Jud Süß

There's a histrionic death scene in "Jude Suess" in which the corrupt Duke, finally realizing his mistake in trusting his Jewish treasurer, makes grand theatrical gestures before collapsing to the ground. It's a moment as goofy as anything in Sergei Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible," and really very unintentionally funny. Evil sneers and clenched fists abound in this ridiculous historical melodrama--allegedly based on "fact" if you believe Josef Goebbels, he of the big lie--and as such it's something of a bizarre guilty pleasure. This is all very disturbing of course because this is a film that the German public in 1940 took with dead earnest seriousness. Along with the abhorrent propaganda "documentary" "The Eternal Jew" of the same vintage, this is the kind of film that manipulates and fabricates historical fact in the service of genocidal hatred. If you can put the film in proper historical perspective, understanding its socio-political implications, it is fascinating and perversely entertaining. With "Birth of a Nation" and a few others, it's certainly a notable addition to the cinema of hate. Its cracked dialogue includes such dubious gems as: "No, Jews aren't more clever--just more cunning."

A couple of years ago, I saw this film in my history class. It's been long, so I couldn't give a detailed summery of what exactly happened, however, the plot wasn't what stayed with me anyway. What registered, more than anything, was that this was a propaganda film intended to convince the audience that Jews were evil. It is not that the villain - whom I remember to be partly intriguing, partly repulsive - just happens to be Jewish. The final scene makes it quite clear that he is the way he is because he is Jewish. It's when the film abandons all subtlety and decides to give its message a final hit with a hammer, to assure it's been properly driven into the heads of the audience.

I find it quite impossible to judge this film under any other than the propaganda aspect. While it may be a decent film a far as technical apect are concerned, it is nothing anyone could watch purely for his or her amusement, at least not if they know about the historical background; and people in Germany are probably even more aware of this than anyone else. I cannot ignore that this film was meant to sow hatred, and nor do I want to. All other questions, whether the acting and directing were good or whether the dialogues were well-written, are of secondary importance to me. Certainly the film was well-made - how else would it have worked so well? - but even this doesn't make it into something watchable or entertaining.

"Jud Süß" is overall a well-made, sometimes brilliant, occasionally hammy, movie. It's plausible that it served its intended function, to promote antisemitism, beautifully in its time. The movie came out in 1940, about one year after the beginning of the war, about five years after the Nuremberg race laws, and about two years before the Wannsee Conference. Considering the enormous, fanatical hatred of the Nazis against jews, the movie's antisemitism comes across as surprisingly subtle. Flanked by the occasional antisemitic outburst ("There are no hostels for jews in Stuttgart") the movie builds a convincing psychogram of a perpetrator and leaves all its great performances to its antiheroes, while the good guys come across as pale, square and boring.

The movie is surprising in many aspects and allows perplexing insights into the Nazi mindframe. The faulty emperor (played by Heinrich George) is described as fat, vain and sybaritic (in his fantasy uniform he's the spitting image of Goering) and also as a militarist and a megalomaniac, who has lost contact with the needs of his people (Hitler comes to mind). When Süss is eventually hanged, he comes across not so much as a monster but as the scapegoat that Wilhelm Hauff, the author of the original novella, described him as.

This baroque melodrama is the perfect Halloween flick. To watch Jud Suss is to enter an alternative universe in which Hitler had invaded Russia 6 weeks earlier, won the war, and we were all watching a different type of movie. The level of political incorrectness is horrifying. The film was the top grossing film in Germany in 1940 during a period when Germany actually had a popular film industry. It is one of about 30 films (Vorbehaltsfilme) you could be arrested in Germany for possessing. (So far it has not shown up on popular film file sharing networks). Academics may view these Vorbehaltsfilmes in private viewing sessions and film festivals. Others are subjected to home invasions by the police. The final word regarding the film would have to be the chapter Eric Rentschler devotes to it in his masterpiece, The Ministry of Illusion. There is no official list of proscribed titles (Vorbehaltsfilme)because as Rentschler puts it, "Such a list would only demonstrate that the German government considers the populace of its democracy in crucial ways politically immature" (p. 221)Many of the movies Rentschler devotes chapters to are hard to find.

The life and unhappy end of said life for Joseph Oppenheimer, the famous Jew Suss has been interpreted in many ways over the years in a variety of medium. The most vile interpretation was that done in this 1940 film, personally produced and supervised by Joseph Goebbels.

The real Oppenheimer was out of Vienna where he had done considerable business with the Catholic Hapsburgs and moved to the Wurttemberg area where he came to the attention of the heir to Duchy of Wurttemberg who after he became Duke made Oppenheimer his first minister.

Duke Karl Alexander played by Heinrich George is an ambitious fellow who would like to create a miniature Versailles over in Stuttgart an ambition that a number of German heads of state wanted to emulate including Frederick the Great over in Prussia. Ferdinand Marian as Oppenheimer is a worldly high living fellow himself who provides a number of financial schemes that increase the Duke's treasury. Of course while doing it he arouses the ire of the local Lutheran gentry. After Duke Karl Alexander dies, the burghers of Stuttgart do to Oppenheimer precisely what you see in Jew Suss.

Without the religious component the closest thing approximating this story was that of Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV's minister of finance over in France. He lived high on the hog, too high in the opinion of his king. Fouquet was however first given exile and then had the sentence commuted to life in prison.

What Oppenheimer's story played into was a latent anti-Semitism already instilled in the population by Martin Luther. During the course of the movie the burghers of Stuttgart warn the Duke of Luther's warnings about how vile those Jews are, but the Duke fails to heed. The Catholic Hapsburg connection isn't brought in as the Austrians were now part of the Reich.

The real Oppenheimer was accused of being an agent for those Hapsburgs in real life. But here he's the agent of a deep and nebulous Jewish conspiracy to take over Wurttemberg. Today Wurttemberg, tomorrow the world. Like Jews always do, he's got designs on Aryan women and in his sites here is Krista Soderburg, a Swedish actress married to the director of Jew Suss, Veit Harlan who always played the prototype of Aryan women in German films. Her being debauched and later suicide sparks all the latent hatred against Oppenheimer that gets unleashed with the demise of Duke Karl Alexander. Her Aryan sweetheart played by Malte Jager leads the mob against Oppenheimer.

Again in real life Oppenheimer was a worldly sort who never had any trouble getting women to give up the goods. A whole lot like Fouquet over in France, but again we have the religious component here.

Mind you this same story had been filmed six years earlier over in Great Britain with the exiled Conrad Veidt playing Oppenheimer. In that version, Oppenheimer is endowed with saintly qualities and is a martyr, saintly qualities the real Oppenheimer probably would have scorned. It's fascinating the different spin you can give, especially if you're in the propaganda game. Joe Goebbels, the little club footed maniac who ran German cinema as part of the Propaganda Ministry, had a casting couch that dwarfed any in Hollywood and anything that Oppenheimer in real life could ever dream of.

I won't put a rating on Jew Suss, this is such a vile story meant to inflame anti-Semitism and succeeding horribly. This was required viewing for people entering the S.S. those who became guards at the concentration camps. It was vile when it occurred in real life and viler yet when told by the Nazis in this film.