Literature of the Americas

2541-7894 2542-243X

IWL RAS

https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-7894-2025-19-68-87

Research Article

Articles

“How Dearly One Pays for Defending the Soviets”: Lion Feuchtwanger in the American Exile (Part III: 1945–1950)

2025

2026

The article examines the final period of Lion Feuchtwanger’s life during his American exile. The onset of the Cold War, which manifested itself in the United States as the era of McCarthyism, evoked for Feuchtwanger strong parallels with the early years of Nazism in Germany and the beginning of the Nazi occupation of France. Suspicions of “un-American activities” fell primarily upon émigrés who held communist sympathies or supported the Soviet Union’s anti-nuclear stance. Both Feuchtwanger himself and his close associates—including Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler, Charlie Chaplin, and Thomas Mann—were suspected of communist affiliations and ties to the USSR. Eisler was deported from the United States; Brecht fled to Paris immediately after being summoned to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC); Chaplin’s re-entry visa was revoked while he was in London; and Thomas Mann, subjected to sustained vilification in the American press, chose to remain permanently in Switzerland. Feuchtwanger, who had been under FBI surveillance since his arrival in the United States, was denied American citizenship — a status that would have guaranteed his right to re-enter the country after traveling to Europe. A renewed wave of attacks in the American press followed his receipt in 1953 of the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). After hosting a delegation of Soviet journalists at his home in 1955, Feuchtwanger was definitively branded as a “friend of the Soviet Union.” Although his novels began to be published in Russian from this period onward — a development of profound personal significance to him — the final years of his life, according to the recollections of his widow, Marta Feuchtwanger, were marked by persistent fear of deportation. Despite his severe illness, HUAC and FBI agents conducted prolonged interrogations at his residence, Villa Aurora, which officials claimed were necessary prerequisites for his naturalization. Marta Feuchtwanger was granted American citizenship only after her husband’s death.

Baskakov 2021 — Baskakov, Aleksei. «Ja ne poputchik…»: Tomas Mann i Sovetskii Soiuz [“I’ m not a Fellow Traveler…” Thomas Mann and the Soviet Union]. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriia Publ., 2021. (In Russ.)

Dahlke 1984 — Dahlke, Hans. Lion Feuchtwanger als Dramatiker. Nachwort In: Lion Feuchtwanger. Dramen in 2 Bndn. Bd. 2., Hrsg. von H. Dahlke, 685–806. Berlin u. Weimar: Aufbau-Verl., 1984.

Dobryashkina 2025 — Dobryashkina, Anna. “Kosmopolit Sovetskogo Soiuza: Lion Feikhtvanger v amerikanskoi emigratsii (chast’ vtoraia: 1945–1950 gg.)” [“Cosmopolite of the Soviet Union: Lion Feuchtwanger in the American Exile (Part II: 1945–1950)”]. Literatura dvukh Americ, no. 18 (2025): 44–65. (In Russ.)

Flügge 2008 — Flügge, Manfred. Die vier Leben der Marta Feuchtwanger. Berlin: Aufbau, 2008.

Kröhnke 1991 — Kröhnke, Karl. Feuchtwanger im Exil. Sein Verhältnis zur BRD, zur DDR und zu den USA, taz. 15.11.1991. https://taz.de/ Feuchtwanger-im-Exil/!1694075/.

Maierhofer 2008 — Maierhofer, Waltraud. Lion Feuchtwangers Theaterstück “Wahn oder der Teufel in Boston” — Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Vergangenheitsbewältigung? Exil. Jg. 28 (März 2008): 98–115.

Skierka 1984 — Skierka, Volker. Lion Feuchtwanger. Eine Biographie. Berlin: Quadriga Verl., 1984.

Shcherbinina, Olga I. “«Uplyvalo semero romantikov». Pervaia poezdka gruppy sovetskikh zhurnalistov v SShA epokhi «ottepeli»” [“ʽSeven Romantics Sailing Away.’ Soviet Journalists on the First Cultural Exchange Visit to the US during the Khrushchev ʽThaw’”]. Literaturnyi fakt, no. 3 (29) (2023): 293–322. (In Russ.)

Stephan 1998 — Stephan, Alexander. Im Visier der FBI. Deutsche Exilschrift- steller in den Akten amerikanischer Geheimdienste. Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch Verl., 1998.