Goebbels’s dog whistle

A child or unsophisticated viewer might see in Jud Süß, Joseph Goebbels’s notorious anti-Jew costume drama, a fairy tale in which a clever fellow from a funny-looking tribe fools a simple-minded ruler.

Tibi dabo: Süss (Ferdinand Marian) and Duke (Heinrich George) in Jud Süß (1940).

The clever fellow is Joseph Süss Oppenheimer (Ferdinand Marian), a Jewish moneylender. The simple-minded ruler is Karl Alexander (Heinrich George), Duke of Württemberg, an old fool of a military man hankering after The Good Life. The duke, used to people following his orders, is ignorant of government and law. We see the duchy’s coat of arms dissolve into a sign in Hebrew letters on Süss’s shop which a subtitle translates ‘Coins and Jewelry’. Within, a genteel courtier bargains with the dowdy Süss on the duke’s behalf for a suitable gift for the duchess.

A genteel courtier bargains with the ‘devil’ in Jud Süß (1940).

Karl Alexander’s governing council bores him. It does not follow his orders. This makes him all the more delighted to discover that a cleaned-up Süss can make The Good Life happen. Gold coins become whirling ballerinas and Süss’s wheedling words make delightful music in the duke’s ears. Granting this splendid fellow favors seems the least the duke can do, and the duke’s word is law.

Gold coins become whirling ballerinas in Jud Süß (1940).

Better yet, the duke can pay off the debt he creates simply by ‘privatization’— leasing Süss the duchy’s roads to collect tolls—and letting these ridiculous people live within Stuttgart’s city walls (Jews were not permitted to enter German cities at this time). Süss and his right hand Levy (Werner Krauss, who doubles as Rabbi Loew) rub their hands with glee and lose no time in taking full advantage of this bonanza. But Good Germans do not sit idly by.

Süss (Ferdinand Marian) and Levy (Werner Krauss) in Jud Süß (1940).

The story comes from a footnote in history. In the early 1700s, Württemberg’s Duke Karl Alexander retained Oppenheimer, a successful Jewish banker in Frankfurt, as a financial advisor. The duke borrowed heavily from Oppenheimer. He satisfied the debt by granting Oppenheimer control over the collection of Württemberg’s taxes and tolls. This and the banker’s subsequent actions led, after the duke died, to a popular revolt and Oppenheimer’s hanging in 1738.

Good Germans do not stand idly by in Jud Süß (1940).

Jud Süß first appeared in literature in an 1827 novella by the German fairy-tale writer Wilhelm Hauff. In 1925, German-Jewish writer Lion Feuchtwanger published Jud Süß (Jew Suess), a novel which explored the complexities of the situation and the banker’s character and was a bestseller in Germany and abroad (translated in English as Power). Banned by the Nazis in 1933, it was the basis for a British costume drama, Jew Süss (1934) directed by Lothar Mendes and released in the US as Power. Conrad Veidt, later Casablanca’s Major Heinrich Strasser, played Süss in the British version.

Karl Alexander (Heinrich George), the Duke of Württemberg in Jud Süß (1940).

But Goebbels, Hitler’s film-obsessed Reichsminister for Propaganda, rubbed his hands like his own Süss and Levy when he saw the chance for a Nazi spin on this tale. By this time the Third Reich controlled Germany’s film industry. Many of the country’s top directors, stars and technicians had fled to Hollywood. Jud Süß was one of three anti-Jew films released in 1940; the two other were Die Rothschilds and Der ewige Jude (The Wandering Jew). David Stewart Hall, author of Film in the Third Reich: A Study of the German Cinema 1933-1945 (University of California Press, 1969), wrote that these films formed part of a strategy to sell the German public the Nazis’ ‘solution’ of the Jewish Problem.
Goebbels produced Jud Süß and reportedly revised the screenplay. He did not miss a single opportunity to gore the audience with the full range of negative stereotypes for ‘Jews’, to an extent that makes the film difficult viewing today. One can imagine how heavy-handed and even silly this looks. But a German cinema audience primed by eight years of the Nazis’ anti-Jew ideology clearly heard the officially-sanctioned dog whistle energetically and frequently blown.

Good Germans confront Süss (Ferdinand Marian) in Jud Süß (1940).

Like the NRA’s ‘guns don’t kill people’, words and films don’t kill people either. But leaders’ dog whistles pull triggers. Many ‘good Germans’ squared their jaws and fell in line like their movie counterparts. Hall wrote that Jud Süß, banned for viewers under fourteen, provoked some teenagers who saw the movie to assault Jewish citizens. Heinrich Himmler made it mandatory viewing for the military, the SS and the police. Hall cited Joseph Wulf, a German source who wrote from personal experience that the film was shown to ‘Aryan’ populations, ‘especially in the East, when “resettlements” for the death camps were imminent… It is certain that the film was shown in order to incense in this way the “Aryan” population against Jews in the respective countries, and thus to nip in the bud any possible help to them on the part of the people…’

Motley Jewish ‘caravan’ enters Stuttgart city walls in Jud Süß (1940).

Hall also noted in 1969 this film’s strange afterlife in the Middle East, ‘where Arabic-dubbed prints were still circulating in the 1960s’.

Members of an odd-looking tribe in Jud Süß (1940).

Our unsophisticated viewer might scratch his head over Goebbels’s logic. The duke’s subjects do not give him what he wants, so he seeks the help of an outsider, a member of a demonstrably ridiculous, immoral, and weak minority. The outsider and his associates make the duke’s wishes come true and benefit from concessions he grants in return. But rather than hold the duke accountable and restore the status quo ante, the solution is to eliminate the minority.  
 

Jud Süß (Jew Süss) 1940 Germany (95 minutes) Terra Filmkunst/International Historic Films. Directed by Veit Harlan; written by Harlan, Ludwig Metzger and Wolfgang Eberhart Möller; cinematography by Bruno Mondi; music by Wolfgang Zeller; produced by Joseph Goebbels.