Marta Feuchtwanger

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Marta Feuchtwanger at a young age (1920)
Marta Feuchtwanger (1926)
Memorial plaque in front of the house at Regerstraße 8 in Berlin-Grunewald

Marta Feuchtwanger (born January 21, 1891 in Munich as Marta Löffler ; † October 25, 1987 in Pacific Palisades ) was born in Munich as the third child of the Jewish textile merchant Leopold Löffler and Johanna Reitlinger Löffler. She was the wife of the writer Lion Feuchtwanger and an important figure in the circle of German exiles and cultural life in Los Angeles . In 1933 she emigrated with her husband to Sanary-sur-Mer , from where she fled via Spain and Portugal to American exile in Los Angeles in 1940. After the death of her husband in 1958, she transferred her house, the Villa Aurora , and the Lion Feuchtwanger library to the USC Library and administered it until her death in 1987. In addition, she recorded over 50 hours of oral history and was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 1966 and in 1980 an honorary doctorate from the University of Southern California . Marta had her own kind of emancipation , she did not pursue a job herself, but she was important for Lions creative process, which she accompanied intensively through criticism and editing . It was she who convinced Lion to write historical novels. "My life started the day I first met Lion," she once said.

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Life

Marta Feuchtwanger grew up in well-off circumstances in Munich. Her parents belonged to the Reform Jews , who, compared to the Orthodox community, represented the vast majority of the Jewish population in Munich. The family attended the synagogue on Saturdays and maintained general Jewish traditions, however, Marta's parents were uncomfortable with a conspicuous Jewish lifestyle and they kept their Judaism very discreet. For example, when visiting restaurants, strict adherence to Jewish dietary laws was waived. During her childhood and youth, Martha was often confronted with anti-Semitic attacks, directly through verbal abuse and indirectly through news of pogroms in Eastern Europe and the Dreyfus affair . In direct confrontations, she was usually able to assert herself successfully. Marta began gymnastics in her early youth , a passion that she kept into old age. At the age of fourteen she was already leading a gymnastics group. Through Franziska Feuchtwanger, a sister of Lion, she met Lion Feuchtwanger in 1909 at a house party. When Marta became pregnant, Lion proposed marriage to her, even though both of them rejected the marriage as too civil. The wedding took place on May 10, 1912 on a small scale at Lake Constance , from where the couple began a journey to southern France , Italy and Morocco that lasted two years. The journey initially led through the Swiss Alps . After a strenuous hike in the mountains, Marta Feuchtwanger gave birth to a daughter under dramatic circumstances. The resulting weakness tied her to the sickbed for months. As soon as their health permitted, the couple traveled to the Italian Rivieradorf Pietra Ligure . Her daughter died here of typhus . The experience of this loss later entered some of Feuchtwanger's novels. The Feuchtwangers traveled on to Monte Carlo and from there to Tunisia . Here they were surprised by the outbreak of war and Lion was briefly imprisoned. They managed to leave the country with an Italian ship. After Lion received military training, but was released from military service for health reasons , he turned back to writing, while Marta organized the practical life. It also affected his work and his environment. For example, she gave the song originally titled Spartacus by Bertolt Brecht , who was still unknown at the time and who had turned to Lion for help, the title Drumming in the Night . In 1925 the Feuchtwangers moved to Berlin and in 1931 they bought a house in Grunewald . In the autumn of 1932 Marta accompanied her husband on a book tour to London . From there she first returned to Berlin and then went on a skiing holiday to St. Anton, from where she could no longer return to Germany due to Hitler's rise to power .

emigration

France

When Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933 , Marta was in St. Anton while Lion Feuchtwanger was on a reading tour in the USA. When the situation in Germany quickly deteriorated, he did not decide, as planned, to return to Germany, but to travel to Marta in St. Anton. From there they traveled together to the south of France. Lion and Marta arrived in Marseille and took a taxi to look for a house on the coast. Marta raves about the climate, the scents and the beautiful landscape of the French Riviera in Oral History. Near Bandol , Marta discovered the Hotel La Reserve, which Lion and Marta moved into. Thomas Mann described Marta in a diary entry about a meeting at the Hotel La Reserve as an “Egyptian-looking woman”, Heinrich Mann also speaks of Marta's elegant appearance and her confident demeanor, which she kept throughout her life. Little by little, Lion and Marta came into contact with writers like René Schickele or Aldous Huxley in Sanary . After a while Marta discovered the somewhat secluded, vacant Villa Lazare with a small private beach and a view of the bay. In June 1933 Lion and Marta moved into the rented villa after some bureaucratic difficulties. Since the house was poorly furnished, the Feuchtwangers initially slept on mattresses, just as they later slept in sleeping bags in the garden when they moved into the Villa Aurora. The Feuchtwangers drew many visitors to Sanary, the Villa Lazare became the center of the emigrant colony, people met for readings and tea parties organized by Marta, which often came to around sixty guests. Marta undertook u. a. Excursions in the area with Bertolt Brecht and Heinrich Mann. Even Lola Humm-Sernau , Lions secretary, was living with at the villa, which broke out between the two women because of Lola's relationship with Lion tensions.

During their time in Sanary, Marta and Lion learned of their German citizenship being withdrawn . In March 1934 they both moved to Villa Valmer, which can still be found today on 164 Boulevard Beausoleil. The community of German exiles also met there. In June 1934 Walter Bondy took photos of Marta and Lion in the villa. Marta's life during her time in Sanary consisted mainly of gardening, skiing vacations and car tours, and being a hostess. Marta Feuchtwanger was known for her hospitality in the emigrant circles, among other things this is mentioned in Thomas Mann's diaries.

After the beginning of the Second World War, Lion Feuchtwanger was interned several times, he was able to escape with the help of Martas and the support of the American Vice Consul in Marseille, Hiram Bingham , and the escape helper Varian Fry , and in September 1940 he walked across the Pyrenees together with other prisoners or those at risk flee to Spain. Marta showed great strength in the Camp de Gurs , where she was imprisoned at the time, in order to get relief for her fellow prisoners. She managed to escape from the women's camp in Gurs and then to rescue Lion from the Saint Nicolas men's camp when he was swimming in the river, wrapped in women's clothing for his protection. With logistical support from the Emergency Rescue Committee , ERC, the Feuchtwangers traveled to the USA. In the Villa Aurora in Pacific Palisades, Lion built his third private library with Marta's support, as only a few books were forwarded to him from France.

United States

In the middle of November 1940 Marta Feuchtwanger reached the port of New York by ship , where she was met by Lion, who had traveled to New York on another ship, and Ben Huebsch. The couple traveled from New York to Los Angeles in early 1941, where they initially stayed with Eva Herrmann .

Over the next two years, Lion and Marta were forced to move five more times until they finally moved to Pacific Palisades in early 1943. The house on remote Paseo Miramar was in disrepair, but Marta immediately fell in love with the view of the Pacific and Santa Monica Bay . The house was built in 1928 as the Los Angeles Times demonstration house in the Spanish-Moorish style; the cathedral in Teruel was the model for the design of the ceiling in the drawing room, among other things. Lion had just sold his novel The Lautensack Brothers to Colliers magazine and was able to purchase the house for $ 9,000.

With a lot of skill, Marta managed to restore the house with the help of a neighbor who provided the Feuchtwangers with a worker. Gradually, Marta furnished the house with mostly second-hand furniture. As soon as the Feuchtwangers could afford it, they bought books for the Lions library, shelves for the house and new plants for the garden instead of expensive clothing or jewelry. The garden was of great importance to Marta. “I plant trees because paper is made from trees,” Marta once said of her love for the garden.

The house on Paseo Miramar, later called Villa Aurora, quickly became a meeting point for artists. Thomas Mann and Heinrich Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Franz Werfel and Alma Mahler-Werfel , Alfred Döblin , Ludwig Marcuse , Bruno Frank , Albert Einstein , Arnold Schönberg , Kurt Weill , Hanns Eisler , Fritz Lang attended reading and music evenings, celebrations and disputes and Charlie Chaplin . Marta provided the guests with her homemade apple strudel.

In the course of the following years, the Feuchtwanger couple tried repeatedly to obtain American citizenship, but the decision on the application was repeatedly delayed because of the suspicion of communism against Lion Feuchtwanger. It was not until shortly after Lion's death that Martha was given approval of the citizenship application. Marta first wanted to refuse citizenship, but then changed his mind and finally accepted American citizenship on January 10, 1959.

At first it was unclear what would happen to Lion Feuchtwanger's estate . Marta Feuchtwanger had been appointed sole heir. In the year after Lions death, Marta, with the help of German studies specialist Harold van Hofe, transferred the house and library to the University of Southern California (USC). In return, Marta Feuchtwanger received a lifelong right of residence and was hired as a curator, for which she received a small salary. In addition, USC paid for insurance and maintenance of the house.

In the years up to her death, Marta Feuchtwanger looked after her husband's memory and became an important figure in public life. She gave tours of the house and was a welcome guest at parties and official occasions in Los Angeles. As an icon of exile, she shaped the German cultural scene in Los Angeles even after Lion's death in 1958. In 1964, on her 75th birthday, she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit by Federal President Heinrich Lübke .

In April 1969 Marta Feuchtwanger traveled to Germany for the first time after some hesitation at the invitation of Willy Brandt . She attended official appointments both in the Federal Republic of Germany and in the GDR, where she was received with honor. Back in Los Angeles, Marta Feuchtwanger assessed the development in Germany positively: "We who suffered through and around Germany can now look ahead with greater confidence."

In 1980 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the USC. Marta Feuchtwanger died on October 25, 1987 at the age of 96 in Santa Monica. Marta and Lion are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica.

In 1995 the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library was inaugurated at the University of Southern California, which in addition to Lion Feuchtwanger's library also houses the papers of Marta and Lion Feuchtwanger and other German-speaking emigrants. The former house of the Feuchtwangers, the Villa Aurora, is now an artist residence, in which German artists from different art fields can live and work for three months each.

Works

  • To émigré Life. Munich, Berlin, Sanary, Pacific Palisades. Marta Feuchtwanger. Interviewed by Lawrence M. Weschler. Volume II / III, University of California and University of Southern California, 1976
  • Only one woman: years, days, hours , Langen Müller, Munich, Vienna 1983 ISBN 3-7844-1876-7
  • Living with Lion: Conversation with Reinhart Hoffmeister in the series "Zeugen des Jahrhundert" , edited by Ingo Hermann, Lamuv, Göttingen 1991

literature

  • Sieglinde Fliedner-Lorenzen: Marta Feuchtwanger, Nelly Mann, Salka Viertel, three writers' wives in exile 1933–1945 , Bonn University dissertation 2003
  • Manfred Flügge : The four lives of Marta Feuchtwanger , Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2008 ISBN 978-3-351-02664-6 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Feuchtwanger, Marta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American curator
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH October 25, 1987
Place of death Pacific Palisades