When Thomas Mann went to meet Heinrich Mann at New York’s port on 13 October 1940, he thought his newly-arrived older brother to be exhausted and in need of rest. His state, however, was not only down to the physical strain of the long journey. While he had been able to cope with living in France for a period, Heinrich Mann keenly felt the loss of home when he was forced to leave Europe. In October 1942, he said to Romanian novelist Valeriu Marcu that exile should be exile and not a period of merrymaking like his stay in France was, although this wasn’t meant as a complaint. Referring to this period in his autobiography Ein Zeitalter wird besichtigt, which was released three years later, he talked about having had a presentiment that he was looking at a future in which nothing of import would happen.

At the beginning of November 1942, Mann and his wife Nelly moved to Los Angeles, where Thomas also lived with his family. So that they could obtain regular immigration papers and confirm their official status as immigrants, the couple traveled back into California – arriving from Mexico – on 29 March 1941, allowing them to be granted unlimited residence permits as “permanent residents”. Thomas Mann supported this plan by issuing a so-called Affidavit of Support – a guarantee document, which contained details about his financial and professional situation. The reasons given for Heinrich Mann’s desire to immigrate into the US were the political situation in Europe and his wish to continue to work as a writer in the USA.