Asking the author of historical novels to teach you about history is like expecting the composer of a melody to provide answers about radio transmission.

Following a brief period of internment in France and a harrowing escape from Continental Europe he sought asylum in the United States where he died in 1958. Feuchtwanger's fierce criticism of the Nazi Party—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.