On May 10, 1933 students at several German universities burned books by authors deemed politically suspect. Vast crowds watched enthusiastically, as the writings of Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, Lion Feuchtwanger, Aldous Huxley, Heinrich Mann, Klaus Mann, Franz Werfel and others were thrown onto bonfires. In Berlin, some 40,000 people gathered to hear Joseph Goebbels deliver a speech condemning Jewish literature and propagating „reliability and commitment to the German spirit“. The book burnings in Germany elicited worldwide protests and triggered counter-demonstrations in many American cities.

Thomas Mann’s grandson Frido Mann will mark the 86th anniversary of the book burning with a reading from the works of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Oskar Maria Graf, Bertolt Brecht, and Erich Kästner. Frido Mann was born in Monterey, California in 1940. He studied Catholic theology and psychology and worked as a clinical psychologist in Münster, Leipzig, and Prague. Today, Frido Mann resides in Munich as a freelance author. In August 2018, he published “Das Weiße Haus des Exils" (“The White House of Exile”, S. Fischer) about the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles, where he is currently staying as an Honorary Fellow.

Prof. Mann will be accompanied by violinist Alena Hove (Colbourn School).