Weimar Under the Palms

Pacific Palisades, German Exiles, and the Invention of Hollywood

Thomas Blubacher, Elisabeth Lauffer

• Publisher: Brandeis University Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN:
  9781684582877
• eBook ISBN:
  9781684582884
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

The story of the German exiles—and cultural titans—who settled in Pacific Palisades and influenced American culture. 
 
In the early twentieth century, Pacific Palisades was home to America's most modern film studio of the time as well as the proposed site of the world's largest Christian center. But by the end of the 1920s, the Los Angeles neighborhood had become the refuge of the rich and beautiful as German and Austrian filmmakers, among them Salka and Berthold Viertel, settled there. They were soon followed by cultural and intellectual giants of the Weimar Republic who were fleeing Europe, such as Max Reinhardt, Hanns Eisler, or Max Horkheimer. These great minds turned Pacific Palisades into a "Weimar under the palm trees." Though many were successful in exile—including Vicki Baum, Thomas Mann, and Lion Feuchtwanger—others felt as if they were in a "sun prison" far from home.
 
Recounting a story of glamor and great minds, Thomas Blubacher tells of the history of German-speaking exiles that is still alive there today, going on a foray through the film industry, taking us on a journey to this special place that was so recently devastated by fire. Many of the homes in this book have now gone, but Marta Feuchtwanger's Villa Aurora and the Thomas Mann house still stand as a testament to luck, resilience, and history.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• “A Real Castle on the Sea”
• Fritz Dives Off a Cliff, the Lakota Dance, and Christ Returns to Earth
• Methodists Camp Out, and a Lonesome Swabian Constructs a Japanese Palace
• “Give In to Their ‘Take It Easy’”
• “What Watch?” “Ten Watch.” “Such Much?”
• “You Lose Your Home and There’s No Finding a New One”
• Paying Homage to Goethe in Hollywood
• The King of Pacific Palisades Helps Dispose of the Dead Mice
• “And That Substance Is Our Work”
• Salka Viertel Serves Sausage Soup, and Alfred Döblin Searches for God
• “Terribly Disturbed by the Dwindling Sense of Justice in This Country”
• Players, All: Ronald Reagan on Screen, Henry Miller in the Backyard, and Jakob Gimpel on Piano
• The Legacy of Exile
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index of Names