German-Jewish novelist and playwright, a prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht.
His most successful historical novel Jud Süß (Jew Suss), the story of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, written 1921–1922, published 1925, was well-received internationally, being translated into 17 languages by 1931. The novel’s success established Feuchtwanger as 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. Jew Süss, a 1934 British historical romantic drama film based on Feuchtwanger’s novel stars German actor Conrad Veidt in the role of Oppenheimer.
Feuchtwanger’s Judaism and fierce criticism of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis), 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 a harrowing escape from Continental Europe, he found asylum in the United States, where he published a memoir of his internment, The Devil in France (Der Teufel in Frankreich, 1941).
Lion Feuchtwanger became ill with stomach cancer in 1957. After several operations he died from internal bleeding on 21 December 1958 at age 74 in Los Angeles.
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