From a very early stage Erika Mann was aware that she could become stateless as the result of an expired passport or expatriation. From the outset the political activity surrounding the Pfeffermühle put her at risk of being expelled from her land of exile, Switzerland. In October 1934 in a letter to her brother Klaus Mann she had mused about possible marriage candidates with the purpose of acquiring a new citizenship - "Marrying Denby is pointless, that won't make me American" (ed. trans.).

In Amsterdam in May 1935 she met the English author Christopher Isherwood, a friend of Fritz H. Landshoff and Klaus Mann. Directly confronted by Erika Mann with a marriage proposal, he refused, but introduced her to his friend the writer W. H. Auden, who consented with little hesitation. On June 12, Erika Mann travelled to London. Three days later, she married Auden, whom she had never met. Exactly a week earlier, Erika Mann had been expatriated.

The couple never lived together, yet remained close friends throughout their lives. This is also evidenced by the present letter from late May 1939. Auden was a frequent guest of the family in Küsnacht and then later in Princeton and Pacific Palisades; he supported Erika Mann in translating Pfeffermühle into English and lived himself from 1939 in the United States. In the spring of 1936, he helped arrange a marriage of convenience between Erika's Pfeffermühle companion, Therese Giehse, and the British writer John Hampson Simpson.