As early as April 1933, author Lion Feuchtwanger began working on Die Geschwister Oppermann [The Oppermanns] as a direct reaction to the transfer of governmental power to the NSDAP. Initially, Feuchtwanger aimed to use his research for a film script. A British film company, commissioned by the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, had asked Feuchtwanger to come up with an anti-fascist screenplay. But Feuchtwanger’s script, written in only two months, was never used. In the meantime the British government had decided to abandon its offensive position towards Germany. 

Instead, the material went into a novel that was intended as part of the Wartesaal-Trilogie [Waiting Room Trilogy]. While the Amsterdam publisher Querido was preparing it for release in 1933, printing had to be stopped. A publisher in Hanover called Oppermann threatened reprisal against Feuchtwanger’s brother, who was still living in Germany at the time, if Feuchtwanger retained the novel’s title. This was why Feuchtwanger first published the novel as Die Geschwister Oppenheim.

Five narrative threads reflect the attitudes of five members of the bourgeois Jewish family Oppermann towards fascist Germany. The protagonists’ professions permit the reader insights into various fields of public life. Authors Arnold Zweig and Klaus Mann both praised Feuchtwanger’s work and saw didactic potential in Geschwister Oppermann.