Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger (7 July 1884 - 21 December 1958) was a German-Jewish novelist who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp and later escaped to Los Angeles with the help of his wife.
Family background
Feuchtwanger was born in Munich in 1884, and raised in a household that was both observantly Jewish and patriotically German. This dichotomy would later appear in his written works, especially his novel Josephus.
Early career and persecution
Lion served in the Germany Army during World War I, an experience that led to a leftist tilt in his writings. He soon became a figure in the literary world and was already well-known in 1927 when his first popular novel, Jew Suess, appeared. He also published Erfolg (m. "Success"), which was a thinly veiled criticism at the Nazi Party and Hitler. The new fascist regime soon began persecuting him, and in 1932, while on a speaking tour of America, his house was ransacked by government agents who stole many items from his extensive library. A year later, all his works were ordered burned, and he fled to the south of France.
Imprisonment and escape
When the Germans invaded France in 1940, Feuchtwanger was captured and imprisoned in an internment camp. However, he later escaped with the help of his wife and Varian Fry, an American journalist who helped refugees escape from occupied France. Feuchtwanger eventually received asylum in the United States, settled in Los Angeles, and continued to write there until his death in 1958.
Works
- Die häßliche Herzogin (The Ugly Duchess) 1923
- Jew Suess (Jud Süß, Power), 1925
- Erfolg (Success), 1930
- The Oppermanns, 1933
- The Pretender (Der falsche Nero), 1936
- Moscow, 1937
- Unholdes Frankreich (Ungracious France, Der Teufel in Frankreich,The Devil in France), 1941
- Die Zauberer (Die Brüder Lautensack, Double, Double, Toil and Trouble, The Lautensack Brothers), 1943
- Simone, 1944
- Proud Destiny (Waffen für Amerika, Füchse im Weinberg, Foxes in the Vineyard), 1947
- Raquel, The Jewess of Toledo, 1955
- Jefta und seine Tochter, Jephthah and his Daughter, Jephta and his daughter, 1960
- The Josephus Trilogy
- Der jüdischer Krieg (Josephus), 1932
- Die Söhne (The Jews of Rome), 1935
- Der Tag wird kommen (Josephus and the Emperor), 1942
- The Waeresaal Trilogy
- Erfolg. Drei Jahre Geschichte einer Provinz (Success), 1930
- Die Geschwister Oppenheim (The Oppermanns), 1933
- Exil, 1940