My time. Tho­mas Mann and de­mo­cra­cy — a li­te­ra­ry plea at the St. An­nen Mu­se­um

To mark Tho­mas Man­n’s 150th bir­th­day, the Bud­den­brook­haus is de­di­ca­ting an ex­tra­or­di­na­ry spe­cial ex­hi­bi­ti­on to him at the St. An­nen-Mu­se­um Lü­beck, which fo­cu­ses on the po­li­ti­cal trans­for­ma­ti­on of the fa­mous wri­ter. En­tit­led “My time. Tho­mas Mann and De­mo­cra­cy”, the ex­hi­bi­ti­on, in­spi­red by Man­n’s fa­mous speech “My Time” from 1950, traces his de­ve­lo­p­ment from a con­ser­va­ti­ve who was loy­al to the rich to a staunch ad­vo­ca­te of de­mo­cra­cy. Six ma­jor tur­ning points mark this path: from the foun­ding of the Reich to the cri­ses and uphe­avals of Ger­man histo­ry and the di­vi­si­on of the coun­try. Vi­si­tors are ac­com­pa­nied by Tho­mas Man­n’s own voice — ori­gi­nal quo­tes, dia­ry ent­ries and spee­ches lend the ex­hi­bi­ti­on a haun­ting au­then­ti­ci­ty.

The ex­hi­bi­ti­on pur­po­seful­ly builds a bridge to the pre­sent and po­ses cen­tral ques­ti­ons: What di­stin­gu­is­hes de­mo­cra­cy from other forms of go­vern­ment, and what re­spon­si­bi­li­ty does each in­di­vi­du­al bear for its pre­ser­va­ti­on? Tho­mas Man­n’s li­te­ra­ry oeu­vre, from Bud­den­brooks to Doc­tor Faus­tus, re­flects this po­li­ti­cal re­flec­tion and links the ex­hi­bi­ti­on sec­tions tog­e­ther. In­s­tead of a pu­rely his­to­ri­cal pre­sen­ta­ti­on, the ex­hi­bi­ti­on en­cou­ra­ges an ac­ti­ve ex­ami­na­ti­on of de­mo­cra­tic va­lues, lan­guage and pos­si­bi­li­ties for ac­tion — and makes it clear that “My time” is al­ways our time too.

The spe­cial ex­hi­bi­ti­on can be seen from 6 Ju­ne 2025 to 18 Ja­nu­ary 2026, Tues­day to Sun­day from 10 am to 5 pm. Pu­blic ho­li­day re­gu­la­ti­ons and fur­ther in­for­ma­ti­on, in­clu­ding the pro­gram­me of events, can be ob­tai­ned di­rect­ly from the Bud­den­brook­haus.