Technology will eliminate misinformation. At each turn, the Opposition and its troops found it difficult to believe that the propaganda would succeed. “How could they expect to get away with such a monstrous and clumsy lie?” Gustav Oppermann, central character in the novel, questioning himself after the Nazis blamed the burning of the Reichstag flag on the communists. “Nero could have put such cheap stuff in burning Rome. But such things would not have happened today, in the age of the telephone and the printed press.” Of course, the age of Twitter and TikTok has shown that advances in technology still amplify falsehoods.
If you ignore it, it will disappear. In the novel, two German bourgeoisie foresee a grim future but fall into complacency. One person described the first world war as “just a veiled curtain” with “a century of destruction” to watch, anticipating, as he put it, “an unconceptual military power, a judicial power with strict, restrictive laws and a school system to educate the ignorant in the pleasures of self-sacrifice. His companion simply replied, “Okay, if that’s your opinion. But maybe you’ll have another cognac and a cigar before that happens.”
It depends on the next generation. The novel’s most tragic character is teenage Berthold Oppermann, a student convicted only by ethnicity and family. Appreciated by a Nazi teacher for publishing an article allegedly anti-German, Berthold said he was “a good German” and refused to apologize. “You’re a good German, aren’t you?” mocked by his Nazi teacher. “Well, are you good enough to leave it to someone else to decide who’s good at German and who’s not?” While today’s classrooms are a far cry from those in Nazi Germany, one doesn’t have to go far to achieve contemporary parallels, with students increasingly active in the atmosphere. fear and conformity – of their peers, depending on position, right or left – while adults often shirk responsibility, whether out of complicity or fear.
The situation is inevitable. In the world of protestors, escalating issues were seen as unique to Germany, to their time and to a particular regime. “Our opponent has a huge advantage over us; they are completely lacking equal,” one lawyer explained at a time. “That is why they are in power today. They’ve always used methods so crude that the rest of us simply don’t believe they’re doable, because they wouldn’t be possible in any other country.”
Wrong again.
As for Feuchtwanger, in the same year as “The Oppermanns” was published, the German-Jewish author was stripped of his citizenship and had his property confiscated in Berlin and his books burned. He was banned from publishing in Germany again.
By the time the book was published, Feuchtwanger had settled in France, where he was later imprisoned after the German invasion. He eventually escaped to the United States, where he spent the last 17 years of his life.
Is this still the country where he sought refuge?
