Buddenbrook House
Buddenbrook House
The Buddenbrook House at Mengstrasse 4, opposite St. Mary’s Church, has a chequered history: The house was built by Johann Michael Croll, a merchant from Marburg, in 1758 and was bought by Johann Siegmund Mann, the grandfather of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, in 1841. The Mann family owned the property until 1891. In 1893 the Hanseatic City of Lübeck took over the building and subsequently rented it out. As a result the house that literature had made famous became, amongst other things, the land registry office, a night station for lantern keepers as well as the headquarters of the Lübeck State Lottery. When the “Buddenbrook Bookshop” was opened in 1922, an event attended by Thomas Mann, the intention was to make the house at least accessible to literature.
In the night before Palm Sunday 1942 RAF bombardments destroyed more than a fifth of the historic Old Town of Lübeck. Of the Buddenbrook House only the façade and the vaulted cellar remained. In 1954 a bank purchased the destroyed property and erected a new building behind the old façade, opening a branch there in 1957.
In 1991 the Buddenbrook House, made famous by Thomas Mann’s novel, was returned to the possession of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, with the assistance of the Federal Republic of Germany and the state of Schleswig-Holstein. A modern Heinrich and Thomas Mann Centre was erected behind the original façade, to become the perfect place for an animated debate about the life and works of the two brothers. A permanent exhibition on the ground floor gives visitors insights into the relationship between these two men and between them and Lübeck, their home town. Temporary exhibitions, conferences, film and video shows, as well as readings take place on the first floor and in the vault. A research area with a library and computer centre is under construction and is intended to provide practical support for anyone interested in Heinrich and Thomas Mann.
Further information is available from: www.buddenbrookhaus.de