Thomas Mann’s Los Angeles: Stories from Exile 1940–1952

Thomas Mann’s Los Angeles is an illustrated book that explores Nobel-prizewinning author Thomas Mann life during his exile in Los Angeles.

After fleeing Nazi Germany, writer and Nobel Prizewinner Thomas Mann found refuge for himself and his family in the Pacific Palisades, a quiet residential neighborhood in Los Angeles between Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean. Mann was one of many European intellectuals who fled to Los Angeles, forming a community known as the “Weimar on the Pacific.” Thomas Mann’s Los Angeles: Stories from Exile 1940-1952 explores Mann’s connections to the city and the network of intellectuals he found there, including writers such as Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley and musicians such as Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg. Short texts accompanied by maps, a rich selection of historic images, contemporary photographs and vivid anecdotes guide the reader through this fascinating community. Stories from both scholars and well-known writers such as the New Yorker’s Alex Ross and Lawrence Weschler produce a captivating read for fans of literature, history, and Los Angeles.

Nikolai Blaumer, born in Düsseldorf, Germany, studied at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He earned a doctorate in philosophy from LMU with a dissertation entitled »Korrektive Gerechtigkeit. Über die Entschädigung historischen Unrechts« (Campus Verlag, 2015) and taught at Ludwig Maximilian University as well as Bauhaus University in Weimar. Since 2014, Nikolai Blaumer has been working for the Goethe-Institut’s Department of Culture. He is co-editor of the book Teilen und Tauschen (S. Fischer Verlag, 2017). In February of 2018, he was posted to Los Angeles by the Goethe-Institut, where he assumed the position of program director at the Thomas Mann House.

Benno Herz worked in the online communication division at the Städel Museum Frankfurt, Germany, before coming to the Thomas Mann House. Prior to this, he studied Theater, Film and Media Studies at the Goethe University Frankfurt and completed his M.A. with a focus on new social media aesthetics and interface theory. Since 2009, he has been creatively engaged in several music and film projects as a writer and instrumentalist.