Mann's essay on
Émile Zola and the novel
Der Untertan (published over the years 1912–1918) earned him much respect during the
Weimar Republic in left-wing circles, since they demonstrated the author's antiwar and defeatist stance during World War I, while the latter satirized Imperial German society; both the novel and the essay became a major impulse for
Thomas Mann to write
Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man, a work supporting the efforts of the German Empire in the war and condemning Heinrich as one of "Civilisation's Literary Men" (
Zivilisationsliteraten), the writers who served the West in its struggle against German culture; later Thomas called the novel an example of "national slander" and "ruthless aestheticism", yet the novel had admirers such as
Kurt Tucholsky. During the revolution, Heinrich became a major supporter of
Kurt Eisner, a social democrat revolutionary who
proclaimed Bavaria a Socialist republic; after Eisner's assassination by a far-right activist, Mann spoke at Eisner's funeral. Later, in 1930, his book
Professor Unrat was freely adapted into the movie
Der Blaue Engel (
The Blue Angel).
Carl Zuckmayer wrote the script, and
Josef von Sternberg was the director. Mann wanted his paramour, the actress
Trude Hesterberg, to play the main female part as the "actress" Lola Lola (named Rosa Fröhlich in the novel), but
Marlene Dietrich was given the part, her first sound role. The film helped her achieve her breakthrough, including in Hollywood, and became an icon movie in film history. Together with
Albert Einstein and other celebrities during 1932, Mann was a signatory to the "
Urgent Call for Unity", asking voters to reject the Nazis. Einstein and Mann had previously co-authored a letter during 1931 condemning the murder of
Croatian scholar
Milan Šufflay. Mann became
persona non grata in
Nazi Germany and left before the
Reichstag fire of 1933. He went to France where he lived in
Paris and
Nice. During the German occupation of France, he made his way to
Marseille, from where
Varian Fry helped him escape to Spain in September 1940. Assisted by
Justus Rosenberg, Mann and his wife Nelly Kröger, nephew
Golo Mann, and friends
Alma Mahler-Werfel and
Franz Werfel hiked for six hours, finally crossing the border at
Port Bou. After arriving in Portugal, the group stayed in
Monte Estoril at the Grande Hotel D'Itália between September 18 and October 4, 1940. On October 4, 1940, they boarded the
S.S. Nea Hellas, headed for New York City. , 1902 He then lived poor and sickly in
Los Angeles, supported by his brother Thomas, who lived in
Pacific Palisades (
Thomas Mann House). The relationship between the two brothers was always difficult, because Thomas was more successful, had received the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature and had a rich wife, and the brothers differed politically. Heinrich styled himself as a socialist revolutionary; Thomas, perhaps precisely because of this, at least in his younger years, adopted a conservative image. They also had little appreciation for each other's very different writing styles and topics. While Heinrich was considered a womanizer and philanderer who preferred lower-class women, Thomas valued respectability and looked down on his brother's constant string of mistresses and prostitutes whom Heinrich described quite openly in some of his novels and short stories. Thomas instead was
fascinated by young men. For example, in 1911, Heinrich had accompanied his brother and sister-in-law to Venice, where they stayed at the
Grand Hôtel des Bains on the
Venice Lido. There he witnessed Thomas' obsession with a handsome Polish boy,
Władysław (Władzio) Moes. Thomas processed his experience in the novella
Death in Venice (1912). The Nazis burnt Heinrich Mann's books as "contrary to the German spirit" during
the infamous book burning of May 10, 1933, which was instigated by the then-Nazi propaganda minister
Joseph Goebbels. ==Later life==