Nobel Prize Winner and his Way to European Thought”, in which she examined the story of Thomas Mann as a Nobel Prize winner in the political climate of the interwar period, the Second World War and the Cold War, as well as his reflections on a modern, open Europe. The talk is set to be published in a conference volume.

At the end of March 2019, the project to index and digitise the marginalia in Thomas Mann’s personal library was completed.

The project’s goals were to digitise all books with marginalia, index the treasures they contain and enable them to be searched via a search interface. The project examined around 2,600 copies – approximately 60% of the author’s entire library – which contain handwritten notes, markings and underlining, dedications or owner’s marks. Thanks to a user interface which had been honed especially for the project, the digitised marginalia are now accessible to the public. For legal reasons, the new service is currently only available in the Thomas Mann Archives reading room.

The three-​year project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation was realised as a collaboration between the Thomas Mann Archives, IT Services and ETH Library’s DigiCenter, as well as the Chair of Literary and Cultural Studies at ETH Zurich.

Building HCP/G level
Room no. 21.1–24.2
Leopold-Ruzicka-Weg 4
8093 Zurich

After three years in the making, the project “Thomas Mann Nachlassbibliothek” will draw to a close at the end of March. All the books with notes from Thomas Mann’s personal library have now been digitised and the handwritten annotations that they contain individually recorded. Around 80 guests celebrated this milestone in the Semper Aula at ETH Zurich on 14 March 2019. Dr. Dr. habil. Stefan Mann, a great-grandson of the author, gave a refreshing speech at the event about the opportunities of digitisation.

From April 2019, the digitised books will be accessible to the public in a new search tool in the Thomas Mann Archives reading room.

On Thursday and Friday, 29 and 30 November 2018, representatives from five institutions have met at the invitation of the Thomas Mann Archives (Lübeck: Buddenbrookhaus, Munich: Monacensia in the Hildebrandhaus, Nidden/Lithuania: Thomas Mann Cultural Centre, Pacific Palisades/USA: Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e.V., Zurich/Switzerland: Thomas Mann Archive of ETH Zurich). They all are preserving Thomas Mann's work or his intellectual heritage at various stages of his life.

DownloadMedia Release [German] (PDF, 170 KB)vertical_align_bottom

The second Thomas Mann Lecture will take place on 21 November 2018 at 18:00.

Professor Stanley A. Corngold, Princeton University, will speak on "Thomas Mann im Lichte unserer Erfahrung. Zum amerikanischen Exil."

Review of the second Thomas Mann Lecture

From 24 August to 9 September 2018, the exhibition "Die Manns und das Meer" in the external pageFreya-Frahm-Hauscall_made in Laboe showed 19 photographs of the Thomas Mann Archive. The exhibition was curated by Uwe Naumann.

Thomas-​Mann-Archiv Online now offers access to digitised original documents such as manuscripts, typescripts, notes, drafts, work materials and letters by the Nobel Prize Winner for Literature. In an initial step, extensive documents on the origins of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks and the four-​volume novel Joseph and His Brothers can be accessed, along with his notebooks, essays from 1893 to 1914, and letters from the period 1889 to 1913. Over the next few years, additional sections of his literary legacy will be included successively.

Read the background to this in the external pageinterviewcall_made with Katrin Bedenig (Head of the Thomas Mann Archives) and Roland Spahr (Editor at S. Fischer Verlag) in the online magazine S. Fischer Hundertvierzehn.

The Executive Board of ETH Zurich has decided to move the Thomas Mann Archives to the main building at Rämistrasse 101 at the turn of the year 2020/2021.

The exhibition of Thomas Mann's study and other multi-​purpose exhibition rooms will be located on the E-​floor of the main building. Together with the Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich, these additional exhibition spaces in the east wing will form a new central point of attraction for the public interested in culture and science.

The Thomas Mann Archives are currently temporarily housed in an ETH building on Hönggerberg. The institution is an archive, research centre and exhibition all rolled into one. Specialists and the interested public can access it free of charge.

Three extraordinary manuscripts were acquired at the Zurich Antiquarian Book Fair: three original letters from Thomas Mann to the publishing house S. Fischer Verlag containing corrections for the novel "Doctor Faustus" (published in 1947).

Further information to the manuscript

The Egyptian statuette -– a forgery?

Read more on ETHeritage

How Thomas Mann's private library becomes a research database

Tour by the Thomas Mann Archives

The new network titled "Thomas Mann International. Das Netzwerk der Mann-​Häuser" was commonly founded on Thursday, 21 December 2017.

At a symposium in Lübeck, five institutions from four countries, reflecting the essential life stations of the writer and Nobel laureate, joined forces to form the common Thomas Mann network:

• Buddenbrookhaus / Heinrich and Thomas Mann Center, Lübeck, Germany
• Monacensia in the Hildebrandhaus, Munich, Germany
• Thomas Mann Archives of ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
• Thomo Manno kultūros centras / Thomas Mann Cultural Center, Nida, Lithuania and
• Thomas Mann House, Pacific Palisades, USA, Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e.V.

The transnational association of these institutions is a novelty.

In the future, the institutions want to jointly promote cooperation in various event formats as well as in the fields of science and exhibition. They will contribute their respective expertise as archives, libraries, museums, cultural centres, residences and places of remembrance.

ETH Zurich's Thomas Mann Archives welcome the joint initiative and look forward to participating in the network.

Brochure "Netzwerk der Mann-​Häuser" in German (PDF, 3.1 MB)

Opening talk

Prof. Russell A. Berman, Stanford University

Starting from the dichotomy of artist/citizen, the talk tackles the questions as to how much civil society has to do with culture, how freedom of art affects political freedom and what threats freedom faces today. The lecture forges an arc through the complete works of Thomas Mann and focuses on Thomas Mann in the current context as an author of freedom in unfree times.

The Thomas Mann Archives are rendering around 2,000 copyright-free images publicly accessible via the platform E-Pics. The main subjects include portraits of Thomas Mann and members of the Mann-Pringsheim family, family scenes and holidays, e.g. in Nidden. Moreover, public appearances such as lecture tours to Eastern Europe or New York and also the period of exile in Switzerland and in the USA are documented.

The photographs span a period from the mid-19^th century to the 1950s. Some of them were previously unpublished, such as shots of the siblings and the (female) relatives of Katia Mann or photograph albums.   

The roughly 2,000 copyright-free photographs can be used freely (provided the image credits are indicated correctly) and can be downloaded in high resolution. Images that are still under copyright can be searched for and viewed in the Thomas Mann Archives reading room. The legal situation permitting, the Thomas Mann Archives gradually renders them publicly accessible in the E-Pics Thomas Mann Archives catalogue.

E-Pics is ETH Zurich’s platform for images, photographs and illustrations.  

Die öffentliche Abendveranstaltung vom Dienstag, 11. Juli von 18.15 bis 19.15 Uhr, gibt Einblick in Thomas Manns Arbeitsweise bei der Joseph-Tetralogie anhand ausgewählter Beispiele aus der Bild- und Materialiensammlung des Autors.

Treffpunkt: Thomas-Mann-Archiv, ETH Zürich Hönggerberg, Gebäude HCP, Eingang G, Leopold-Ruzicka-Weg 4. Keine Anmeldung erforderlich.

The relationship between academia and Wikipedia is ambivalent and not without its sceptics. On the International Archives Day (9 June 2017), a panel will discuss which contributions archives can make in this controversial area with representatives of research, Wikimedia/Wikipedia and archives.

Afterwards, there will be an evening external pageWikipedia edit-a-thoncall_made, which will continue on 10 June. It offers an ideal opportunity to write or enhance articles with the help of experienced Wikipedians and thus contribute your own specialist knowledge to Wikipedia.

The Thomas Mann Archives provide theme proposals and materials for the writing workshop. Interested parties are welcome! We look forward to your participation!

Further information is available on the ETH Zurich's website Swiss Archives Day 2017.

The director of the Stefan Zweig Center Salzburg, Klemens Renoldner, welcomes Katrin Bedenig and Franz Zeder to talk about the correspondence between Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig.

Thursday, 18 May 2017, 19.30

external pageEvent in the Europasaalcall_made

The Literaturhaus München will conduct a external pagepanel discussion with a readingcall_made on the edition of the correspondence between Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig, edited by the Thomas Mann Archives.

The Literaturmuseum external pageStrauhofcall_made shows in an exhibition on the authors' writing habits, also originals from the Thomas Mann Archive.

DownloadExhibition flyer (German) (PDF, 1.2 MB)vertical_align_bottom

Zürichsee-Zeitung: external pageWo sich der Duft von Zigarren und Büchern vermischtecall_made
DownloadDownload (PDF, 568 KB)vertical_align_bottom

Director Thomas Gull presents the short film "Deutschland Adieu!" about the first days of Thomas Mann's exile in Arosa 1933.

The film shows, among other things, original documents from the Thomas Mann Archives, interviewed the exile expert Prof. Dr. Ursula Amrein to literary and historical context and gives an insight into previously unknown historical film footage. Following the film presentation, Thomas Gull will present a discussion about Thomas Mann's exile beginning in Switzerland with Ursula Amrein and Katrin Bedenig.

The event will be in German.

Friday, 31 March 2017, 18.00
Location: external pageMain building of ETH Zurichcall_made, room E 22
Organizer: Thomas Mann Society Zurich

DownloadBackground report by Thomas Gull in German (PDF, 737 KB)vertical_align_bottom

Katrin Bedenig from the Thomas Mann Archives presents in context to the exhibition "Schreibrausch" in the external pageStrauhofcall_made Thomas Mann's working methods .

Thursday, 2 March 2017, 18.00

For the edition of the correspondence between Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig in the Thomas Mann series, published by the Thomas Mann Archives, a review by Arnaldo Benini was published in the NZZ on Sunday, 29 January 2017.

DownloadNZZ- Article (German) (PDF, 140 KB)vertical_align_bottom

Thursday, 1 September
9.15 to 15.30  

ETH Zurich, external pagemain buildingcall_made,
Further information (in German)

The Thomas Mann Archive has been on modern temporary premises on the Hönggerberg campus since 11 July. The reading room and Thomas Mann's last study can be visited with extended opening times.

To coincide with the move, we have also modernised our website, where we present the latest news on our activities in a new design. 

Once the building has been fully renovated, the University of Zurich will find a new purpose for the Bodmer-Haus, where the Thomas Mann Archive was housed from 1961. The Thomas Mann Archive is scheduled to move to a new, permanent site in ETH Zurich's main building in the medium term.