Early Life and Education
Feuchtwanger's ancestors originated from the Middle Franconian city of Feuchtwangen which, following a pogrom in 1555, expelled all its resident Jews. Some of the expellees subsequently settled in Fürth where they were called the Feuchtwangers, meaning those from Feuchtwangen. Feuchtwanger's grandfather Elkan moved to Munich in the middle of 19th century. Lion Feuchtwanger was born in 1884 to Orthodox Jewish margarine manufacturer Sigmund Feuchtwanger and his wife Johanna née Bodenheim. He was the oldest in a family of nine siblings of which two, Martin and Ludwig became authors; Ludwig's son is the London-based historian Edgar Feuchtwanger. Two of his sisters settled in Palestine following the rise of the Nazi Party, one was killed in a concentration camp, and one sister settled in New York City.
Lion studied literature and philosophy in the universities in Munich and Berlin. He made his first attempt at writing while still a student, earning a literary award. In 1903 he joined the school leaving exam at the grammar school Wilhelm Munich. He then studied history, philosophy and German philology in Munich and Berlin. He received his PhD in 1907 in Francis Muncker on Heinrich Heine's The Rabbi of Bacharach.
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