BERLIN (AFP) — Bavaria's state library will hand over 75 books belonging to German author Thomas Mann that were stolen by the Nazis to an archive in Switzerland, the library announced Wednesday.
The volumes are translations of Mann's works in a variety of languages from the first three decades of the 20th century, a statement from the southern German library said.
Two of the works bear Mann's own signature while several others contain dedications to the author from the translator.
The books will be handed over to the Thomas Mann archive on November 19.
The anti-Nazi writer, author of "Buddenbrooks" and "Death in Venice" fled Bavaria in 1933 and settled in Zurich.
His house in Munich was seized by the Nazis in August 1933 but not before his family had managed to transfer well over half of his personal library to Switzerland.
Nazis stole the rest of his collection and placed part of it in Bavaria's state library.
Winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929, Thomas Mann was stripped of his German nationality in 1936. After a period of exile in the United States between 1939 and 1952, he died in Switzerland in 1955 at the age of 80.
In 1999, German authorities said they would hunt down and return cultural items seized by the Nazis.
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