Nobel-Prize winner Thomas Mann, his brother Heinrich and son Klaus have left us novels that are milestones of 20th-century German literature; the entire Mann family, in its turn, has left us the novel of a century. For no other family wrote about, took part in and shaped its era to such an extent as the Manns. In this six-hour miniseries, respected filmmaker Heinrich Breloer enters the mind and spirit of this family, relives it, probes it, and with a dazzling variety of means, transforms it into a relentlessly gripping work of art. From the bohemian excesses of the Weimar Republic to the ineluctable confrontation with Nazism, and from the turbulent wartime years of exile in Europe and the United States to the post-war renaissance that left them, as virulent anti-Nazis, stranded in a world that passed them by – the Manns were the most tormented, gifted and passionate actors in the dramas and tragedies of their time. With Thomas Mann's youngest daughter Elisabeth as his eloquent guide, Breloer tours the stations of the Mann family's odyssey, from Lübeck, Munich and Berlin to the Côte d'Azur, Zurich and the United States. We are drawn into the saga through the use of original, historical footage; through interviews of Mann family members and friends; and especially through the fictionalized reconstruction of the events that stamped this family. Topping the roster of distinguished actors appearing here is Armin Mueller-Stahl as Thomas Mann. The $10-million production is one of German television's most ambitious projects of recent times. Episode 1 of the docu-drama about the history of the Thomas Mann family.