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"When World War I broke out the author of ''Buddenbrooks'' was almost 40 but not yet in the public view one of the giants of European literature. In his native Germany it was thought that Gerhart Hauptmann and probably a few of his elder contemporaries were towering above him. But he already had a reputation as one of the most interesting writers in Europe and as a moralist from whom his many readers expected a message in a time of great trials. His first decision was that of a man of action, not a man of letters, and he volunteered for the Landsturm, the reserve army. The physician who examined him happened to know his work and reached the sensible conclusion that the writer Thomas Mann would make a greater contribution to the war effort than the soldier. Mann's despair was within manageable limits; he wrote to a friend that his nerves were bad and his heart, head and stomach would fail him. The doctor had probably saved him from disgrace"--