The Oppermanns

By: Lion Feuchtwanger

Narrated by: Remy Auberjonois, Joshua Cohen

Written in real-time, as the Nazis consolidated their power over the winter of 1933, The Oppermanns captures the fall of Weimar Germany through the eyes of one bourgeois Jewish family, shocked and paralyzed by an ideology they cannot comprehend.

In the foment of Weimar-era Berlin, the Oppermann brothers represent tradition and stability. One brother oversees the furniture chain founded by their grandfather, one is an eminent surgeon, and one a respected critic. They are rich, cultured, liberal, and public-spirited, proud inheritors of the German Enlightenment. They don't see Hitler as a threat. Then, to their horror, the Nazis come to power, and the Oppermanns and their children are faced with the terrible decision of whether to adapt—if they can—flee or try to fight.

Written in 1933, nearly in real-time, The Oppermanns captures the day-to-day vertigo of watching a liberal democracy fall apart. As Joshua Cohen writes in his introduction to this new edition, it is "one of the last masterpieces of German-Jewish culture." Prescient and chilling, it has lost none of its power today.

Introduction read by Joshua Cohen.

©2023 Lion Feuchtwanger (P)2023 Podium Audio

The Barbarians Take Over

This is a beautifully written novel about the Nazi’s takeover of a seemingly civilized country and their destruction, with the cooperation of too many Germans, of a cultured and loyal Jewish minority.

An ok listen

Good story, but villains in the story have no depth: stereotypical with no depth, one dimensional.

Great story on Fast speech

Excellent story and well written. a but drawn out.
the reader was hard to understand when he did deep voice s and his voice tailed off at the end of the sentence which made it hard to understand.

A beautiful chilling book

I really enjoyed listening to this book.

I liked the contrast between the measured description of what was happening in Germany and the sensitive description of what the characters went through and felt, not to mention the painful tension between the love for the idea of Germany and the dismay for what Germany was turning in to.

I found the last part of the book less convincing and I don't think I understood why and what for the main character did what he did.
This last part seems to me a bit off and at odds with the rest of the book.

Haunting parallels to USA Today

Haunting depiction of the denial and realization creeping grip of nazi fascism experienced by wealth Berlin Jews in 1933