After Heinrich Mann had confirmed that he would like to join the German PEN group in exile, one of the first authors to do so, on January 1933, many others followed suit. This soon gave rise to the question concerning who should be President and who might represent them as a delegate to the International PEN Congress in June 1934.

Rudolf Olden, one of the group’s initiators alongside Ernst Toller, Lion Feuchtwanger and Max Herrmann-Neisse, sent a letter to Heinrich Mann on 16 April proposing that he take on the position of President and also attend the congress as a delegate. Enclosed with the letter was a list of those who had already joined up as members. Next to the names of the initiators, the list also includes the likes of Oskar Maria Graf, Arnold Zweig and Fritz Landshoff, publisher in the German department of Querido. Olden also wrote to Heinrich Mann that, with the exception of Thomas Mann and Leonhard Frank, he did not expect any more members to join. The handwritten notes on the list are from Heinrich Mann who had added the names of some other potential members or members who joined the group already.