Thomas Mann's letters online
To mark the 150th anniversary of Thomas Mann's birth, the Thomas Mann Archive at the ETH Library is launching a new online platform. It offers digital access to the writer's letters for the first time.
Thomas Mann was a prolific letter writer. His correspondence is estimated to comprise more than 20,000 letters, and even today, 70 years after his death, unknown letters continue to surface. For decades, his extensive correspondence has been an essential source of research into the life and work of the Nobel Prize winner for literature.
A special birthday present
To mark the 150th anniversary of Thomas Mann's birth in 2025, the Thomas Mann Archive at the ETH Library is making the metadata and content descriptions of around 16,000 letters available online for the first time. The new platform ‘Thomas Mann Letters’ offers extensive search and filter options and provides access to the letters in a form never seen before.
Basis
The new offering is based on the digitised and supplemented content of the five-volume book edition external page ‘Die Briefe Thomas Manns. Regesten und Register’, which was edited by Hans Bürgin and Hans-Otto Mayer in collaboration with Yvonne Schmidlin and Gert Heine and in association with the Thomas Mann Archive between 1977 and 1987. It already offered indexes and summaries of around 14,000 letters, making it a key reference work for researchers.
In cooperation with S. Fischer Verlag, the existing content of the ‘Regesten und Register’ has been transferred and integrated into the new online platform ‘Thomas Mann Briefe’. The ETH Library is responsible for editing the content and technical operation.
Future prospects
When it goes live on 6 June 2025, the platform will contain metadata from more than 16,000 letters. There are plans to continuously expand the content in cooperation with the external page Thomas Mann International network. In future, digital images of letters will also be integrated into the database.
International contact point
The external website external page Mann2025.de has been created as a central point of contact and platform for all anniversary events worldwide. It provides information on readings, exhibitions and discussion panels in German and English.