Arzt, Matthäus | Member of the Winfried fraternity in Halle. Mann found the last name in a biography of the German sculptor and woodcarver Tilmann Riemenschneider (ca. 1460–1531), although “Arzt” also means “medical doctor” in German. His first name is that of the Apostle Matthew in German. |
Baworinski | Presiding officer of the Winfried fraternity in Halle. Mann found the name in the letters of Martin Luther. |
Binder-Majoresku, Frau | Divorced Romanian authoress of light comedies; maintains a Bohemian salon in Munich. Possibly supplies Inez Rodde with morphine. |
Breisacher, Dr. Chaim | Independent scholar in Munich, first a guest of the Schlaginhaufen salon, later of the Kridwiss Circle. Advocates völkisch and proto-fascist ideas. Modeled on the historian and philosopher Oskar Goldberg (1885–1953). |
Bullinger | Acquaintance of Rüdiger Schildknapp’s. A paper manufacturer in Munich. Mann found the name in the letters of Martin Luther. |
Cimabue, Luca | Apprentice violin-maker in the household of Nikolaus Leverkühn Family name derives from the Italian painter Cenni di Pepo (ca. 1240–1302), popularly known as Cimabue. |
Deutschlin, Konrad | Member of the Winfried fraternity in Halle. Mann found the name in a biography of Tilmann Riemenschneider, but it also alludes to “deutsch,” meaning “German.” |
Dungersheim | Member of the Winfried fraternity in Halle. Mann found the name in the letters of Martin Luther. |
Edelmann, Dr. | Director of the music publishing house that publishes Apocalipsis cum figuris. |
Edschmidt, Dr. | Conductor of the Zapfenstösser Orchestra. Name probably derives from the writer Kasimir Edschmid (1890–1960). |
Erasmi, Dr. | Leipzig medical doctor. Specialist in venereal diseases who briefly treats Leverkühn before suddenly dying. Name presumably derives from Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536). |
Esmeralda, or “Hetaera Esmeralda” | Prostitute who offers her services to Leverkühn in a brothel in Leipzig, then is subsequently visited by him in Pressburg. Source of Leverkühn’s syphilitic infection. Strongly hinted by Zeitblom to be a succubus. Possibly reappears later as Frau von Tolna, Leverkühn’s mysterious benefactress. |
Fitelberg, Saul | International music agent and concert producer. First name derives from the film agent Saul C. Colin (1909–1967), who tried to facilitate a cinematic adaptation of Mann’s Joseph tetralogy. Mann found the last name in the memoirs of Igor Stravinsky. Fitelberg’s behavior was partly modeled on that of Riccault de la Marlinière, a character in the play Minna von Barnhelm (1767) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781). |
Godeau, Isabeau | Aunt of Marie Godeau. |
Godeau, Marie | French-Swiss artist; stage designer in Paris. Love interest of both Leverkühn and Rudi Schwerdtfeger, the latter of whom proposes marriage to her in his own name, rather than in that of Leverkühn, who had commissioned him to woo Godeau. External appearance is modeled on Mann’s wife Katia; name is a composite of various people from the memoirs of Igor Stravinsky. |
Hanne | Floppy-bosomed milkmaid at Buchel. Introduces Leverkühn to musical rounds. |
Hinterpförtner, Monsignore | Head of the Theological Seminary in Freising. Friend of Zeitblom. Name translates as “warden of the back door.” |
Holzschuher, Prof. Gilgen | Art historian and Dürer scholar; member of the Kridwiss Circle. Name is a compound derived from biographies of Riemenschneider and Dürer. The possible model is Wilhelm Waetzoldt, whose Dürer biography forms one of the main sources for Doctor Faustus. |
Hubmeyer | Member of the Winfried fraternity in Halle. Mann found the name in a biography of Tilmann Riemenschneider. |
Institoris, Dr. Helmut | Aesthetician and art historian, instructor at the Munich Technical Institute. Marries Inez Rodde. Name derives from Henricus Institoris, the author of the fifteenth-century inquisitor’s manual Malleus Maleficarum. |
Kaschperl | Farm dog at Pfeiffering. Name is a dialectal diminutive of Kaspar, a common designation for the devil and also the name of a character in the Faust opera Der Freischütz (1821) by Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826). |
Kjoejelund, Harald | Heldentenor at the Munich opera. Model unknown. |
Knöterich, Konrad | Amateur painter and musician, member of Frau Rodde’s Munich salon. Possibly modeled on a certain Herr Knötzinger, an acquaintance of Mann’s mother. |
Knöterich, Natalia | Amateur painter, wife of Konrad K, rumored to be addicted to morphine. |
Kranich, Dr. | Numismatist and curator of a coin museum in Munich. Last name means “crane” in German. Likely modeled on Professor Georg Habich, the director of Munich’s Numismatic Collection, whose last name means “hawk” in German. |
Kretzschmar, Wendell | Leverkühn’s music teacher in Kaisersaschern and Leipzig. Name most likely derives from the musicologist Hermann Kretzschmar (1848–1924). Born in Pennsylvania into a German-American family. Pursues career as conductor and organist in Germany and Switzerland. Composer of several musical works, including the opera The Marble Statue. Organist in Kaisersaschern during Leverkühn’s youth, later instructor of organ and piano classes at Hase’s Private Conservatory in Leipzig. Arranges first public performance of a Leverkühn work and has others published. |
Kridwiss, Sixtus | Graphic artist and collector of East Asian art. Leader of the proto-fascist “Kridwiss Circle” in Munich during the years following the First World War. Mann found both first and last name in the letters of Martin Luther, although the figure as a whole is modeled on Mann’s friend, the graphic artist and stage designer Emil Preetorius, who was President of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in the 1920s. Preetorius stayed in Germany after 1933 and rose to a prominent position at the Bayreuth Festival during the Nazi period, which led to a cooling-off of his relationship with Thomas Mann. However, they resumed their old relations in 1947, and Preetorius appears not to have been bitter about what Mann characterized as one of his “literary murders.” |
Kumpf, Ehrenfried | Professor of systematic theology at Halle, teacher to both Leverkühn and to a reluctant Zeitblom. Mann found the name in a biography of Tilmann Riemenschneider. Kumpf’s archaic language and his behavior strongly allude to Martin Luther, although the character also resembles the German theologian Martin Kähler (1835–1912), one of the teachers of Mann’s friend Paul Tillich. |
Kürbis, Dr. | Quack doctor who treats Leverkühn for syphilitic symptoms in 1918/1919 and attempts to treat Nepomuk Schneidewein ten years later. Name means “pumpkin” in German. |
Leverkühn, Adrian | German composer. A Dr. August Leverkühn served as a court-appointed guardian for the Mann children after the death of Thomas Mann’s father, but the more pertinent etymology is from Leben = life + kühn = audacious. The exhortation to “live audaciously” alludes to an aphorism from Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Gay Science (Bk. 4 §283), as well as possibly to the ethos of fascism. |
Leverkühn, Elsbeth | Leverkühn’s mother. Mistress of Buchel. Physical description is modeled on the Portrait of a Venetian Woman by Dürer. See Fig. 2. |
Leverkühn, Georg | Leverkühn’s older brother; his senior by five years. Heir to the family farm at Buchel. |
Leverkühn, Jonathan | Leverkühn’s father. Farmer at Buchel and amateur naturalist. Physical description is modeled on a copper etching by Dürer of Luther’s friend and collaborator Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560), a leading intellectual voice of the Reformation. See Fig. 1. |
Leverkühn, Nikolaus | Leverkühn’s paternal uncle. Owner of a musical instrument shop in Kaisersaschern and a violin-maker. Physical description is modeled on the sketch The Master-Builder Jerome of Augsburg by Dürer. See Fig. 3. |
Leverkühn, Ursula | Leverkühn’s younger sister. Marries Johannes Schneidewein, with whom she has four children, among them Nepomuk Schneidewein. |
Luder, Frau | Manager of the dairy at Buchel Farm. Name means “hussy” in German. |
Manardi, Peronella | Mistress of the Manardi household in Palestrina. Name derives from Giovanni Manardi (1462–1532), Italian humanist and pioneering syphilis researcher. |
Michelsen | Schoolmaster at Weissenfels. Private tutor of the young Leverkühn. |
Nackedey, Meta | Admirer of Leverkühn. Last name translates as “naked child.” Modeled on Ida Herz, a fervent admirer of Mann who served as his sometime archivist and librarian. |
Nonnenmacher, Kolonat | Professor of ancient philosophy at the University of Halle, teacher of both Zeitblom and Leverkühn. Mann found both the first and the last name in a biography of Tilmann Riemenschneider, but the last name also translates as “creator of nuns,” alluding to the early modern custom of locking away in nunneries women who had become pregnant out of wedlock. |
Nottebohm | Painter and friend of the Institoris household. Name derives from the Beethoven scholar Martin Gustav Nottebohm (1817–1882), although in all other regards he is modeled on the painter Walter Geffcken (1872–1950), a friend of the Mann family. |
Orlanda, Tanya | Wagnerian heroine in Munich. Likely modeled on the soprano Milka Ternina (1863–1941), the mistress of Mann’s father-in-law Alfred Pringsheim. |
Platner, Hans | Owner of the marionette theater that first performs Gesta Romanorum at Donaueschingen in 1921. |
Probst | Member of the Winfried fraternity in Halle. Mann found the name in the letters of Martin Luther. |
Radbruch | Publisher of Rüdiger Schildknapp and member of the prewar salons frequented by Leverkühn and Zeitblom in Munich. |
Reiff, Herr and Frau | Wealthy Swiss industrialists who introduce L. to Marie Godeau. Modeled on Swiss friends of the Mann family who frequently hosted TM during the 1930s. |
Riedesel, Baron von | Guest at the Munich salon of the Schlaginhaufens. General intendant of the Royal Bavarian Court Theater. Mann found the name in the letters of Martin Luther. The figure is a composite of two actual general intendants, Ernst Ritter von Possart and Albert Freiherr von Speidel. |
Rodde, Frau | Widow of a senator from the Hanseatic town of Bremen. Society host in Munich. The character is modeled on Mann’s mother, Julia Mann née Silva-Bruhns, who hosted a modest salon in Munich after the death of Mann’s father, Senator Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann (1840–1891). Her last name is presumably modeled on Senator Matthias Rodde (1754–1825), whose biography provided Mann with fertile material for his novel Buddenbrooks. |
Rodde, Clarissa | Younger daughter of Frau Rodde. Modeled on Mann’s sister Carla Mann. |
Rodde, Inez | Older daughter of Frau Rodde. Modeled on Mann’s sister Julia Elisabeth Mann (1877–1927). “Ines” in German original. |
Rosenstiel, Kunigunde | Admirer of Leverkühn. Provides him with the Visions of St. Paul that become a source of the Apocalipsis cum figuris. Last name translates as “rose stem.” Modeled on Mann’s fervent admirer and part-time secretary Ida Herz (see also “Nackedey, Meta”), as well as on German-Jewish literary critic Käte Hamburger, who wrote pioneering studies of Mann. |
Schappeler | Member of the Winfried fraternity in Halle. Mann found the name in a biography of Tilmann Riemenschneider. |
Scheurl, Jeanette | Novelist and acquaintance of Leverkühn in Munich. Mann found the name in the letters of Martin Luther, but the character is otherwise modeled on Annette Kolb (1870–1967), a friend of Mann’s and a famous novelist in her own right. She never forgave her friend for this portrait. |
Schildknapp, Rüdiger | Writer and translator. Close friend of Leverkühn, whom he meets during their mutual time in Leipzig. Last name means “shield bearer” in German. Physical description and behavior are patterned on Mann’s friend Hans Reisiger, a translator most famous for his translations into German of Leaves of Grass (1855) by Walt Whitman. |
Schlaginhaufen, Dr. and Frau | Hosts of a Munich salon. The name derives from the letters of Martin Luther and could be translated as “heap of punches” or “punch the rabble.” Frau Schlaginhaufen’s maiden name is von Plausig, marking her as a member of the aristocracy. |
Schleppfuss, Eberhard | Private lecturer teaching psychology of religion at Halle. Teacher to both Leverkühn and Zeitblom. Last name means “dragfoot” in German, an obvious reference to the traditional depiction of Satan with a cloven hoof. |
Schneidewein, Johannes | Leverkühn’s brother-in-law. Husband of Ursula Leverkühn, father of Nepomuk Schneidewein. Optician in Langenselza. Mann fond the last name in the letters of Martin Luther. |
Schneidewein, Nepomuk | Nephew of Leverkühn. Known to his family as “Echo.” Modeled on Frido Mann, Mann’s grandson by way of his youngest son Michael. |
Schweigestill, Clementina | Daughter of Max and Else Schweigestill. Reads to Leverkühn during his long period of illness in 1918/19. “Clementine” in German. |
Schweigestill, Else | Mistress of the Schweigestill farm in Pfeiffering. Name translates as “be silent” or “I will be silent.” |
Schweigestill, Gereon | Son of Max and Else Schweigestill. Heir to the family farm in Pfeiffering. |
Schweigestill, Max | Master of the Schweigestill farm in Pfeiffering. |
Schwerdtfeger, Rudolf | Violinist, later concertmaster, of the Zapfenstösser Orchestra in Munich. Modeled on Mann’s childhood friend and love interest Paul Ehrenberg (1876–1949). The name derives from an old-fashioned word for “sword maker,” but literally means “sword polisher.” |
Spengler, Baptist | Painter, member of the Rodde salon in Munich. Suffers from syphilis, though not with the same creative effects the disease precipitates in Leverkühn. Passes away in 1930, six weeks before Leverkühn’s descent into madness. Modeled on a friend of Mann’s mother, the painter Baptist Scherer (1869–1910), though the last name likely alludes to the reactionary cultural philosopher Oswald Spengler (1880–1936). |
Stoientin, Dr. | Director of the School of the Brethren in Kaisersaschern. Leverkühn’s teacher in Greek, Middle High German, and Hebrew. Later Zeitblom’s superior. Name derives from David Friedrich Strauß’s biography of the German humanist Ulrich von Hutten. |
Suso | Farm dog at Buchel. Name derives from the medieval mystic Henricus Suso (1295?–1366). |
Teutleben, Carl von | Member of the Winfried fraternity in Halle. Mann found the name in the letters of Martin Luther, but might also be read as an allusion to deutsches Leben = German life. |
Tolna, Madame de | Mysterious Hungarian noblewoman, benefactress of Leverkühn. Arranges for the publication of Apocalipsis cum figuris by seducing a music critic and convincing him to write a positive review. Follows Leverkühn around at a distance. Owns a large estate in Hungary where Leverkühn and Schwerdtfeger embark on a holiday after first performance of Leverkühn’s violin concerto and become intimate. Likely identical with the prostitute Esmeralda. Most obvious model is Tchaikovsky’s benefactress Nadezhda von Meck (1831–94), although several other possible sources have been identified. |
Unruhe, Dr. Egon | “Philosophical paleozoologist” and member of the Kridwiss Circle. Mann found the name in the letters of Martin Luther, although the character is otherwise modeled on the philosopher and paleozoologist Edgar Dacqué (1878–1945). |
Vogler, Professor Georg | Literary historian of a nationalist bent; member of the Kridwiss Circle. Mann found the name in the letters of Martin Luther, although the character is modeled on the philologist Josef Nadler (1884–1963), the author of a Literary History of the German Tribes and Landscapes (1912–1928). |
Waltpurgis | Milkmaid at Pfeiffering. Early modern sources commonly refer to presumptive witches by this name, which also recalls the Walpurgis Night of April 30–May 1, on which evil spirits were thought to assemble. |
Zeitblom, Helene (née Ölhafen) | Wife of Zeitblom. Mann found the name in the letters of Martin Luther; it translates as “oil harbor.” |
Zeitblom, Helene | Daughter of Zeitblom and Helene Zeitblom, née Ölhafen. Married to the manager of the Regensburg branch of the Bavarian Security and Exchange. |
Zeitblom, Serenus | Biographer of Leverkühn and narrator of Doctor Faustus. Mann found a model for the given name in the Malleus Maleficarum, a model for the surname in Wilhelm Waetzoldt’s Dürer and his Times. Taken together, the name translates as “serene blossom of time.” In ancient thought, “serenity” is sometimes also characterized as a “Jovial” (i.e. Jupiter-affiliated) quality that stands in opposition to the “Saturnine” melancholia afflicting Leverkühn. |
Zimbalist, Dr. | Leipzig medical doctor. Specialist in venereal diseases who briefly treats Leverkühn before being arrested. Name alludes to the violin virtuoso Efrem Zimbalist (1889–1985), director of the Curtis Institute of Music at the time that Doctor Faustus was written. |
Zink, Leo | Austrian painter, member of the Rodde salon in Munich. Modeled on a friend of Mann’s mother, Leo Putz (1869–1940). |
Zur Höhe, Daniel | Poet and member of the Kridwiss Circle. Modeled on the poet Ludwig Derleth (1870–1948), whom Mann had already parodied forty years earlier in his short story “At the Prophet’s” (1904). |
Zwitscher, Rosa | Actress at the Munich Hoftheater and member of the Rodde circle. Last name means “twitter” in German. |