Ein tadelloses Glück - Der junge Thomas Mann und der Preis des Erfolgs

Panel discussion for the book premiere

The literary event on the 150th birthday of Thomas Mann. Heinrich Breloer in conversation with Knut Elstermann.

Heinrich Breloer and Knut Elstermann

Heinrich Breloer has shaped our image of Thomas Mann like no other with his TV multi-part series "The Manns". Marcel Reich-Ranicki described the films as a "masterpiece" and the "pinnacle of German cinematic art".

In "Ein tadelloses Glück" (DVA), Heinrich Breloer now tells the eventful story from the years before the start of the First World War: of Thomas Mann as a young writer who has achieved his first success with "Buddenbrooks", but not yet the social standing he dreams of. He is painfully aware that this would require marriage and that his longing for the sight of male beauty must remain a secret. It is only when Thomas Mann meets Katia, the daughter of the upper middle-class Jewish Pringsheim family, that he realizes: it's her or no one! Only with her, he senses, can he succeed in his ascent.

Heinrich Breloer depicts the interwoven fates of Thomas Mann and Katia Pringsheim with great narrative verve and supported by facts. He draws on decades of research and interviews with members of the Mann family and those around them, allowing us to see the most famous German family of the 20th century with completely new eyes.

At the book premiere at the Urania, journalist and presenter Knut Elstermann (radioeins) talks to Heinrich Breloer about the early years of an ambitious young writer.