Thomas Mann, winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in Lübeck in 1875, and his family’s former home is now the Buddenbrookhaus. Named after Mann’s novel about a wealthy Lübeck family in decline, The Buddenbrooks (1901), this museum is a monument to the author of such classics as Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice) and Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain).

　　The museum also covers his brother Heinrich, who wrote the story that became the Marlene Dietrich film Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel). There’s a rundown of the rather tragic family history, too.