Bertolt Brecht, a refugee member of the Communist Party of Germany, ended up in Los Angeles and noted in his poem "The Hollywood Elegies", that the city was both heaven and hell.
As much as the simple fact of Martino's existence in the novel is indicative of the author's desire to raise British awareness of a "good" Germany, his marginality in the plot may well be equally suggestive of Flesch-Brunningen's sense of caution in dwelling upon a nonpopularist view of German culture.
Particularly in demand among POWs were banned novels by refugee writers such as Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, Thomas Mann's Zauberberg, and Franz Werfel's The Song of Bernadette.
In an article for inter-camp journal Der Ruf, German POW Curt Vinz opined, "Had we only had the opportunity to read these books before, our introduction to life, to war, and the expanse of politics would have been different.
Feuchtwanger also defended the Great Purge and the Moscow show trials which were then taking place against both real and imagined members of the anti-Stalinist Left and other alleged enemies of the state.