The Oppermanns

I found out about this author from an exhibit in the Jewish Museum in Munich. This book was written in real time, 1933, as the Nazis were taking over in Germany and tells the story of the destruction of a reputable Jewish owned furniture business. The book shows how the crude idiocy of Nazism was able to overwhelm the refined and intellectually developed German culture bit by bit until the big lie had swept away all reason and with it, the rule of law. The important lesson, of course, is how this is mirrored by the in-the-open idiocy of Trump's big lie and his cult of truthers who are assaulting American democracy bit by unrelenting bit. Trump wasn't the first figure in history to declare he would not accept the results of an election he didn't win. Read this book and see, on a very personal level, how good people's lives are destroyed by hate and willful ignorance. A bonus is this edition incudes a brilliant introduction written by Joshua Cohen.

I wish I could give a good rating to this book also because nowadays the same constituencies that brought Nazism to power in Germany start to reemerge and rumble in Europe, in a much less truculent fashion but with similar cultural and social background. The book however is too badly written to get a high rating. The main characters are the three brothers and one sister of the well-to-do Oppermann family. The sister is a side line. The three brothers, we are told, are clever, worldly-wise, and sophisticated. Yet at every turn they take the most foolish and child-like decisions. After 50 pages of reading it's easy to predict what they are going to do next. There are parallel stories intertwined. Even knowing in advance what will happen next, that next doesn't arrive quickly because the stories interrupt each other as in a TV serial where the script is never linear simply to make the serial last longer. One of these parallel stories, that of Herr Wolfsohn, is really left without a final conclusion. And there is a list of sloppy stylistic and narrative aspects too long to go over. On page 215 of the James Cleugh translation there is a high school equation (only equation in a non scientific book) which is wrong: In my print at least, the equation is (a+b)^2 = a+2ab+b. It should of course be (a+b)^2 = a^2+2ab+b^2.

The Oppermans family saga centers on the four adult siblings of an affluent, thoroughly assimilated German Jewish family, and traces their individual lives as they are brought to personal and professional ruin. While this is entirely fiction, the distressing scenes and dialogues are familiar to any student of history. Feuchtwanger was intimately familiar with the subject matter, as he had already his house broken into, his books banned and burned, and his citizenship revoked. As an enemy of the Nazi state, he would eventually serve time in a concentration camp in Vichy France until the American journalist, Varian Fry, helped facilitate his escape (detailed in Feuchtwanger’s memoir “The Devil in France.”)The family’s initial response to the rise of the Nazis is disbelief, then skepticism that they would follow through on the rhetoric, and finally doubt that the nightmare would last. “A people which had reached so high a point of technical and industrial development did not lapse into barbarism in twenty-four hours.” But of course it did.The story also captures so well the agonizing situation facing German Jews. To wait it out, or to leave? And if to leave, to remain in Europe or to make a new life as a farmer in Palestine? But it wasn’t so simple. “If they had money, there were not allowed to take it with them, and other countries would not admit them unless they had money.”While some friends, coworkers and acquaintance stayed loyal and principled, others revealed themselves to be craven opportunists. “In the hospitals, in the University, on all sides, medical men without ability were seeing signs of hope. An era was beginning in which the requisites were no longer talent and accomplishment but the ostensible consanguinity to a certain race.”Reading The Oppermans, one must constantly remind oneself that Feuchtwanger wrote this before the Nuremburg Laws, before Kristallnacht and before World War II. One of the best novels of the interwar years and a memorable read.

This book is a thought-provoking story of 1930s Germany, and should be a shocking & awakening reading experience. Moreover, this story definitely exemplifies how a fascist movement can germinate, taking root quickly in a society and how difficult it is to totally eradicate. The crux is Evil can indeed prosper when regular people bury their heads in the sands of apathy, and do nothing. Is the same kind of movement taking root in America now? Will we stop it?

Stunning by any measure, but what hits this reader in the gut is that this novel was not written with historical hindsight. It was written in the heat of the moment, a moment so dreadful that it would drive most to agitprop or ranting. This is neither, although it does seem to be taken directly from experiences of those known personally to the author, and perhaps it is. The whole is as powerful an exposition of “how could this have happened?” as any historical analysis. Perhaps more so, as the stories are those of “relatable” human beings. As all reviewers have noted, what remains urgent and, unfortunately, timely about this novel is its exposition of “how this happens.” Every high school student should be taught this book to understand “how this could happen.” (Btw, I am baffled as to another reviewer’s criticism of the style: this book is lucidly written, smoothly clear and straightforward.) Read it with a shiver, grateful for its author’s accomplishment.

Educational, excellent historical facts, beautifully written, I couldn’t put it down.

I use this book for my own personal interest and I enjoy reading it.

Fast, brand new.

He builds a rich, alluring world before embarking on a cautionary tale of how quickly distant storm clouds can wash away a life of complacent privilege.

A New York Times review led me to this book: "Ninety Years Ago, This Book Tried to Warn Us" by Pamela Paul. (Oct. 6th, 2022) She sums her opinion up in : "It’s been nearly 90 years since its publication, but reading it now is like staring into the worst of next week"First of all - don't read the spoiler-laden so-called Introduction of the book till you've finished the book. Why do publishers insist on putting what are obviously "Afterwards" at the front of books? I never read introductions before I read the book.The book reads five times better than I expected and has a charming almost Anatole France atmosphere which would verge on the bizarre if it's understatement didn't make the book all that more powerful. The book is not heavy-handed or simplistic and obvious. The fact that the book was written in 1933 and not 1946 is critical and eye-opening. How did our ancestors ignore what was happening?Bravo Lion Feuchtwanger.