Anti-Semitic Nazi films

 NAZI ANTI-SEMITIC FILM POSTER  

Two films of the early war years were less ambiguous and more honest in delineating another of the regime's murder policies , the far more massive programme of annihilating every Jewish man, women and child in occupied Europe. Film director Fritz Hippler used an idea suggested by the Propaganda Ministry's anti-Jewish expert, Dr Taubert, and produced the notorious film The Eternal Jew [Der Ewige Jude] It opened in Berlin on November 28 1940, and later appeared in dubbed versions in many parts of Europe.

The Eternal Jew is presented as a documentary about the role of Jews in world history. Amongst numerous disgusting descriptions, the Jews are portrayed as lower than vermin, creatures akin to the rat, money-mad bits of filth devoid of all higher values, corrupter of the world. The film does not conclude by urging the extermination of the Jews. But it's message is clear. The only way to save the world is to murder the Jews.

One of the most infamous feature films produced in Nazi Germany was Jud Suss, two film historians have referred to the Jew Suss as the best propaganda film of the Third Reich. The fictional story was based upon the life and death of the early 18th century Wurttemberg court Jew, Suss Oppenheimer. It describes how through black magic and money he and his fellow Jews scheme to seize power by manipulating the corrupt, drunken duke. Oppenheimer is ultimately hanged in a cage. The lesson of Jew Suss was clear the Jew is a parasite upon the body of society, the Jew must be killed. These two motion pictures represented a Nazi synthesis, for they brought to mass audiences the murder policies formerly espoused by individuals and publications.