When will it ever end?

Introduction: The film “Jud Süß 1940,” which is better known in English as “The Jew Ziss” is considered to express topics directly or implicitly, such as Nazi ideology, relationship to the Jews, the Republic of Weimar, and the perception of power.

Jew Süss 1940 and the Nazi World

Nazi ideology in relation to the Jews: The movie opens with the Star of David, with two lions and a Chanukah menorah (rather than the seven-branched menorah, which is the actual signature of the Jewish people) however, this eight-branched menorah is easily identifiable in the windows of German Jew, identifying the Jew living among them. The music is ominous, and the film shows the Jew Suss Oppenheimer at tefilla, chanting in Hebrew and identifiable as the hated Jewish prototype. This picture identifies the enemy in the German mind, as it explains who the enemy is, and represents Suss Oppenheimer as “The Jew … the plastic demon of the decline of mankind.”

The comparison to the Weimar Republic: The movie quickly moves on to set the scene, focusing on Prince Karl Alexander, Duke of Wurttemberg, and the city of Strasburg, which has inherited the dukedom from his father, Duke of Wurttemberg. The Nazis targeted Wurttemberg (which became the Wurttemberg Free State in 1918-1919, was integrated into the Weimar Republic and had granted full autonomy to the Jewish Communities by 1924) and Strasberg. The Weimar constitution was drafted by a Jew (Hugo Pruess) and tolerated integrated Jewish membership in the government, and, as evidenced by Walther Rathenau, rose to become the Weimar foreign minister. As the movie continues to show the collusion between this Duke and the Jew Suss, they collude to stab the honest German workers in the back, as did Vonn Hindenburg, Capitalists, and Jews in 1919.

After swearing the blood oath to serve the people and preserve the leadership (the council that rules jointly), the movie fades to the home of the counselor, where we find the chief councilor Dorthey and her fiancé Faber singing in Teutonic purity together (worthy art). This is the only time there is a song in the film. It represents the fact that “Judaism and German music are opposites that, by their very nature, stand in stark contradiction to one another.” The family usually raises a cup of wine as a toast to proceed with their Sunday dinner. Dorothy’s father (a member of the council that holds the purse strings of the Duke) would like to toast his Duke.

In contrast, Dorothy would like to toast her fiancé, but her father says, “Faber is not so important. None of us is important. We will toast the Duke (Führer).”

Fade to the Duke, who goes to the balcony after his coronation and accepts the adulation of his people. Duke Alexander is a war hero, and the pageantry of his arrival by carriage and enjoying the salute from his goose-stepping soldiers and wildly cheering crowds is reminiscent of Hitler; however, the movie keeps this in modest proportions in comparison to propaganda films celebrating Hitler’s rise to power. Duke Alexander is no Hitler, as the movie will show when the Duke stabs his people in the back. He looks over the crowd and says autocratically, “My People. My Land.” The Swabians are the ethnic “norm,” and the film presents the Jews as contrasting this purity with their dark and threateningly sublime evil.

Relationship to the Jews: At this point, the film skillfully emphasizes this difference when it focuses on the coat of arms of the Duke, then fades to become Hebrew Letters. The comparison is meant to remind the viewers of the ever-present Jewish threat and how different their culture is from the pure Germanic pastoral norm. By focusing on the Hebrew letters, which they translate as Coins and Jewelry, it is clear that a wealthy Jew lives there, and this is the home and office of the Jew Suss. A representative of the Duke has been sent to buy an expensive present for the Duchess, which causes the local Jews to sneer at him behind his back, calling him a goy. The Jews are depicted as being shifty-eyed people dressed in black and dirty, and the image of a bearded leering Jew with an eye patch and a slutty half-undressed woman contrasts pointedly with the proper Swabians depicted earlier. The reason for this is to emphasize that two separate races are living entirely in separation. The movie always depicts the Jewish in dark black and white and the Germans in bright pastoral light.

The Jew Suss meets with the representative, and after establishing the price of the objects, which the Duke cannot afford, he “generously” lowers the price and puts the Duke in his debt. The camera is careful to focus on the safe, which holds a tremendous amount of gold and precious objects, which is in keeping with the Nazi ideology that the Jew is a wealthy parasite and much wealthier than he appears to be.

The Perception of Power: Suss becomes the “Court Jew,” shaving his beard and side-locks; he dresses like a German aristocrat. Using his wealth, he extends his power, obtaining privileges for both himself and his countrymen. The warning is that a Jew can look like a gentile, shedding his beard and clothing, and can appear as an elegant German citizen riding in a carriage toward Stuttgart. Suss’s Jewish internationalism is seen when he tries to seduce Dorthey by relating his worldwide travels…and when she asks him where he feels at home, this international Jew says “everywhere” …this is also part of the Nazi accusations, which maintain that the Jew is not loyal to any one country. Suss gains permission for all Jews were to resettle in the city of Strasburg, which, up until then, had barred Jews from entering. This reward came as a result of Suss’s success in taxing the “Folk” to the enrichment of the Duke’s coffers. This has always been the way the gentile poor viewed court Jews – parasites who colluded with the aristocracy to tax the working subjects. The film emphasizes this by showing how Suss causes the execution of a Swabian blacksmith for refusing his unreasonable demands. After robbing the people, he now desires forbidden sex with an Aryan woman (in fact, adulterous sex since she is already married).

Racial Purity: The object of his unnatural desire is the beautiful daughter of the Chief Minister Strum. He approaches Stump and offers to marry his daughter, to which he replies that he would never allow his grandchildren to be Jewish. However, she has already secretly married Faber (depicted as a real anti-Jewish clean cut Aryan Nazi prototype); Suss arrests her husband Faber and also her father, torturing them until she consents to be raped in order to get them released (racial impurity, one of the greatest sins in Nazi Germany).

German honor and virtue demand that Dorthy, burdened with shame and grief, must cleanse herself of the touch of the dirty Jew, and she drowns herself.

When her body is found, a general riot ensues as the “Folk” rise up against Suss and the Jews.

The Duke would have brought in mercenaries to butcher his people, but he dies of a heart attack, which results in Suss being arrested and condemned to death. In his trial, Suss screams, “I was only a loyal servant of my master!” (which would be heard as a defense for the Nazi war criminals less than a decade after the film was made). Suss is placed in an iron cage, hauled to the top of the scaffold, and hanged in the presence of the “Folk.”

Minister Strum orders the Jews from the city and hopes that this lesson will never be forgotten. Elements of anti-Semitism and the Nazi pogrom were injected into this story in subtle and sinister ways. Fear of Jews was crystallized. Nazi propaganda depicted Jews as capable of insidiously disguising themselves in culture as part of an international conspiracy to gain power and wealth for both personal gain as well as gain for the Jewish community, suggesting that every Jew has only his well-being and that of his race in mind, even when he pretends generous motives.”

Suss’s gifts and loans to the Duke were intended both for his self-aggrandizement and the opportunity to allow the banned Jewish citizenry into the city. Nazi solutions were offered and affirmed. The historical setting of the film worked to convince the German people that special laws for Jews, such as being excluded from the city, had always been an accepted norm and had been applied to the Jews over a long history in Germany. Of all Suss’ crimes against the German people, having sex with a Christian was the most hideous. The Nazis used this historical precedent as justification for defending the “Folk”  from the Jewish threat, and the movie destroyed any feelings of compassion that might have been felt for the Jews.

Conclusion: There were many things NOT mentioned in the film regarding Nazi culture and the most important being the final solution. While this film depicts the dehumanization of the Jews, it does not advocate mass murder; mass murder is only possible after the dehumanization process (as we learned in the Vietnam War). The year that the film was presented was 1940, and even though a final solution was in the works, it had not yet been considered necessary for the German Jews, only for the Jews of the east, where the policy of Lebensraum would be enacted. As the war progressed, the German people dehumanized even the German Jews, and as a result, the Germans dehumanized themselves.