Heinrich Detering, Fellow at Thomas Mann House, tells the story of Thomas Mann's relationship to the Unitarian Church in Los Angeles. The Unitarian Service Committee had helped, both, his brother Heinrich and son Golo to flee Europe. During his years in exile, Thomas Mann was active in the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles feeling obliged to its humanistic and democratic views. "I rarely, if ever, felt such a vivid and militant interest in a religious group", Thomas Mann wrote in 1951.

Prof. Dr. Heinrich Detering is a German literary scholar, lyricist and translator. He is head of the Thomas Mann Working Group and co-editor of the annotated Frankfurter edition of Mann's writings, letters and diaries. Detering was the president of the Deutschen Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung from 2011 to 2017. His book “Thomas Mann's American Religion. Theology, Politics and Literature in the Californian Exile (Thomas Manns amerikanische Religion. Theologie, Politik und Literatur im kalifornischen Exil.)” was publishd by Fischer Verlag.