[1][2] The authors, Erika and Klaus Mann were themselves in American exile at the time,[1][2] having escaped Germany in 1933, shortly after the Reichstag fire.

[2][3] Many of the portrayed musicians, literary figures, artists, scientists and physicians frequented their father Thomas Mann's house.

The original 375-page 1939 edition included illustrated biographies, anecdotes and character analyses[1] of such German and Austrian exiles as Albert Einstein, Lion Feuchtwanger, Sigmund Freud, George Grosz, Ferdinand Kramer, Thomas Mann, Max Reinhardt, Arnold Schoenberg, Ernst Toller, Bruno Walter, and Stefan Zweig.

In 1991, Edition Spangenberg (Munich) published a German-language version compiled by Heribert Hoven, who also wrote a foreword.

Christoph Eichhorn played Klaus Mann in the dramatized scenes; elsewhere he was voiced by Corin Redgrave.