Viktor Mann

Carl Viktor Mann , called Viktor Mann (born April 12, 1890 in Lübeck ; † April 21, 1949 in Munich ), was the younger brother of the writers Heinrich (1871–1950) and Thomas Mann (1875–1955). He wrote the autobiography We Were Five , with which he made a significant contribution to the history of the Mann family .

Life

Viktor Mann was the fifth and last-born child of the Lübeck merchant and senator Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann (1840-1891) and his wife Julia da Silva-Bruhns (1851-1923). In addition to his brothers Heinrich and Thomas, he had the sisters Julia (1877-1927) and Carla (1881-1910).

He spent most of his childhood in Munich , where the family moved after his father's death in 1893. Because of the wealth they left behind, they continued to belong to the upper class. There he attended the Max-Gymnasium, but in 1903 he moved to Augsburg with his mother before graduating . After graduating from the secondary school there, he worked for two years as a trainee in agriculture and served as a one-year volunteer in the Bavarian army in 1909/10 . He then studied agriculture in Freising and did internships in the bank of his brother-in-law Josef Löhr, his sister Julia's husband, during the semester break. In the meantime, he had abandoned the goal of later running an estate and was working towards a job as an expert for agricultural loans. In 1914, after graduating, he married Magdalena Kilian (1895–1962), known as Nelly, whom he had met only a few months earlier at a ball held by his student union , the Corps Agronomia Munich . The marriage remained childless.

At the beginning of the First World War , Mann joined the 9th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment , was promoted to Lieutenant in the Reserve in 1915 and was awarded the Lübeck Hanseatic Cross on February 7, 1917 . Due to a rheumatism , however, he was unfit for the front and performed garrison service in Landsberg am Lech .

After the war he worked in the field at the State Office for Dairy Industry, but soon after switched to the Bayerische Handelsbank as an expert . He stayed in Germany during the National Socialist era . He gave up his job as an expert in 1939 in favor of a job as an agricultural advisor for the Wehrmacht . In 1945 he returned to the Bayerische Handelsbank . The year before his death he wrote the family biography We Were Five. Portrait of the Mann family , in which he justified his work for the Wehrmacht by saying that “it was necessary that I was not noticed in any way. So I had to do a good job for the evil that tragically coincided with the defense of the fatherland, and to maintain extreme caution in my dealings with. "

Thomas Mann often described being with his brother, whom he called both "Vicco" and "Vikko", as "annoying" and the sister-in-law as "too ordinary", "terrible" and "terribly dreary". Occasionally, however, he attested his brother "touching letters" or a "droll" interest in literature. In a family play about the five siblings, he judged, the youngest child could make the "funny figure". At another point it is said that the sexual played a tragic role in the lives of all siblings, only Viktor seemed to have been "simple". In a letter to Viktor's widow Nelly dated November 14, 1949, Thomas Mann praised the work of his deceased brother - perhaps owing to a little courtesy - unreservedly and in detail: "[...] because how sad it is that Viko the effect of his work, one in no longer young days fresh and involuntarily sprung masterpiece, was no longer allowed to experience [...] At least I am entertained in the freshest and am most heartily happy about the author's natural, serene and original talent for representation [...] "

Heinrich Mann, on the other hand, had rare but cordial contacts with Viktor.

Book reception

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

In his book We Were Five , Viktor Mann mainly described his own life and that of his mother, to whom he also dedicated the book. His sisters are also mentioned more often. However, he provides little information about his brothers who, according to his own statement, appeared to him as uncle as a child because of the age difference and who left Germany when Hitler came to power .

Thomas Mann rated the book in his diaries as "honest, kind and good and embarrassing, narrative, if it is his own life, often excellent [...]." And mentioned "[...] Vikko's book, which in its lies, good-natured glossing over, self and family glorification and thereby talent is a very curious case. ”Heinrich, on the other hand, says Thomas Mann in his diary, read the book of his little brother with pleasure.

In fact, Viktor Mann made only positive comments about all family members, including Thomas. Accordingly, there were no serious conflicts such as the quarrel between Heinrich and Thomas, which has been documented several times in other places, and no problems between the mother and Katia . There are also disagreements about his own life. It does not seem credible that he tried to persuade Thomas to emigrate to Switzerland in 1933, which Thomas refused at the time. The fact that Viktor was imprisoned in 1945 on suspicion of mistreating a French prisoner cannot be found in his book.

publication

• Viktor Mann: There were five of us: Portrait of the Mann family. Südverlag, Konstanz 1949. The 2011 edition corresponds to the 4th revised edition 1986. ISBN 978-3-87800-005-1 .
  • Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 2001, ISBN 3-596-12275-9 . (First edition 1976)

literature

• Michael Stübbe: The Manns. Genealogy of a German family of writers. Degener 2004, ISBN 3-7686-5189-4 .
• Barbara Hoffmeister: Mann family. A reader. Rowohlt 2001, ISBN 3-499-23197-2 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Bavarian Main State Archives IV ; Digitized copy (war log roll 14171, images 49–52) at ancestry.com, accessed on January 7, 2018
2. ↑ Lübeck city archive in matters of Senate files: Directory of the owners of the Lübeck Hanseatic Cross , signature 1093
3. ↑ Viktor Mann: We were five , p. 472.
4. ^ Thomas Mann: Diaries, entry from February 14, 1919
5. ↑ Thomas Mann: Diaries, entry from March 14, 1919
6. ↑ Thomas Mann: Diaries, entry from March 3, 1920
7. ^ Thomas Mann: Diaries, entry from March 12, 1950
8. ↑ Thomas Mann: Diaries, entry from November 10, 1949
9. ↑ Thomas Mann: Diaries, entry from December 3, 1949
10. ↑ Thomas Mann: Diaries, entry from November 13, 1949

Web links

• Short biography
• Literature by and about Viktor Mann in the catalog of the German National Library