Background
Lion Feuchtwanger was born on July 21, 1884 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. He was the oldest of nine children of Sigmund Feuchtwanger, a businessman, and Johanna (Bodenheimer) Feuchtwanger.
Lion Feuchtwanger was born on July 21, 1884 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. He was the oldest of nine children of Sigmund Feuchtwanger, a businessman, and Johanna (Bodenheimer) Feuchtwanger.
Lion Feuchtwanger received an excellent education growing up in Munich, and he was refined both by private instruction and at the Wilhelms-Gymnasium. He attended Berlin University, where he studied philosophy, literature and language. For graduate studies, he moved on to Munich University, and earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1907. For his dissertation, Feuchtwanger wrote an extensive study on Heinrich Heine’s unfinished historical novel Der Rabbi von Bacharach.
After graduation, Lion Feuchtwanger faced the prospect of a career in the family business, which was expected of him. However, he refused and took a job as a drama critic for the publication Die Schaubuehne (The Stage). In this position, which lasted until 1911, Feuchtwanger gained a reputation as a competent drama critic. He also began participating in the Bohemian movement that was spreading through Munich, and in 1910 penned a novel entitled Der toenerne Gott (translated as The God of Clay), which he later discounted as being immature.
During this time, Feuchtwanger was also writing plays, and he met and began courting Marta Loffler, whom he married in 1912. The couple had a daughter at the end of that same year, but the child did not survive its first year. The death shattered the young couple and influenced several of Feuchtwanger's later works. After a few years of traveling through Italy and Tunisia, the couple returned to Germany just in time for the outbreak of World War I, whereupon Feuchtwanger was drafted into the German army. However, because of bleeding ulcers, he was discharged and again took up the pen, largely concentrating on plays, including Warren Hastings in 1916 and Die Kriegsgefangenen (translated as The Prisoners of War) in 1919. In 1920, Feuchtwanger published a dramatic novel entitled Thomas Wendt, which revolved around a writer who was caught up in a revolutionary movement.
In the years following the war, Feuchtwanger completed several plays and wrote the first drafts for a handful of novels. He also began tackling serious social issues, which he would later be remembered for by many critics. For example, in the play Jud Suess (1918), which he adapted into a novel in 1921, Feuchtwanger recounted a notorious eighteenth-century anti-Semitic tale set in Württemberg, Germany. When he completed the book, Feuchtwanger met resistance with German publishers, who felt the work to be too "Jewish." However, the book finally made it to publication in 1925 and went on to be Feuchtwanger’s first worldwide bestseller.
In 1925 Feuchtwanger moved to Berlin and began working on PEP, which he finished in 1928. At this time, Hitler and the Nazis were rising to power, and signs of Nazism were all around Feuchtwanger. When he published Eifolg, Hitler was only three years from assuming power in Germany. The eight-hundred-page novel revolves around the imprisonment of a character named Krueger, and the efforts of his lover, Johanna Krain, to free him. Krueger, an art curator, is put into prison because the works he has displayed at his gallery was found offensive by an increasingly conservative Munich. All the while, the city is embroiled in political turmoil, as a right-wing group gains ever more acceptance and ultimately power. A character named Rupert Kutzner, who leads the group, represents Hitler.
Two years after completing Erfolg, Feuchtwanger published the first volume of Der juedische Krieg, an historical novel about the life of Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who lived in the first-century A.D. The same year, Feuchtwanger went on a lengthy lecture tour of the United Slates and Britain. While away, Hitler finally ascended to power and the Nazis raided Feuchtwanger’s home, and many of his manuscripts were destroyed. His doctorate from Munich University was also revoked. Feuchtwanger was forced to move to France, where he continued to work, both on his books and in anti-fascist causes. The 1934 novel Die Geschwister Oppennann (translated as The Oppermanns) and two more volumes about Josephus were just a few of the books he published during the days leading up to World War II.
When the war did finally break out, Feuchtwanger was imprisoned in an internment camp by the French government, but he was later released. When France capitulated to Germany in 1940, Feuchtwanger was again imprisoned, but this time he had a death sentence on his head. With the help of his wife, he made a daring escape and was able to flee to America. He recounted the escape and flight in 1941's Der Teufel in Frankreich (translated as The Devil in France). This was followed by two other politically-oriented novels: 1943’s Die Brueder Lautensack (translated as Double Double, Toil and Trouble), as well as one about the French Resistance in 1944.
Still under the threat of a death sentence in Germany for his writings and political views, Feuchtwanger had no choice but to stay in the United States, where he continued to write several more historical novels, including Waffen fuer Amerika (Proud Destiny) in 1947. Other novels that he published during his American exile include Goya oder der arge Weg der Erkenntnis (translated as This Is the Hour; 1951), Spanische Ballade (translated as Raquel, the Jewess of Toledo; 1955), and Jefta und seine Tochter (translated as Jephta and His Daughter; 1957). After being troubled by the Communist backlash taking place in American, he also wrote the play Wahn oder der Teufel in Boston (translated as The Devil in Boston), which he completed in 1948.
In his last years of life, Feuchtwanger slipped further and further into isolation. Although he yearned to return to his homeland, he had grown content in America, and was afraid to leave for fear he would not be permitted to return. So he devoted his time working on historical novels, as well as conducting research. When he died in December of 1958, Feuchtwanger left a half unfinished manuscript of a historical novel called Das Haus der Desdemona (translated as The House of Desdemona).
Lion Feuchtwanger is largely remembered today for his contributions to the historical novel genre. He influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht. He is best known for his novel Jud Süß (Jew Suss, 1925). The novel was so well-received that it went through five printings of 39,000 copies within a year as well as being translated into 17 languages by 1931.
(In the present volume, "The Emperor and His Jew," the ear...)
1942(Feuchtwanger, famous for his historical novels, tells the...)
1951(First published in 1934 but fully imagining the future of...)
1934(Lion Feuchtwanger's second volume of the "Josephus" trilo...)
1935In May, 1912 Lion Feuchtwanger married Marta Loeffler. She was pregnant at the wedding, but the child died shortly after birth.
