Image: Buddenbrookhaus, Lübeck
A new exhibition drawn from Thomas Mann’s debut novel is set to open in Lübeck as the Buddenbrookhaus marks the 125th anniversary of 'Buddenbrooks. Verfall einer Familie'. According to the Lübecker Museen announcement, 'Family Affairs. 125 Jahre Buddenbrooks' will open on 30 October 2026 at the St. Annen-Museum and remain on view until 6 June 2027. The project is presented by the Buddenbrookhaus and framed around Mann’s first sentence, “Was ist das,” which the museum uses as an entry point into the world of the Buddenbrooks.
The exhibition takes Thomas Mann’s novel as a prompt to ask how family inheritance shapes identity, obligation and memory. The Buddenbrookhaus says the show will focus on questions including what one inherits from a family, whether that inheritance is burden or treasure, which expectations are fulfilled or disappointed, and what remains of a person and their family in the end. The museum describes the project as interactive and participatory, inviting visitors to explore the century-old novel anew and to reflect on their own “Family Affairs.”
The exhibition is being staged inside Lübeck's wider museum network, and the main story here is the co-operation between the Buddenbrookhaus and the St. Annen-Museum. The LÜBECKER MUSEEN newsletter of 7 August 2026 explains that a new guided format, 'St. Annen meets Buddenbrooks', uses objects from the St. Annen-Museum's collection to examine the self-understanding of former Lübeck bourgeois families. Portrait galleries, paintings, collecting objects and items of domestic and everyday culture are presented as evidence of how strongly origin, order, property and responsibility shaped that social class.
The same newsletter notes that the St. Annen-Museum preserves a substantial collection connected to Lübeck's wealthy bourgeoisie, and that Mann himself describes the Buddenbrook family's world in close material detail, making objects central to characterisation and plot. Rather than treating the book as abstract literary heritage, the show grounds Mann's fictional family in the visual and material culture of Lübeck's historical elite.
The accompanying programme is already running ahead of the opening. On 14 August 2026 the Buddenbrookhaus presents 'St. Annen meets Buddenbrooks', subtitled 'Weltliteratur trifft Welterbe', at the St. Annen-Museum from 15:00 to 16:00. The tour asks how the Buddenbrooks' world might have looked in the nineteenth century, and which objects, worldviews and rituals shaped daily life in it.
The museum's programme listing also includes a Buddenbrooks literary walk through Lübeck, scheduled on Saturdays from 14:00 to 15:30, with dates listed for 15 and 22 August 2026. The walk leads participants to the novel's original locations, its central figures, themes and motifs, while introducing the circumstances of the book's creation and a view of Lübeck in the nineteenth century. Booking and further information are handled by the Buddenbrookhaus.
