23. March 2009 by admin.

Clip from Herb Krill’s documentary Feuchtwanger Lebt! in which Edgar F. talks about Lion’s library.

Credits:
Herbert Krill, 2008
originally broadcast on 3sat

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23. March 2009 by admin.

A clip from Michael Verhoeven’s new film Menschliches Versagen in which Edgar F. describes how other members of the Feuchtwanger family reacted to the publication of Erfolg.

Credits:Arthaus, Sentana FilmRegie: Michael Verhoeven 2008  *****May 4th update: The film has just been awarded a prize at the 15th Jewish Film Festival in Berlin and Potsdam for best German documentary with Jewish themes.**** 

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22. March 2009 by admin.

Jochen Freydank, 2009 Oscar winner for short film, in conversation with filmmaker Herb Krill at the 2009 Oscars party at Villa Aurora. Minute 4:44 onwards: Mr. Freydank expresses his enthusiasm for the works of Lion Feuchtwanger and discusses the likelihood of a remake of Jud Süss.

Credits:Interview/Regie: Herbert KrillKamera: Juerg WaltherOriginally broadcast on Kulturzeit (3sat) in February 2009.

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22. March 2009 by admin.

Sigmund Freud’s reactions upon reading Die Geschwister Oppermann:

freud-on-feuchtwanger.pdf

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22. March 2009 by admin.

Info/schedule for 13th June reading by Manfred Fluegge in Berlin here.

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22. March 2009 by admin.

Peter Feibelman in New Mexico offers the following account of the background to the Oppermanns story:

“A few years ago, I mentioned to a professor I knew, of Spanish origin, that I was planning a trip to Spain and hoped to visit some of the Jewish remnants there. He recommended that if I wanted to have a sense of what life was like for the Jews in Spain, prior to 1492, I would do well to read Lion Feuchtwanger’s “Raquel, the Jewess of Toledo.” I did that, loved the novel and found that it did enhance my visits to the old Jewish quarters of Toledo and Seville (with everything still therebut the Jews!).

A couple of years later, as I was completing a purchase on amazon.com, a message popped up saying that I could save the cost of shipping if I would spend more than $25. Remembering “Raquel,” I decided to look at the list of books available by Mr.Feuchtwanger, and ended up buying “The Oppermanns,” in Ruth Gruber’s translation.Reading it was a startling experience for me. As you know, the story revolves around a family in Berlin whose patriarch had founded a furniture business. As the Nazis gain strength, an employee, feeling empowered by his membership in the Nazi movement, becomes more and more demanding, and eventually takes the business away from the Oppermann family. I was very curious about this story because of itssimilarity to that of my own grandfather, Isidor Feibelmann.In partnership with a cousin, he ran a furniture factory and store in Munich (Gebrüder Rehbock, with the retail outlet at Dienerstrasse 20), until a very similar fate befell him. In this regard, here is an excerpt from my father’s memoir:“When I returned to Munich, my father and his partners no longer had the last word in their business. A long-time salesman and father’s right-hand man, who had known me since I was a small boy, and who had taught me to play water-polo during the summer months, suddenly found that he was really an Aryan and - maybe under pressure - had joined the Nazi party. He was appointed Betriebsrat in our retail store, andthus became the boss of my father and his partners, the Rehbocks. In our factory,located in an outlying part of the city, the Betriebsrat was Eugen Eisele, whom father had hired some years earlier for his expertise in furniture manufacturing.(Neither father nor his partners knew much about the actual processes of manufacture.) Eisele had been a Nazi sympathizer for years, though he had tried to hide it as long as he could. As it turned out later, he had shown his loyalty by purposely underestimating his production costs, and thus selling his products at a loss to the company. When asked why he did this, he replied that he didn’t want the Jews to make any money. This was a way to hurt them without being found out. By the time father learned what had been going on, that his trusted employee was really his enemy, it was much too late to do anything about it. (Father’s view had always been to trust everybody until he proved himself untrustworthy. But with the Nazis, this policy backfired time and again).Father had intended that I would start working in our business as soon as I returned from my apprenticeship in Berlin, and get to know both its retail and manufacturing components. However, when I first visited my father in his store, the Betriebsrat told us that I could not work in our business. No more Jews would be allowed. The man in the retail store allowed me to visit my father occasionally without anyone else there. The man in the factory, however, strictly forbade me to enter the premises and threatened me with arrest if I disobeyed his order.”So, as in The Oppermanns, the business was taken from my family by Nazi employees.  As I read on, I came to an anecdote about a Jewish gymnasium student who was expelled from school after some Hitler-sympathizing students had placed a truncheon in his briefcase, and then “discovered” this evidence of his plans to do mischief against them. [It’s a while since I read the book. So, I may be misremembering someof the details.] Feuchtwanger identifies the Jewish student as “little Jakob Feibelmann.”This stopped me in my tracks. Of all Jewish names, Feibelmann is hardly a common one. I concluded that Feuchtwanger, who was also from Munich, must have known my family and that my grandfather’s experience was a likely source of the story recounted in the book.The modern age being what it is, I decided to Google “Feibelman Feuchtwanger,” and was rewarded with a hit from the USC catalog of Lion Feuchtwanger’s papers, whichapparently held a communication between Mr. Feuchtwanger and a “Feibelman, Isidor,” i.e., my grandfather (who had dropped the 2nd n in his name, on immigrating).I called the library and they sent me a FAX of the communication. It turned out to be a postcard sent to Lion Feuchtwanger in care of the Aufbau in early 1942, shortly after my grandfather had arrived in the U.S. Here is what it says:“Sehr geehrter Herr! Würden Sie die Güte haben diese Karte Ihrem Bruder Dr. Ludwig Feuchtwanger, dessen Adresse ich leider nicht habe, zukommen zu lassen.Ich hoffe daß sich Ihr Bruder in diesem Lande befindet und daß es ihm und seiner Familie gut geht. Es wäre für mich eine recht große Freude wenn ich bald von ihm eine Lebenszeichen bekäme & danke Ihnen im Voraus für Ihre Vermittlung.Mit HochachtungIsidor Feibelman6111 Washington Blvd.St. Louis Mo.”So, evidently, my grandfather was a friend of your grandfather’s, but didn’t know Lion well enough to call him “Du.” I have no idea what may have followed this inquiry, for example, whether our grandfathers met some time later, or if there was further correspondence between them. I also don’t know that the story of the Oppermanns and their business was really inspired by my grandfather’s experiences inMunich.If you have any relevant information I would be grateful to receive it. My grandfather died in 1956, and my father in 2000. So, there is no one left in my family to ask.”Peter’s account of the mechanics of expropriation is tremendously useful to those seeking to understand how exactly this all took place. In LF’s fictionalized version one gets a sense of the resulting bitterness and desperation. AF

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21. March 2009 by admin.

Fritz Knilli makes the following assessment of the Felix Moeller film:

Harlan - Im Schatten von Jud Süß, ein Film von Felix Moeller

D 2008, 100 Minuten, Bundesstart: 23. April 2009

“Schade! Felix Moeller hat die einzigartige Chance, alle Harlans beieinander zu haben, vertan. Weit über die Hälfte des Films füllt er mit dummen Betroffenheitsfloskeln von Kindern, Enkel, Nichten und Neffen, die den Spielfilm „Jud Süß“ erst nach 1945 gesehen haben und nicht wissen, dass der Opa vor allem ein genialer Dieb war. Er klaute von Lion Feuchtwanger die wichtigsten Motive aus dem Roman „Jud Süß“, was Feuchtwanger sofort erkannte und bereits 1941 in einem „Offenen Brief“ der Weltöffentlichkeit mitteilte. Felix Moeller lässt erst im letzten Drittel die Familie Harlan zu Wort kommen. Einzelne Familienmitglieder erzählen ausführlicher über sich und dabei werden Biographien sichtbar, verbogen von der nach 1945 immer noch geltenden faschistischen Sippenhaftung, von der soziale Ächtung, die die Harlans nach 1945 erdulden mussten, wo immer sie auch lebten, auch heute noch. Ich wünsche mir, dass Felix Moeller dieses interessante Interviewmaterial zu einem Buch über die die Harlans verarbeitet, vergleichbar den „Feuchtwangers“ von Heike Specht. Denn auch die Familie Feuchtwanger lebte und lebt im Schatten von Jud Süß, den Lion Feuchtwanger bekannt machte, mit einem internationalen Besteller, der zweimal verfilmt wurde, 1934 von Lothar Mendes und 1940 von Veit Harlan. Die Autorenrechte an diesem zweiten Film werden Feuchtwanger auch 50 Jahre nach seinem Tod verweigert. Der Spielfilm „Jud Süß“ wurde verstaatlicht, er ist Eigentum der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.”

• Also reviewed in yesterday’s Sueddeutsche.
• Edgar F.’s earlier analysis here  (Sanary IFS ‘05)
• Watch trailer here: http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/harlan/
• [Addendum: The film is playing in select cinemas across the US as of summer 2010.]

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1. March 2009 by admin.

The Harry Bingham story and Lion’s part therein, in this month’s Smithsonian Magazine.

Susan Subak’s Rescue & Flight—American Relief Workers Who Defied the Nazis is coming out in May 2010. 

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