Tag: Mann family

“Deep is the well of the past.”- excavations

“Deep is the well of the past.” Thus begins Thomas Man­n’s nov­el “Joseph and His Broth­ers”. And indeed, for the monu­ment to the Mann fam­ily and its found­a­tions, excav­a­tions are being car­ried out, archae­olo­gic­al invest­ig­a­tions are tak­ing place, and soil samples are being taken. Con­struc­tion work has been under­way again on Sal­vat­or­platz since Septem­ber 22, 2025.

The plans are based on designs by Frosch Woll­mann Architek­tur. The archae­olo­gic­al work is once again being car­ried out with great expert­ise by the archae­ology firm Neu­pert, Kozik & Simm. The con­struc­tion com­pany K&M Ramaj has been com­mis­sioned to carry out the work. The masts, lights, and signs are being pre­pared by the Munich Build­ing Department.

Archaeology: Finds at Salvatorplatz

In May 2024, dur­ing the man­dat­ory archae­olo­gic­al mon­it­or­ing of the excav­a­tion at Sal­vat­or­platz for the erec­tion of the monu­ment to the Mann fam­ily, remains of buri­als were dis­covered in the cemetery of the nearby Sal­vat­or Church and the cemetery wall. Neu­pert, Kozik & Simm Archae­ology Office was com­mis­sioned to carry out the work and recovered a child’s skel­et­on from the Baroque peri­od. The cemetery was in use until around 1800.

This was actu­ally known, and the cemetery is also des­ig­nated as an archae­olo­gic­al monu­ment, but it was assumed that no finds were to be expec­ted due to the numer­ous con­struc­tion meas­ures on the square after 1945 and an air-raid shel­ter under the square. How­ever, dur­ing an inspec­tion of the base­ment beneath the Sal­vat­or­gar­age, it was dis­covered that it is loc­ated entirely beneath the build­ing, with only a nar­row pas­sage­way beneath the square.

Excav­at­ing the entire site down to the planned found­a­tion depth of up to 1.90 m in some places and hav­ing it archae­olo­gic­ally examined would have been very costly and time-con­sum­ing, so it was neces­sary to halt con­struc­tion and then dis­mantle the build­ing until the situ­ation had been clarified.

The finds, espe­cially at the start of con­struc­tion, were a hard blow and left me in con­flict: on the one hand, I am inter­ested in his­tory and archae­ology myself; view­ing, col­lect­ing, and doc­u­ment­ing finds are part of my artist­ic prac­tice. And the excav­a­tions also attrac­ted the interest of pass­ers-by and employ­ees of the Lit­er­at­urhaus. For a short time, Sal­vat­or­platz was trans­formed into an excav­a­tion site where the remains of past lives and former city dwell­ers became visible—an excit­ing pro­cess in itself. And it seems fit­ting that the Mann fam­ily should have a memori­al here, where traces of oth­er fam­il­ies’ lives are also vis­ible. On the oth­er hand, the finds pre­ven­ted the long-awaited com­ple­tion of the memori­al pro­ject, which has been drag­ging on for sev­er­al years.

The excav­a­tions set in motion a series of renewed coordin­a­tion pro­cesses with the monu­ment pro­tec­tion author­it­ies, includ­ing the Bav­ari­an State Office for Monu­ment Pre­ser­va­tion, where the pro­ject at Sal­vat­or­platz seemed to be called into ques­tion at times, not with regard to the archae­olo­gic­al monu­ment, but in prin­ciple; depart­ments that had appar­ently not been involved before got involved, the State Monu­ment Council—a body I had nev­er heard of before—was asked for its opin­ion and referred the mat­ter back to the monu­ment pre­ser­va­tion author­it­ies, who asked me to sub­mit a new pro­ject descrip­tion with visu­al­iz­a­tions that would more clearly show the effect on the “Munich after 1945” ensemble…

So the cent­ral loc­a­tion in the old town has its pit­falls. Nev­er­the­less, the loc­a­tion remains ideal for the monu­ment in terms of con­tent, in the imme­di­ate vicin­ity of the Lit­er­at­urhaus, with its con­nec­tion to lit­er­at­ure and in par­tic­u­lar its “pat­ron saint” Thomas Mann. I had also designed the monu­ment spe­cific­ally for this square, as a gath­er­ing of the signs scattered through­out the city in a cent­ral loc­a­tion, with the tower­ing, light-giv­ing luminar­ies.
At the begin­ning of 2025, the monu­ment pro­tec­tion author­it­ies signaled their fun­da­ment­al agree­ment with the monu­ment, which mani­fes­ted itself in a per­mit for fur­ther (archae­olo­gic­al) excav­a­tions. Now, in accord­ance with the recom­mend­a­tion, the found­a­tions for the lights must be planned to be flat­ter, and tech­nic­al solu­tions must be found for the changed start­ing pos­i­tion. The plan­ning is now con­tinu­ing! Frosch Archi­tects have been on board since May 2025.

I hope that the monu­ment pro­ject will be com­pleted, if not in the Zauber­berg year 2024, then in the Thomas Mann year 2025!

Weighty information – additional signs for the Mann family

In addi­tion to the street signs with the names of the Mann-familiy from Munich, boards have been com­pleted that provide inform­a­tion about the mem­bers of the fam­ily and are placed below the signs.
Addi­tion­al inform­a­tion is there­fore an integ­ral part of the monu­ment.
The texts were cre­ated in col­lab­or­a­tion with the Cul­tur­al Depart­ment of the City of Munich, Pub­lic His­tory Depart­ment. They provide brief bio­graph­ies of Thomas, Katia, Klaus, Erika, Golo Mann and Elisa­beth Mann. The Munich build­ing depart­ment took over the tech­nic­al imple­ment­a­tion. Until now, these signs were only avail­able for Thomas, Klaus and Erika Mann. In this respect, it made sense to me to provide all Munich street names with such signs and to add ones for Katia, Golo and Elisa­beth Mann.
The signs are made of enamelled met­al and are there­fore quite heavy com­pared to their size (15 x 45 cm). Reas­on to place the signs on a bath­room scale – and test the weight of the names and information.

Decision on monument

On 10.4.2019, the plen­ary assembly of the Munich City Coun­cil decided to real­ize the design of Albert Coers. Coers’ concept, which has won an invited art com­pet­i­tion of the cul­tur­al depart­ment, bears the title „Straßen Namen Leucht­en“ [Streets names lights]. 

Pre­vi­ously, on 28 March 2019, the City Coun­cil’s Cul­ture Com­mit­tee had unan­im­ously decided to fol­low the jury’s pro­pos­al and award the con­tract for a „Memori­al to the Mann Fam­ily“ at Sal­vat­or­platz to the artist, who lives in Ber­lin and Munich . 

See art­icles, e.g. at Süd­deutsche Zei­tung
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/salvatorplatz-ein-denkmal-fuer-die-familie-mann‑1.4387565

Concept

  • Design, Albert Coers, 2018
  • Visu­al­isa­tion, 2024, Flori­an Froese-Peek

The monu­ment will be inaug­ur­ated on Decem­ber 9, 2025, at 6 p.m. at Sal­vat­or­platz in Munich.

The monu­ment to the Mann fam­ily con­sists of an assembly of street signs named after mem­bers of the Mann fam­ily as well as street­lamps from those streets. The signs and lamps come from Munich, where Mann spent a major­ity of his life, but also from oth­er cit­ies and places related to the Mann fam­ily world­wide.
The real­iz­a­tion of the monu­ment is planned for Septem­ber-Decem­ber 2025. Archae­olo­gic­al finds at Sal­vat­or­platz in 2024 made it neces­sary to redesign the found­a­tions of the lights.

The inter­na­tion­al­ity of the fam­ily is reflec­ted in the signs and lights – begin­ning in Munich and radi­at­ing out to oth­er cit­ies in Europe, the USA, and South Amer­ica – as well as the family’s world­wide lit­er­ary pres­ence and sig­ni­fic­ance. This is also evid­ent from the dif­fer­ent street names (Via, Rue, Rua). The arrange­ment is based on the topo­graph­ic­al pos­i­tion of the indi­vidu­al cit­ies in rela­tion to one anoth­er and forms an ima­gin­ary map. The monu­ment addresses the com­mit­ment to a spe­cif­ic place but also aspects of emig­ra­tion, mobil­ity and fre­quent change of place as well as transna­tion­al cos­mo­pol­it­an­ism, for which the fam­ily can be regarded as a fore­run­ner and example. 

The point of depar­ture is Munich, the cen­ter of the family’s life for many years, where there are sev­er­al streets and squares named after mem­bers of the fam­ily: Thomas Mann but also Erika, Klaus, Elisa­beth and Golo. Some of these streets are loc­ated in less-fre­quen­ted neigh­bor­hoods, new hous­ing estates or on the peri­phery and thus have little pres­ence in the col­lect­ive memory. These street signs, togeth­er with the street­lamps to which they are attached, are brought to the cen­ter of the city and assembled as a group at the Sal­vat­or­platz (Sal­vat­or Square), where they are more vis­ible and come into con­tact with one anoth­er in a kind of “fam­ily reunion.” At the same time, they refer back to their ori­gin­al loc­a­tions so that the monu­ment as a whole emphas­izes its con­nec­tion to urb­an structures.

Names

A new sign will be cre­ated for Katia Mann, for whom no street has yet been named. This will make “Mrs. Thomas Mann” more vis­ible in rela­tion to the city in which she was born and whose fam­ily – the  Jew­ish Pring­sheim fam­ily – like the Manns, lost their prop­erty and had to emig­rate. Giv­ing her a street name in the monu­ment anti­cip­ates what would oth­er­wise be a lengthy pro­cess. This mix­ture of real­ity and fic­tion ref­er­ences lit­er­ary pro­ced­ures prac­ticed by Thomas and Klaus Mann. 

Lights

Circa fif­teen street signs and street­lights are planned. In addi­tion to those from Munich, oth­ers will demon­strate the span between Europe and North and South Amer­ica and will estab­lish con­nec­tions. One street sign comes from Par­is. Anoth­er from the city of Lübeck, the birth­place of Thomas Mann as well as the set­ting for Bud­den­brooks. A street­lamp and sign from Klaus-Mann-Platz in Frank­furt (the loc­a­tion of a monu­ment to per­se­cuted homo­sexu­als) serves as a ref­er­ence to an aspect of the iden­tity of sev­er­al fam­ily mem­bers. Rome is present as the res­id­ence of Thomas (and Hein­rich) Mann at a young age. The South Amer­ic­an link (Thomas Mann’s moth­er Julia came from Brazil) is rep­res­en­ted by a street­lamp and sign from São Paulo. One lamp will come from Nida, Lithuania, the pre­ferred sum­mer retreat of the Mann fam­ily. A lamp from San­ary-Sur-Mer on the Côte d’Azur, the first place the fam­ily emig­rated to in the 1930s, rep­res­ents the fam­ily as a whole. Two street­lamps come from the United States: one from New York, near the former Hotel Bed­ford, where mem­bers of the Mann fam­ily stayed, most fre­quently Erika and Klaus. Anoth­er from San Remo Drive in Los Angeles refers to the villa Thomas Mann built there in 1942, in which he lived until his return to Europe. A street­lamp from Kilch­berg near Zurich estab­lishes a link to the res­id­ence of Thomas and Katia as well as Erika (for whom a street in Zurich is named) and finally Golo.

Research trips to the respect­ive loc­a­tions are part of the pro­ject, as is a book pub­lic­a­tion that doc­u­ments, con­veys and sup­ple­ments the back­ground and devel­op­ment of the monu­ment, includ­ing the cur­rent situ­ations of the street signs and street­lights on site.

Competition

On April 10, 2019, Munich’s City Coun­cil voted to real­ize artist Albert Coers’ design for a monu­ment in hon­or of the Mann fam­ily at the Sal­vat­or­platz (Sal­vat­or Square) in Munich. Coers’concept, entitled Streets Names Lights, was selec­ted by an expert jury with­in the frame­work of a com­pet­i­tion for Art in Pub­lic Space organ­ized by Munich’s Cul­tur­al Depart­ment. Coers was one of eight inter­na­tion­al artists invited to sub­mit a pro­pos­al (Clegg & Guttmann, Albert Coers, Annika Kahrs, Michaela Meise, Michaela Melián, Olaf Nic­olai, Timm Ulrichs, Paloma Varga Weisz).
The real­iz­a­tion of the monu­ment is planned for fall 2025.

The erec­tion of a memori­al to Thomas Mann was first ini­ti­ated by the City Coun­cil in 2015: “The Munich cit­izen and import­ant author Thomas Mann deserves a vis­ible place of hon­or in the city which he made the cen­ter of his life. He lived here for a very long time, mar­ried here, built a house. He wanted to stay here.” 

Since then, the scope of the memori­al has expan­ded to include his fam­ily: “In addi­tion to Thomas Mann’s his­tor­ic­al sig­ni­fic­ance for Munich, it has become clear that the them­at­ic focus must not be lim­ited to Thomas Mann alone. An artist­ic appre­ci­ation of the Nobel Prize win­ner without regard to his fam­ily con­text would be an exclu­sion of many inter­est­ing facets. For a broad­er, per­man­ent artist­ic upgrad­ing of pub­lic space, the lit­er­ary sig­ni­fic­ance of the entire Mann fam­ily must now be taken into account.” (com­pet­i­tion brief)

Monika, Michael, Golo, Katia, Thomas, Elisa­beth, Erika, Klaus Mann, 1927, Mon­acensia Archive 


Loc­a­tion

The site for the monu­ment, Sal­vat­or­platz, is situ­ated in the imme­di­ate vicin­ity of the Lit­er­at­urhaus (Lit­er­at­ure House), one of Munich’s cent­ral addresses for lit­er­at­ure and lit­er­ary exchange. The square is loc­ated in the old town between the Lit­er­at­urhaus, the Sal­vat­or­gar­a­gen (a land­marked park­ing gar­age from the 1960s) and the Sal­vat­orkirche (Sal­vat­or Church) to the southeast. 

The Manns and Munich

The idea of erect­ing a monu­ment to Thomas Mann and his fam­ily at a cent­ral loc­a­tion in Munich has its roots in the import­ance of the city for the fam­ily – includ­ing the family’s ambi­val­ent rela­tion­ship to it – as well as the fact that the fam­ily has not yet had the pres­ence it deserves in the vis­ible cul­ture of memory.

Born in Lübeck in 1875, Thomas Mann came to Munich as a young man in 1894 and lived here for over 30 years. Here he met his wife Katia Pring­sheim and here is where their chil­dren – Erika, Klaus, Golo, Monika, Elisa­beth and Michael – were born. Most of Mann’s lit­er­ary works were writ­ten here.

After the Nation­al Social­ists seized power in 1933, the Mann fam­ily was forced to emig­rate and lived in exile for almost twenty years – first in Europe, then in the USA. The family’s villa in Munich’s Poschin­gen­straße was con­fis­cated and Thomas Mann expropriated.

In 1952, Mann finally returned to Europe, to Switzer­land – a return to Munich was com­pletely out of the ques­tion for him. Already in decay, his former res­id­ence was torn down by the City of Munich with his per­son­al con­sent. Thomas Mann’s estate was bequeathed to the ETH (Swiss Fed­er­al Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy) in Zurich. The extens­ive lit­er­ary her­it­age of his chil­dren Klaus, Erika, Michael, Monika and Elisa­beth Mann is archived in the Hildebrand­haus of the Mon­acensia (lit­er­ary archives and research lib­rary) in Munich’s Bogen­hausen neighborhood.