Klaus Mann
(November 18, 1906 - May 22, 1949) Germany
Writer and critic
Born in München, he is the eldest son of the writer Thomas Mann and brother of the writer and actress Erika Mann. Early on he decided that he wanted to be famous and started to write novellas and poems. In 1925 he went to Berlin as a theatre critic and was noted for the experimental theatre he was involved with.
In the spring 1933 he emigrated to Paris. In 1936 he moved to New York. For most of his life, Klaus was quite open about his homosexuality and never seems to have suffered pangs of guilt about it. Klaus' open homosexuality led to some conflict with his father, who chose to express his homosexual desires in a very different manner.
Klaus went into the closet in order to enlist in the US Army in 1943. He then took part in campaigns in North Africa and Italy during WWII. In 1945 he visited Austria and Germany as a reporter for the army newspaper Star and Stripes. He attempted suicide in July 1948 and succeeded a year later after taking an overdose of sleeping tablets, dying in Cannes, France.
His work include:
- Der fromme Tanz (1926)
- Rundherum (1929)
- Die Sammlung (1933)
- Flucht in den Norden (1934)
- Symphonie pathétique (1935)
- Mephisto (1936)
- Der Vulkan (1939)
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