In his writings, Feuchtwanger exposed Nazi racist policies years before the British and French governments abandoned their policy of appeasement towards Hitler. He remembered that American politicians were also among those who suggested that "Hitler be given a chance." With the publication of "The Oppermanns" in 1933, he became a prominent spokesman in opposition to the Third Reich. Within a year, the novel was translated into Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish and Swedish languages. In 1936, still in Sanary, he wrote "The Pretender" ("Der falsche Nero"), in which he compared the Roman upstart Terentius Maximus, who had claimed to be Nero, with Hitler.