21. December 2007 by admin.

Tickets for the Jud Süss exhibition, screenings and lectures at the Haus der Geschichte in Stuttgart, which will include a screening of the 1934 film as well as the Vorbehaltsfilm (see December 7, 2007 blogpost for articles on the subject by Edgar F.), are evidently selling well.

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15. December 2007 by admin.

Interesting to see the prices being asked by an antiquarian books dealer in Tutzing for three Lion autographs, in these instances signed letters from his dramatist/critic period during WWI and a letter from 1954 about the depiction of Therese in Narrenweisheit. Thanks Roland!

Feuchtwanger, Lion, Schriftsteller  (1884-1958). 2 eigenh. Briefe mit U.
München, “Prielmaierstr. 10″, 3. X. und 2.  XI. 1914. 8°. 2 Seiten.  (Bestellnr: 
27166)                                                                        
                                 
€ 400,-
An die Direktion des Deutschen Theaters in  Berlin:

“[…] ich gestatte mir,
Ihnen in der Anlage meine Übertragung der  ‘Perser’ des Aischylos zu
übersenden. Diese wuchtigste Kriegs- und  Siegesdichtung aller Literaturen ist
bislang noch nicht in erträgliches Deutsch  übersetzt worden. Mit der Bitte um gütige
baldige Prüfung […]” - “[…] da ich  am 7. November zum Militär einrücken
muß, und da nach den Veröffentlichungen in  der Schaubühne eine andere Berliner
Bühne mich ersucht hat, ihr meine  Perser-Übersetzung zu überlassen, wäre ich
Ihnen für freundlichen baldigen  Bescheid über das Werk sehr verbunden […]”

- Feuchtwangers Übersetzung  erschien zuerst in Fortsetzungen in “Die
Schaubühne” (1914, Nrn. 41-52) und dann  unter dem Titel “Die Perser des Aischylos;
Übersetzung und Nachdichtung” 1915  bei Georg Müller im Druck. -
Eingangsvermerke in Bleistift. - Selten so  früh.

Feuchtwanger, Lion,  Schriftsteller (1884-1958). 2 eigenh. Briefe mit U.
München, “Prinzregentenstr.  6 a” und “Thierschstr. 14/4″, 22. IV. und 5. VI.
1915. Gr.-4°. 2 Seiten.  Gedruckte Briefköpfe.  (Bestellnr:  27167)        

€ 500,-
An die Direktion des Deutschen Theaters in  Berlin (Arthur Kahane;
1872-1932):

“[…] ich habe mir erlaubt, dem Deutschen  Theater ein Drama ‘Julia
Farnese’ einzusenden. Nun haben mir etliche Berliner  Kritiker von Rang so viel
Anerkennendes über das Werk geschrieben, daß ich Ihnen  doppelt verbunden wäre,
wenn Sie es bald zu lesen die Güte hätten […]” -  “[…] ich habe mir erlaubt,
dem Deutschen Theater vor geraumer Zeit durch den  Drei Masken Verlag mein
Trauerspiel Julia Farnese einreichen zu lassen. Das  Stück wurde mittlerweile von
Hamburg, Frankfurt und München angenommen, und  nicht unmaßgebliche Berliner
Kritiker haben mir sehr Freundliches über das Werk  gesagt. Vielleicht
gestattet es Ihnen die ruhigere Sommersaison, das Stück zu  lesen […]”

- Das Stück
erschien als Buchausgabe 1915 bei Georg Müller. -  Eingangsvermerke in
Bleistift. - Selten so früh.

Feuchtwanger, Lion,  Schriftsteller (1884-1958). Masch. Brief mit eigenh. U.
Pacific Palisades, 17.  IV. 1954. 4°. 1 Seite. Gedruckter Briefkopf.
Luftpostpapier. Mit masch. Umschlag  und Frankatur.  (Bestellnr:  17554)    

€ 220,-
An Helmut Rudolf in Weimar als Antwort auf  dessen Artikel (im Börsenblatt
vom 4. April 1954; Fotokopie liegt bei):

“Die  Stellung der Therese ist nicht das
Hauptproblem” über Feuchtwangers Roman  “Narrenweisheit oder Tod und
Verklärung des Jean-Jacques Rousseau” (1952):  “[…] Selbstverstaendlich haben Sie
recht. Ich habe keinen Roman um Therese  Levasseur geschrieben, sondern eine
Erzaehlung von den Ideen Rousseau’s, von  seiner armen Wirklichkeit und seiner
grossen Wahrheit. Therese an sich war mir  voellig uninteressant; weder wollte
ich sie loben, noch schmaehen. Interessant  war mir nur, wie Jean-Jacques sie
sah […]”.

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9. December 2007 by admin.

Did some web-surfing today re Dieter Wedel, the “Wunderkind of German entertainment TV” who according to the Spiegel is planning to shoot another film version of Jud Süss for ZDF, to be explicitly based on Lion’s version of the Süss story. Pundits point out that when it comes to films based on historical figures, Wedel has a track record of announcing projects that do not come to fruition…

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9. December 2007 by admin.

Heike Specht’s Die Feuchtwangers—which  inter alia looks at how Lion’s upbringing left its mark on his work—has been warmly reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement (I am reliably informed; will post a copy of the review once I get my hands on it).

Edgar F. and Heike Specht in Munich in March ‘07

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9. December 2007 by admin.

The Carl Schmitt/Ludwig Feuchtwanger correspondence has just been published by Duncker & Humblot:

Contains an introduction by Edgar F. Book launch will take place in Berlin at the end of April 2008. An appropriate moment, therefore, for a post on Lion’s relationship with Ludwig F.  Here is Edgar F. on their post-war correspondence:  
“At the end of the war, in March 1945, my father went briefly back to Germany to work on the recovery and preliminary assessment of the archives of the Third Reich. He traveled under the auspices of the U.S. Army and with the rank of an American officer. During this time he wrote a series of letters to his brother Lion, in which he drew a vivid picture of the physical and moral conditions in devastated Germany and Bavaria. These letters are of such unusual length that one may speculate that Lion may well have asked his brother to give him his personal impressions of a situation that he would otherwise have known mainly from the newspapers. These letters are reproduced in the Nachwort, by the editor Rolf Rieß, to a book of essays by my father published by Duncker & Humblot in 2003.” [see below]

The book launch of these Ludwig F. collected essays was done in Munich in grand style, with a speech by Hans-Jochen Vogel. The Frankfurter Allgemeine ran the following piece on Ludwig F. in April ‘07.

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9. December 2007 by admin.

Lion to be in the movies again soon. Received an e-mail from documentary filmmaker Deborah Shaffer, who won an Oscar for best documentary in 1986 and is currently making a film on Waitstill Sharp. Along with Varian Fry (”the American Schindler”), Sharp was instrumental in Lion and Marta’s escape from internment in France in 1940. Told Deborah to get in contact with Susan Subak, who is writing a book on the subject. No indication as to when the film will be released.
Recent mainstream movies about internment in France in which Lion appears: Varian’s War with William Hurt as Fry and Les Milles, a French production with Kristin Scott Thomas in which Lion features prominently.

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9. December 2007 by admin.

Have received an e-mail from Manfred Flügge asking for any insights into Marta F. for his upcoming biography of her. Replied as follows (Edgar F. also provided reminiscences in a separate e-mail):  

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7. December 2007 by admin.

Links below are for blog readers who may be unfamiliar with Lion and his works. Wikipedia-style warning: Choice of sources lacks impartiality!

As general introduction to Lion and his works:
·        Ich trage einen grossen Namen, SWR gameshow on which blogmaster Adrian F. appeared (duration: 15 minutes; file size: 139 MB; download from www.feuchtwanger.com/Album.html, Feuchtwanger Family Values page). 

 At SWR, February 2001. Adrian F., with short hair in those days, is second from left, back row

In frequent re-run, including on Deutsche Welle, hence the occasional e-mail from far-flung viewers in Hawaii etc. Showed it at International Feuchtwanger Society ‘03, prompting laughter from conferees over one or two inaccuracies on the part of the program researchers.  

About Jud Süss and the films of that name:
·        Two versions of Edgar. F’s article, which originally appeared in the history magazine Damals and subsequently as a conference paper at International Feuchtwanger Society ‘05. Second article includes some interesting material about Lion’s relations with the rest of the family. 

About the Sanary period:
·        Audio segment from Deutschlandradio Kultur (www.dradio.de) program entitled ‘Einer Riecht die Heimat im Exil: Lion Feuchtwanger in Sanary-sur-Mer’, for which Edgar F. was interviewed in Sanary in 2005.  Also: written transcript of the entire program.
·        Antonia F.’s article for the October 9, 2005 travel section of the New York Times. A substantial chunk of Edgar F.’s summer this year was spent translating Manfred Flügge’s Sanary book Wider Willen in Paradies into English, which I then edited. To be published in due course. 

About Lion and Stalin:
·        I wrote this  article for Germano-Slavica not long after the Wall came down, when I was still young enough (!) to harbour illusions. I’ve since had a rethink in more sober times, and read various influential books such as Borderland by Anna Reid, a journalist based in Kiev in the early 1990s who also happens to be married to one of Antonia F.’s erstwhile boyfriends. She is critical of Lion’s failure to perform his journalistic duty, and there is obviously a sense in which she’s right. The Stalin visit was not Lion’s finest hour; however, as Jonathan Skolnik pointed out over dinner at International Feuchtwanger Society ‘07, with Moskau 1937 Lion served as it were as Stalin’s “good Jew”, and one may conjecture that given the highly autocratic nature of Stalin’s rule, this may have saved Russian Jewish lives.

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