2

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle

Julv 28, 1944

• • • • THE PEN IS HIS SWORD •

EDITOR'S NOTE:—As sixty, Lion Feuchtwanger looks back upon
Like Arnold Zwieg's "The Case tionalism, it has a tendency not vation of racial
decades of battle againgt diabolical forces and in behalf of of Sergeant Grischa," Feucht- to consolidate itself but rather the peculiarity of in origin,
dividuality,
lid i
It . o r
human rights; avows identity with Spiritual Israel.
wanger's most successful work, to dissipate itself."
sheer
romanticism
and
(I
"Jud Suess" (English version is
The nationalism that deprived to failure.
(mines I
By ALFRED WERNER
" On the ()the
titled "Power"), originally was Feuchtwanger of his citizenship, he admitted
his
own
w
(Reprinted from Liberal Judaism)
a,,e,`:
conceived as a play. What ap- confiscated his villa in Berlin, for romanticism : "Kith r. " kli n --
peared
on however,
the German
a clear
I
Intellectual Europe has had to Bavaria, beloved by many an lish
stage,
was and
not Eng-
the put thousands of non-Fascists recognition of this
•,
rank my .
pay the Nazis a fearful toll in American visitor, but less fav- original drama but a version of into concentration camps and de- self with the romantics. 1
graded
half
a
million
Jews
to
the
far
as
my
labors
devolve
tin
ored
by
students
of
twentieth
-
lives of anti-Fascist or non-Fas- century history and by Feucht- the novel, rendered into a "tragi- status of pariahs, was of a quite
ile
i
d,
is
the
tili
g
,
ot(
i
l
l
a‘t
v
i
o
IN%
•
of which
. -,e;
cist writers. At the beginning
comedy" by Ashley Dukes. "Hab- different type.
ard
Inlystill.liv
of the Nazi regime, Erich Mueli- wanger who knew the place thor- en t sua fata libelli." It took the
Feuchtwanger
i s politically nationalism. But I do so ri
oughly : "Except for its location,
sam, the radical poet, was tor- its beautiful public art galleries author several years to find a more enlightened and astute than fully. My heart is with lIt'..
turgid to death in a concentra- and libraries, its carnival and its firm that would risk publishing other writers. In 1933 he de- against which I wage w gtrhet
ar , a
tion camp. Ten years later, sim- beer, the city possessed little of the novel that was destined to Glared publicly : "Hitler means Fortunately, these opposing
ilar reports were current regard- real value. Although it placed sell hundreds of thousands of war. Without war we shall never forces within the writer are h
ing the aged Romain Rolland. much emphasis on tradition as copies within a few years . . . be rid of the Nazis," but he was together by a third power: Th
e
Menno ter Break, essayist and an art center, its art really did Feuchtwanger tells the grip- decried as a pessimist and as a striving for fre I
espousal of
historian, intellectual leader of not go very far. It was embodied ping story of Josef Suess Oppen- warmonger. Similarly, few peo- social justice, freedom,
unremittin g
the anti-Fascist movement in ina narrow-minded, pompous, hehner, the Court Jew, quite ob- pie took him seriously when, in toward a happier future. At effort
The Netherlands, committed sui- academic institution maintained jectively and with the keen un- 1937, upon returning from a he is still the sam
At 60,
e tighter for
cide when the Germans occupied for the tourist trade by a mouldy, derstanding of a historian. Ac- visit to the Soviet Union, he the rights of the common
man
the Hague. Kurt Tucholski, stuffy, and alcoholic population." cording to Wilhelm Hauff (whose spoke confidently of that coun- that he was at the outbreak of
Ernst Toiler and Stefan Zweig Nor did he like the kind of novelette, "Jud Suess," appeared try's preparedness.
the First World War. "I s
took their lives rather than con- education he received: "A dreary in 1826), Oppenheimer—financial
Of the novels he published on the threshold of old age," tand
h
time the misery of existence in and pedantic education—conserv- advisor to the Duke of Wuert- since 1933, "The Jew of Rome" said recently, upon concluding e
exile. Rudolph Olden, biographer arrive, patriotic, unaware of sport temberg—was a monster of wick- continues the story of Joseph "The Devil in France": "I have
of Hitler, was drowned when a —in fact, entirely detached from edness, responsible for all the ben Mattathias, better known as met God in many forms but
,
the
U-boat torpedoed the America- life." He studied literature and tribulations of the common peo- Flavius Josephus who started out devil also in quite as ninny.
M s
bound liner on which he traveled. philosophy in Munich and Berlin, pie. The modern Feuchtwanger, as a sort of Quisling, but in delight in
God
has
not
lessened,
After the fall of France, it and received his Ph.D. degree however, pictures him as a child his Roman exile devoted his but my fear of the devil has. I
was rumored that Franz Werful for a thesis on Heinrich Heine's of his confused times an a vic- writing ability to the defense of have had to learn that the stu•
and Lion Feuchtwanger had been novel-fragment, "Der Rabbi von tim of strange circumstances, a his people. "The Oppermanns" pidity and the wickedness of men
trapped and beheaded by the vie- Bacharach." The next logical view upheld by the historians and "Paris Gazette" belong to are as wild and as deep as the
torious Germans. There was, of step for a doctor of philosophy Curt Elwenspoek and Selma Stern a trilogy, begun with "Success" Seven Seas. But it has also been
course, rejoicing in the anti-Fns- would have been to take up whose studies appeared after and called by the author "The vouchsafed me to discover that
cist camp when one day the Wei - teaching, but Feuchtwanger had Feuchtwanger's novel. The real Waiting Room." the (like which the minority V.
fell and Feuchtwangers turned no wish to become a German culprit was the extravagant and
"The Oppermanns" realistically the good and the wise are erect.
up at Lisbon. Feuchtwanger es- Studienrat. Instead, he founded wasteful ruler whom Suess served describes the sufferings of the ing to contain them, is rising
caped from a French prison camp a literary group, which united faithfully and zealously. After Jews after Hitler's assumption of higher and stronger with every
in female attire and was brought all sorts of hotspurs, and a magna-the Duke's sudden death, Suess power; "Paris Gazette" deals passing clay."
to the Western Hemisphere
zing open to all adversaries of was hanged (in 1738) because with the existence of the Ger-
On the eve of Feuchtwanger's
through the relentless efforts of the old academic trend in Ger- the masses needed a scapegoat; man refugees in the French cap- 60th birthday (July 71, the ed-
American friends. This, inci-
no sort of proof had been ad- ital. Covering the period between itor-in-chief of "Liberal Judaism"
literature. has every tea- duced to substantiate the charges
dentally, was his second escape. man
Feuchtwanger
the wars of 1914 and 1939, this addressed himself to this remark-
At the outbreak of the First son to be proud of the fact that made against him. Proudly Suess triology takes as its subject mat- able writer and battler for hu-
World War, the Feuchtwangers he wrote the first pronouncedly refused to embrace Christianity,
ter the course of events in Ger- man decency, who is now a resi-
happened to be in the French revolutionary poem to be pub- although this step might have many, "that is to say, the re- dent of California : "Sixteen
protectorate of Tunisia. Mrs, lished in Germany during the saved him, and he died on the surgence of barbarism in Ger- Y
ears have elapsed since you ex-
Feuchtwanger managed to smug- First World War. It appeared gallows with the "Sh'ma Yisroel"
many and the temporary eclipse Pressed certain views on nation-
gle her husband out of a prison
his lips!
issue
of reason. The aim of the tri- alism and on Jewishness. You
of
camp and onto an Italian boat! in the October, 1914,
Two
Two motion pictures were loy is to document for posterity might wish to reinterpret these
When, in the Fall of 1940, this Siegfried Jacobsohn's "Die Schau-
these dreadful years of suspense, in the light of subsequent expe-
thin, short man of sharp, intel- buelme ;" the refrain was: "We based upon the book, one made the most sinister period in Ger- rience. I wonder whether you
ligent visage arrived in the Unit- are waiting." Its author did not in America (starring the late man history since the time o
revise the following opin-
ed States, he told the press he wait until others would act. In Conrad Veldt as Suess) widen the Thirty Years' War. For pos- f would
ions-1 believe that, despite the
planned to write 14 more books a drama entitled "Die Kriegsge- closely followed Feuchtwanger's
before he died. One need not fangenen" (Prisoners of War) conception, the other produced terity will be baffled by the fact upflaring of pOstwar nationalism,
take this statement literally, he voiced deep-felt "disgust at in Nazi Germany, where "Pow- that we put up with such a state despite seemingly sharper lines
but it is a fact that he did not the mental attitude towards the anti-Semitic
er" i was transformed
an of things for so long; posterity of external demarcation, inner
movie a la into
Streich-
will find it difficult to understand boundaries hedging about pro.
waste much time during the past war." Banned from the Ger-
why we should have waited so pies and races are Ott
wane
.
In
addition
to
nu-
man
stage
by
war
censorship,
it
er.
In
an
Open
Letter,
"To
My
f our years.
Friends the Actors," Feuchtwan- lone before drawing the only • • • It is highly irrational the
to in-
merous essays, he published four was the first German play to be
full-size books: "The Devil in shown in France after the war. gcr sternly rebuked the German valid conclusion, namely, that sist on the preservation of racial
the rule of force and unreason individuality, of the pecularities
France," describing his harrow- His drama "1918" belongs to actors
who stultified
themselves
by participation
in the
shameful must be ended by force and re- of origin . . . I do not believe
the same category
t
of pacifist t
ing prison camp experiences; th
"Josephus and the Emperor," the and revolutionary plays: Thomas
task,
and
they placed by a reasonable social or- anyone capable of drawing lines
were
lost
for predicted
the decent that
theater:
der." ("The Saturday Review of of demarcation between what is
last volume in the trilogy deal- Wendt, the visionary, rises to a
Literature," April 27, 1940.)
Jewish and what is floe."
ing with that enigmatic ancient commanding position in the revo- duce
"Nobody,
I
am
afraid,
can
pro-
bad and wicked theater for
Replying to the foregoing clues-
Is Feuchtwanger a Jewish
Jewish politician and historian; lutionary movement, but his Uto- seven years without suffering
writer? After the publication of tion, Feuchtwanger writes: "I
"Double, Double, Toil and Trou- pion notions are cruelly discard- impairment of talent. Strangely "Power"
he was frequently asked strive to view developments in
ble," the hero of which is ad- ed, one by one, until the real enough, art will decay together
mittedly patterned after an his- power over the people is seen with the soul. Strangely enough, a whether he regarded himself as their historical perspective. Re-
German or as a Jewish writer. garded in such light, it seems to
torical personality, Hitler's mind- to be in the hands of a big in- a good actor cannot play against In
1928 he admitted, in "The '
reader, the Jewish renegade dustrialist. A curious fate befell his inner convictions without be-
ne t those earlier views of mine
American
Hebrew," that his lose none of their validity. While
Steinschnoider (alias Hanussen) "1918" when it was ready to he coming a less good actor." ("At-
works, in substance. p robably in- atavistic forces born of abysmal
and, his latest work, ,, simone, ,, performed at Munich, it had to lantic Monthly," April, 1941.)
dined more toward the Jewish, millennia are battling against
the story of a modern Jeanne be removed from the repertoire
Three other books by Feucht- but added that in form (style) Reason, I deem it essential tac-
d'Arc in Nazi-occupied France. under pressure of the Kapp- wanger were best sellers in pre- they were preponderantly Ger- tically to avow one's identity
Feuchtwanger did not have to Putsch. A performance at Muen- Hitler Germany, and were trans- man.
He understood that the with a Community which, since
persuade literary agents to read stet, in the Rhineland, resulted lated into numerous languages: problem
could not be solved its very first emergence in his-
his manuscripts, nor to hunt for in riots; the police appeared and
"Die haessliche Herzogin" ("The through cutting the Gordian knot tory, has acknowledged spiritual-
publishers, as he has been famous the performance was stopped. Ugly Duchess"), the heroine of by simply calling oneself an "in-
in this country since 1926 when Altogether, Feuchtwanger h a s which is Margarete. Maultasch, a ternational" writer. On the one ity to be its *sole principle."
his novel "Power" became the about a dozen plays to his credit. 14th century ruler of Tyrol;
topic of the hour. Tho the Ger- including a daring translation of "Erfolg" ("Success"), which s a- hand he declared : "It is highly
Self-examination is painful.
man-speaking world, however, the Aristophanes' comedy, "The tirizes the early days of Hitler- irrational to insist on the preset-
—Udanavaraga.
auth•..,e' "bewundert viel und vie! Peace," and a beautiful poetic ism, and "Der juedische Krieg"
gescholten," has been known version of "Vasantasena," the
(Josephus), the first part of his
• i 0 0 1111 ia lisc 0 ip
since the early days of the First old Hindoo play. Although sev- portrayal of the man who was
World War. era] of his dramas were trans-
Feuchtwanger is the son of a lated into English. the dramatist unusually gifted but, in many
vital respects, as shifting as sand.
wealthy Jewish industrialist. He Feuchtwanger is little known to
The Nazis have hated Feuchts
hails from Munich, capital of the Anglo-Saxon world.
winger because he had unmasked
the true meaning of Hitlerism in
e#
his novel, "Success," and they
considered his work "Asphaltlit-
eratur" because it was interna-
*
(
ii
it
oix9 it
i
S
t
tionalistic and realistic, the exact
•
opposite of their "Blubo" ( Blut
und Belden) concept of literature. ir
Feuchtwanger happened to be
•
—
I
touring the United States in the I
crucial winter of 1932-33. Only
I
four clays before Hitler was ap-
(Established 1914)
pointed Chancellor of the Reich,
•
Feuchtwanger delivered an ad- i
High Grade Interior Decorating and Painting
dress on "Nationalism" and "Ju-
Modern Paint Styling and Interpretations
daism" before the Men's Club
of the Congregation Emanu-El in
•
New York City. "Power makes
I
Residence
Office
stupid," he quoted Nietzsche.
TYler 4-2617
TYler 6.7720
arch-theoretician of power, and
he added : "I have tried in my
osephus,' to
books, 'Power' and 'Josephus,'
show the way of such Jews who
*S
-
went from power to intellect,
°THE GRAINS ARE GREAT FOODS"
who found their way back from
Nietzsche to Buddha, or, if you
wish, from Samson to Isaiah."
Feuchtwanger also happened to
Between Webb and Tuxedo
be in Washington at a banquet
given in his honor by the Ger-
man ambassador when the radio
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