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52-500: The Panzergrenadier Division " Feldherrnhalle " was created on 20 June 1943 in the south of France by the renaming and reorganization of the 60th Infantry Division which had been destroyed at Stalingrad. Most of the recruits had previously been members of the SA or had undergone a training course in one of the twelve "Sturm Banners" scattered throughout the Reich. The name "Feldherrnhalle" was used by

104-434: A commemorative ceremony for him, which Bavarian authorities try to prevent through state and federal courts. 48°08′29″N 11°34′38″E  /  48.14139°N 11.57722°E  / 48.14139; 11.57722 Lion Feuchtwanger Lion Feuchtwanger ( German: [ˈliːɔn ˈfɔʏçtˌvaŋɐ] ; 7 July 1884 – 21 December 1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in

156-623: A design by Paul Ludwig Troost . It was a rectangular structure listing the names of the martyrs. This was under perpetual ceremonial guard by the SS. The square in front of the Feldherrnhalle (the Odeonsplatz ) was used for SS parades and commemorative rallies. During some of these events the sixteen dead were each commemorated by a temporary pillar placed in the Feldherrnhalle topped by a flame. New SS recruits took their oath of loyalty to Hitler in front of

208-624: A harrowing escape from continental Europe , he found asylum in the United States, where he died in 1958. Feuchtwanger's Jewish ancestors originated from the Middle Franconian city of Feuchtwangen ; following a pogrom in 1555, it had expelled all its resident Jews. Some of the expellees subsequently settled in Fürth , where they were called the "Feuchtwangers", meaning those from Feuchtwangen. Feuchtwanger's grandfather Elkan moved to Munich in

260-473: A major German author as well as giving him a royalty stream that afforded him a measure of financial independence for the rest of his life. His drama and his hugely successful novel were adapted for the cinema screen initially in a sympathetic version produced at Denham Studios in Great Britain in 1934 under the direction of fellow German expatriate Lothar Mendes with one of Germany's greatest actors, also

312-538: A refugee from Nazi persecution, Conrad Veidt : Jew Süss . The NSDAP party in Germany then made their own anti-Semitic version under the very same title, to undercut the British film. The Nazi film industry version was made under the direction of Veit Harlan : Jud Süß (1940). Unlike the British version, the anti-Semitic film, released in 1940, portrays Oppenheimer as an evil character. In January 1933, Hitler becomes

364-508: A result of the failure of the so-called Beer Hall Putsch , Hitler was arrested and sentenced to a prison term. After the Nazis took power in 1933, Hitler turned the Feldherrnhalle into a memorial to the Nazis killed during the failed putsch. A memorial to the fallen SA men was put up on its east side, opposite the location of the shootings. This monument, called the Mahnmal der Bewegung was created to

416-817: A similar mission as Fry). Waitstill Sharp volunteered to accompany Feuchtwanger by rail from Marseille, across Spain, to Lisbon . Had Feuchtwanger been recognized at border crossings in France or Spain, he would have been detained and turned over to the Gestapo . Realizing that Feuchtwanger might be abducted by Nazi agents even in Portugal, Martha Sharp gave up her own berth on the Excalibur so Feuchtwanger could sail immediately for New York City with her husband. Feuchtwanger's arrival in New York in early October 1940 had adverse consequences on

468-459: A soldier contributed to his leftist writings. In 1916, he published a play based on the story of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer , which premiered in 1917, but Feuchtwanger withdrew it a couple of years later as he was dissatisfied with it. During the German Revolution of 1918–1919 , Feuchtwanger was ill and unable to participate. Feuchtwanger soon became a figure in the literary world, and he

520-494: A study of Heinrich Heine 's unfinished 1840 novel The Rabbi of Bacharach . After studying a variety of subjects, he became a theatre critic and founded the culture magazine Der Spiegel in 1908 (no connection to the post-WWII magazine of the same name ). The first issue appeared on 30 April. After 15 issues and six months, Der Spiegel merged with Siegfried Jacobsohn 's journal Die Schaubühne (renamed in 1918 to Die Weltbühne ) for which Feuchtwanger continued to write. He

572-413: A study of the tragedy caused by the human weaknesses of greed, pride, and ambition. The novel was rejected by the major publishing houses and then was reluctantly taken on by a small publishing house. However, 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. The novel's success established Feuchtwanger as

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624-630: Is a citation from Lion Feuchtwanger 's novel Erfolg  [ de ] . A sculptural group by Ferdinand von Miller was added to the centre of the monument in 1892, after the Franco-Prussian War , representing the victory over the French and the unification of Germany. The lions are a work of Wilhelm von Rümann , added in 1906 in imitation of the Medici lions of the Loggia dei Lanzi. The Feldherrnhalle

676-598: The Roman upstart Terentius Maximus , who had claimed to be Nero , with Hitler. After leaving Germany in 1933, Feuchtwanger lived in Sanary-sur-Mer. The high sales of his books, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, allowed him a relatively comfortable life in exile. In 1940, he finished Wartesaal with the third novel, Exil (translated into English as Paris Gazette ) When France declared war on Germany in 1939, Feuchtwanger

728-616: The Soviet Union . In his book, Moskau 1937 , he praised life under Joseph Stalin . Feuchtwanger also defended the Great Purge and the show trials which were then taking place against both real and imagined Trotskyites and " enemies of the people ". Feuchtwanger's praise of Stalin triggered outrage from Arnold Zweig and Franz Werfel . The book has been criticized by Trotskyists as a work of naive apologism . Feuchtwanger's friendly attitude toward Stalin later delayed his naturalization in

780-682: The </ref>United States via Spain and Portugal, staying briefly in Estoril , with the help of several Americans involved in helping artists and writers in danger of persecution by Nazi Germany escape Nazi-controlled Europe. His rescuers included Varian Fry (an American journalist who helped refugees escape from occupied France); Hiram Bingham IV (US Vice Consul in Marseille); Myles Standish (US Vice Consul in Marseille); Waitstill Sharp and Martha Sharp (a Unitarian minister and his wife who were in Europe on

832-744: The British and French governments abandoned their policy of appeasement towards Hitler. He remembered that American politicians were also among those who suggested that "Hitler be given a chance". With the publication of Success in 1930 and The Oppermanns in 1933, he became a prominent spokesman in opposition to the Third Reich . Within a year, the novel was translated into the Czech , Danish , English, Finnish , Hebrew , Hungarian , Norwegian , Polish and Swedish languages. In 1936, still in Sanary, he wrote The Pretender ( Der falsche Nero ), in which he compared

884-537: The Chancellor of Germany. Feuchtwanger reacted to the regime change with the novel The Oppermanns . At first, Feuchtwanger was writing it as a screenplay proposed by the British Government, however, it was never completed and instead was reworked into a novel, resulting in the book's style, which differs with quick-cuts and literary montage sequences. After being released the same year, it instantly became popular and

936-657: The Feldherrnhalle at the behest of King Ludwig I of Bavaria after the example of the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence . The Feldherrnhalle was a symbol of the honours of the Bavarian Army, represented by statues of two military leaders Johann Tilly and Karl Philipp von Wrede . The first led Bavarians in the Thirty Years War ; the second led the fight against Napoleon. The statues were created by Ludwig Schwanthaler . Right from

988-625: The German-speaking ones. In 2022, the novel was rediscovered, and a new version of the English translation of The Oppermanns was released, with an introduction by Joshua Cohen , who also noted the lack of Feuchtwanger's popularity in English-speaking countries. Given that Feuchtwanger’s books were so explicitly and accessibly addressed to a general audience, it’s poignant that he has none now. His novels go unread; his plays go unperformed; he’s

1040-659: The United States. During the McCarthy era , Feuchtwanger became the target of suspicion as a pro-Soviet intellectual. In 1947 he wrote a play about the Salem Witch Trials , Wahn oder der Teufel in Boston ( Delusion, or The Devil in Boston ), thus anticipating the theme of The Crucible (1953) by Arthur Miller ; Wahn premiered in Germany in 1949. It was translated by June Barrows Mussey and performed in Los Angeles in 1953 under

1092-744: The Western Powers pursuing a policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (the Anglo-German Naval Treaty of 1935; allowing the German reoccupation of the Rhineland (1936); non-intervention against the 1936 Falangist Coup in Spain ; Italy's attack on Abyssinia in 1935), Feuchtwanger flirted with Soviet communism out of a longing to find the staunchest enemy of Germany's National Socialism. From November 1936 to February 1937 he travelled to

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1144-671: The brief battle that ended Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch . During the Nazi era, it served as a monument commemorating the deaths of the 15 Nazis and one bystander killed during the revolt. The Feldherrnhalle was built between 1841 and 1844 at the southern end of Munich's Ludwigstrasse next to the Palais Preysing and southwest of the Hofgarten . Previously, the Gothic Schwabinger Tor (gate) occupied that place. Friedrich von Gärtner built

1196-655: The coast and remained an important figure in the exile community, devoting the remainder of her life to the work of her husband. Before her death in 1987, Marta Feuchtwanger donated her husband's papers, photos and personal library to the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library , housed within the Special Collections of the Doheny Memorial Library at the University of Southern California . Feuchtwanger

1248-737: The division moved to northern France to the Arras-Doullens area and at the beginning of December 1943 to the Eastern Front. Here it took up defensive positions as part of the 3rd Panzer Army in the area of Vitebsk . In February it was sent to the North to fight in the Battle of Narva . In May 1944, it returned to Army Group Centre and fought against the Soviet Mogilev Offensive in June. The division

1300-609: The division surrendered to the Soviets in May 1945 at Německý Brod . Feldherrnhalle The Feldherrnhalle ("Field Marshals' Hall") is a monumental loggia on the Odeonsplatz in Munich , Germany . Modelled after the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence , it was commissioned in 1841 by King Ludwig I of Bavaria to honour the tradition of the Bavarian Army . In 1923, it was the site of

1352-452: The escape organizations in France. The novelist "out of an unplumbable naivete or an unforgivable and opportunistic ego" described his escape in detail to The New York Times. His rescuers in France were endangered by Feuchtwanger's indiscretions. The news story soon got to Europe with the consequence that Spain closed its borders, possibly under pressure from Nazi Germany. The closed border with Spain caused rescue operations to nearly cease for

1404-519: The events of Beer Hall Putsch , as his reaction on the impending threat of Nazism; the novel would become the first entry in Wartesaal trilogy about the rise of Nazism in Germany. He continued the trilogy with The Oppermanns in 1933, which would become one of his best-known books. Feuchtwanger was one of the first to produce propaganda against Hitler and the Nazi Party. As early as 1920 he published in

1456-421: The fabric of German society." In 2018, Deutsche Welle put the novel in their "100 German Must-Reads" list, called it "Feutchwanger's most recognized novel" and wrote that today it is "considered one of the most important literary works documenting the downfall of a democracy". As Roffman noted, Feuchtwanger's popularity has declined after 1950s in the English-speaking countries, while remaining strong in

1508-587: The inflation era. The Nazis soon began persecuting him, and while he was on a speaking tour of America, in Washington, D.C. , he was guest of honor at a dinner hosted by the then ambassador Friedrich Wilhelm von Prittwitz und Gaffron on the same day (30 January 1933) that Hitler was appointed Chancellor . The next day, Prittwitz resigned from the diplomatic corps and called Feuchtwanger to recommend that he not return home. Feuchtwanger, however, did not heed his advice and returned to Germany. In 1933, while Feuchtwanger

1560-614: The list of those whose German citizenship was revoked because of "disloyalty to the German Reich and the German people." Because Feuchtwanger had addressed and predicted many of the Nazis' crimes even before they came to power, Hitler considered him a personal enemy, and the Nazis designated Feuchtwanger as the "Enemy of the state number one," as mentioned in The Devil in France . In his writings, Feuchtwanger exposed Nazi racist policies years before

1612-510: The literary world of Weimar Germany , he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht . Feuchtwanger's Judaism and fierce criticism of the Nazi Party , years before it assumed power, ensured that he would be a target of government-sponsored persecution after Adolf Hitler 's appointment as chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Following a brief period of internment in France and

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1664-518: The memorial. Passers-by were expected to hail the site with the Nazi salute . Consequently, some people tried to avoid this. The structure's back side was (and still is) occupied by a Rococo palace, the Palais Preysing , in front of which runs a lane, the Viscardigasse . This little detour helped to bypass the hall, subsequently earning it the nickname "Drückebergergasse" (lit. 'shirker's lane'). One of

1716-535: The middle of the 19th century. Lion Feuchtwanger was born in 1884 to Orthodox Jewish margarine manufacturer Sigmund Feuchtwanger and his wife, Johanna (née Bodenheimer). He was the oldest in a family of nine siblings of whom another two, Martin and Ludwig Feuchtwanger , also became authors; Ludwig's son is the London-based historian Edgar Feuchtwanger (born 1924). Two of his sisters settled in Palestine following

1768-467: The most prestigious decorations of the Nazi Party , the Blood Order medal, featured a relief of the entrance to the Feldherrnhalle on its reverse under an angled swastika and sun rays. At the end of the war the Feldherrnhalle was restored to its pre-Nazi appearance. Local people spontaneously smashed the Mahnmal der Bewegung to pieces on 3 June 1945. In the 1950s a plan to move Bavaria's memorial to

1820-534: The novel The Oppermanns . Feuchtwanger and his wife did not return to Germany but moved to Southern France , settling in Sanary-sur-Mer . His works were included among those burned in the 10 May 1933 Nazi book burnings held across Germany. Later Success and The Oppermanns would become the first two parts of the Wartesaal ("The Waiting Room") trilogy. On 25 August 1933, the official German government gazette, Reichsanzeiger , included Feuchtwanger's name on

1872-522: The original infantry regiment 271 or its 3rd Battalion. The name refers to the Field Marshals' Hall in Munich , site of combat in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch . During the division's formation, it was stationed in the Nimes–Montpellier area. At the beginning of September 1943, the division took part in the disarmament of the 8th Italian Army as part of Operation Achse . At the end of October 1943,

1924-618: The remainder of the year. Granted political asylum in the United States, Feuchtwanger settled in Los Angeles in 1941, when he published a memoir of his internment, The Devil in France ( Der Teufel in Frankreich ). In 1943, Feuchtwanger bought Villa Aurora in Pacific Palisades, California ; he continued to write there until his death in 1958. In 1944, he cofounded the publishing house Aurora-Verlag in New York City . In response to

1976-557: The rise of the Nazi Party. One was killed in a concentration camp, and another settled in New York. Feuchtwanger made his first attempt at writing while still a secondary-school student and won an award. In 1903, in Munich, he passed his Abitur examinations at an elite school, the Wilhelmsgymnasium . He then studied history, philosophy and German philology in Munich and Berlin . He received his PhD in 1907, under Francis Muncker , with

2028-471: The satirical text Conversations with the Wandering Jew : Towers of Hebrew books were burning, and bonfires were erected as high as the clouds, and people burnt to char, innumerable, and voices of priests sang in accompaniment: Gloria in excelsis Deo . Traces of men, women, children dragged themselves across the square, from all sides, they were naked or in rags, and they had nothing with them but bodies and

2080-402: The start, some Munich folk used to (and still do) ridicule the two persons honoured in the "Bayerische Feldherrnhalle" (lit. 'Bavarian Hall of Field Commanders / Field Marshals') in reference to the descendance of Tilly and the military strategic capabilities of Wrede: "The one / first was" indeed "never anything like a Bavarian and the second / other" imputedly "never anything like a Feldherr". It

2132-406: The tatters of book scrolls – of torn, disgraced book scrolls, soiled with feces. And there followed them men in kaftans and women and children in the clothes of our day, countlessly, endlessly. In 1930, Feuchtwanger published Erfolg ( Success )  [ de ; ru ; uk ] , a fictionalized account of the rise and fall of the Nazi Party (in 1930, he considered it a thing of the past) during

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2184-616: The title "The Devil in Boston." In New York a Yiddish translation was shown. At the end of life, Feuchtwanger dealt with Jewish themes again ( The Jewess of Toledo ) and advocated for the State of Israel as a Jewish refuge. In 1953, Feuchtwanger won the National Prize of East Germany first Class for art and literature. Lion Feuchtwanger became ill with stomach cancer in 1957. After several operations he died from internal bleeding in late 1958. His wife Marta continued to live in their house on

2236-433: The unknown soldier to the Feldherrnhalle was halted on the grounds that it could provide an excuse for neo-Nazis to meet at the site. On 25 April 1995, Reinhold Elstner, a World War II veteran, committed self-immolation in front of Feldhernhalle to protest against "the ongoing official slander and demonization of the German people and German soldiers". Each year neo-fascist groups from various European countries try to hold

2288-583: Was Jud Süß ( Süss, the Jew ), written 1921–1922, published 1925, which was well received internationally. His second great success was The Ugly Duchess Margarete Maultasch . For professional reasons, he moved to Berlin in 1925 and then to a large villa in Grunewald in 1932. He published the first part of his Josephus trilogy, The Jewish War , in 1932. In 1930, and wrote his first socio-political novel Erfolg ( Success )  [ de ; ru ; uk ] , based on

2340-514: Was already well known throughout Germany in 1925, when his first popular novel, Jud Süß ( Jew Suss ), appeared. The story of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer had been the subject of a number of literary and dramatic treatments over the course of the past century, the earliest Wilhelm Hauff 's 1827 novella. The most successful literary adaptation was Feuchtwanger's 1925 novel , based on a play he had written in 1916 but then withdrawn. Feuchtwanger intended his portrayal of Süß not as an antisemitic slur but as

2392-766: Was destroyed during the Soviet Minsk Offensive in July 1944, as part of Operation Bagration . The Division was recreated on 1 September 1944 in Warthelager and then in Hungary in the Debrecen area. On 27 November 1944, the division was renamed Panzer-Division Feldherrnhalle and again destroyed during the Battle of Budapest in February 1945. The division was recreated again as Panzer-Division Feldherrnhalle 1 . The remnants of

2444-416: Was interned for a few weeks in Camp des Milles . When the Germans invaded France in 1940, Feuchtwanger was captured and again imprisoned at Les Milles. Later, the prisoners of Les Milles were moved to a makeshift tent-camp near Nîmes because of the advance of German troops. From there, he was smuggled to Marseille disguised as a woman. After months of waiting in Marseille, he fled with his wife Marta to

2496-509: Was on tour, his house was ransacked by government agents who stole or destroyed many items from his extensive library, including invaluable manuscripts of some of his projected works (one of the characters in The Oppermanns undergoes an identical experience). In the summer of 1933, his name appeared on the first of Hitler's Ausbürgerungsliste , which were documents by which the Nazis arbitrarily deprived Germans of their citizenship and so rendered them stateless. During that time, he published

2548-416: Was one of the contributors of the Swedish avant-garde magazine Thalia between 1910 and 1913. In 1912, he married a Jewish merchant's daughter, Marta Loeffler . She was pregnant at the wedding, but the child died shortly after birth. After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Feuchtwanger served in the German military (November 1914), but was released early for health reasons. His experience as

2600-482: Was sought out by the young Bertolt Brecht . Both collaborated on drafts of Brecht's early work, The Life of Edward II of England , in 1923–1924. According to Feuchtwanger's widow, Marta, Feuchtwanger was a possible source for the titles of two other Brecht works, including Drums in the Night (first called Spartakus by Brecht). After some success as a playwright, Feuchtwanger shifted his emphasis to writing historical novels. His most successful work in this genre

2652-485: Was the scene of a confrontation on Friday morning, 9 November 1923, between the Bavarian State Police and the followers of Adolf Hitler in which the Nazi Party attempted to storm the Bavarian Defense Ministry. This was the culmination of the Nazis' failed coup attempt to take over the Bavarian State, commonly referred to as the Beer Hall Putsch . In the ensuing gun battle, four policemen and 15 putschists were killed. Many more were wounded, including Hermann Göring . As

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2704-439: Was translated into over 10 languages. Klaus Mann later praised the novel as the "most striking, most widely read narrative description of the calamity that descended over Germany"; Frederick S. Roffman wrote in The New York Times in 1983 that "no single historical or fictional work has more tellingly or insightfully depicted the relentless disintegration of German humanism, the insidious manner in which Nazism began to permeate

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