Germany buys California home where writer Thomas Mann lived in exile

Nobel prize-winning author built Pacific Palisades home in Los Angeles after fleeing 1930s Germany during Hitler’s rise to power

Germany has bought the California home that once belonged to the Nobel prize-winning author Thomas Mann and plans to turn it into a “centre for transatlantic dialogue”, after fears that it was being sold off as a “teardown” – of value only for the land on which it stands – caused outrage among German fans of the author.

Three thousand curators and writers – including Nobel laureate Herta Müller – signed an online petition for the house to be saved after it went on the market at an asking price of $15m.

Related: Winter reads: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

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