Thomas Mann's 'Buddenbrooks' Meets Your Family History

The interactive exhibition “Family Affairs – 125 Years of ‘Buddenbrooks’” at the St. Annen Museum in Lübeck is dedicated to the 125th anniversary of Thomas Mann's famous novel “Buddenbrooks”. Central themes that shape the novel and are familiar to many people from their own lives are the focus: family, inheritance, obligation, and freedom.

The exhibition invites visitors to connect literary questions with their own biographies. Visitors can engage with personal experiences, familial influences, and individual concepts. This creates a link between Thomas Mann's work and their own life story.

Literature and Personal Experiences

“Buddenbrooks” tells the story of a family and their social environment. The exhibition addresses the themes mentioned in the novel and opens up an interactive approach to questions that extend beyond the book. What is passed down within a family? What expectations arise from heritage and tradition? Where do personal obligations lie, and where does freedom begin to choose one's own path?

At the St. Annen Museum, literature is not only observed but used as a reason for personal engagement. The interactive design makes the exhibition particularly accessible to anyone who wants to rediscover Thomas Mann's novel or view familiar motifs from a different perspective.

An Exhibition Experience in Lübeck

The exhibition is aimed at visitors who are interested in Thomas Mann, “Buddenbrooks”, family stories, and social contexts. Even without a purely academic engagement with the novel, “Family Affairs” offers points of connection: the topics of family, inheritance, obligation, and freedom are directly related to one's own life.

Those who experience Lübeck as Thomas Mann's city will gain special access to one of the most famous works in literary history with this exhibition. The combination of interactive elements and biographical questions makes the visit a personal journey of discovery through the thematic world of “Buddenbrooks”.