The Oppermanns (McNally Editions)

by Lion Feuchtwanger

The Oppermanns immerses us in these oppositions, and in our own contradictions, and reminds us, every time we leave the page to check our phones, that just reading a novel about the German 1930s—a novel about pervasive surveillance and militarized policing, and about how the fake-news threats of “migrants” and “terrorism” can be manipulated to curtail civil liberties and crush democratic norms—will never be enough to prevent any of that from ever happening again.

short on time, short on paper and ink, short on everything but purpose. In the nine months between the spring and the fall of 1933, he conjured up an entire world and chronicled its destruction, which he set within another nine-month span, more-or-less simultaneous—specifically, between the last free elections of the Weimar Republic in winter 1932 and Hitler’s outlawing of non-Nazi parties and dissolution of the Reichstag in summer 1933. In other words, Feuchtwanger wrote The Oppermanns in real time, as the events he was writing about were still unfolding, and even while he was suffering the same tragedies as his characters: in 1933, his property in Berlin was seized; his books were purged from German libraries and burned; he was banned from publishing in the Reich; and he was stripped of his German citizenship.

“There is nothing the rabble fears more than intelligence. If they understood what is truly terrifying, they would fear ignorance.” —Goethe

Dear Sir: Take note of this for the rest of your life: It is upon us to begin the work. It is not upon us to complete it.

A group had gathered around another of the boys, Werner Rittersteg. There were six or seven of them and they were the Nationalists of the class. They had not had an easy time of it so far, but they were coming into their own now. They put their heads together. They whispered and laughed and put on important airs. The senior master Vogelsang was a member of the executive committee of the Young Eagles. That was quite something. The Young Eagles were the secret society of the youth of Germany, and the atmosphere around that society was full of adventure and secrecy. They formed blood-brotherhoods; they had a secret court. Whoever betrayed their slightest plan was cruelly punished. The whole thing was enormously exciting. The senior master Vogelsang would certainly let them join.

Suppose he listens to what the Leader says every day on the radio? Suppose he believes it? Alas, he’s not very strong in the head. Don’t credit people with too much sense, gentlemen.

“Don’t try to frighten me with your old wives’ tales. There are no pogroms in Germany nowadays. That’s all over. It’s been over for more than a hundred years. For one hundred and fourteen years, to be precise. Do you believe that this whole nation of sixty-five million people has ceased to be a cultured people because it has conferred freedom of speech upon a few fools and scoundrels?

Rector François sat in a weary, melancholy mood in his big office between the busts of Voltaire and Frederick the Great. Of the spirit of Voltaire there was no longer any trace in Queen Louise School, and of the spirit of Frederick the Great only its worst side. It was seldom now that any of his assistant masters dared to make open profession of the liberalism that had formerly been the most admirable feature of his school. There was no longer any talk of the possibility of Vogelsang being replaced. On the contrary, François had to look on with folded hands while that man ruined the pliant minds of his pupils forever.

“Don’t lose heart, Oppermann,” he said. “I beg of you, in particular, not to lose heart. We all have our parts to play. And the better a man is the more difficult he finds his part.

Could it really be true that this folly was destined to swallow up all the rest? Did people really want to let lunatics rule instead of locking them up?

Don’t forget, Edgar, that our opponents have one tremendous advantage over us; their absolute lack of fairness. That is the very reason why they are in power today. They have always employed such primitive methods that the rest of us simply did not believe them possible, for they would not have been possible in any other country. They have simply shot down most of the important leaders of the Left, one after the other. They were not punished. To return to the point, you must believe me, Edgar, when I say that you will not find a single judge in Germany today who will condemn the writer of those articles. And after the elections you will not find a single court that will so much as permit you to lodge your complaint.”

Where had her five senses been when she married him, dishrag and milksop that he was!

Inconsistency and deceit were the underlying characteristics of all the actions of their leaders. Their speech was deceitful, and so was their silence. They got up with a lie, and they went to sleep with a lie. Their discipline was a lie, their code of laws a lie, their judgments a lie, their German a lie, their science a lie, their sense of justice and their faith were lies. Their nationalism, their socialism were lies, their ethical philosophy was a lie, and so was their love. Everything was a lie, only one thing about them was genuine: their hate!