Jew Suss Film Analysis

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Jew Suss: anti-Semitic German Cinema and the Holocaust In the decades after the Holocaust, mainstream and independent filmmakers have used different techniques and strategies to accurately portray the horrors of an event that resulted in the systematic murder of millions of Europeans ranging from but not limited to Jews, Gypsies, Soviets, and disabled persons. Filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and Agnieszka Holland have attempted to find moving stories within the frame of the Holocaust. However, while there have been many efforts in re-telling the stories of the Holocaust in film format, a lot of attention has also been paid to German films made in accordance to the events leading up to the Holocaust. The films often discussed are a pair of 1940 films made in accordance with the wishes of Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, Veit Harlan’s Jew Suss and Fritz Hippler’s Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew). Both films couldn’t have been more …show more content…

That is, the film constructs a Nazi reality, a world in which dangerous Jews lurk suspiciously in every street corner and sleep in their own filth; a world that depicts and therefore justifies Nazi anti-Semitism, and ultimately, the Nazi extermination of Jews. Images from the film were endlessly used in anti-Semitic posters and published material all throughout the Reich and in Europe’s occupied areas. The off-putting images of Jew Süss had a specific goal in mind: elicit fear, disgust, and hatred. As well as act as a preview for the atrocities that were soon to be committed by the Third Reich during the Holocaust. With the clever filmmaking techniques used by Harlan film Jew Suss, German audiences were sent in frenzy in response to the “Jewish Problem” that was implied and suggested by this film. This public reaction ensured that German popular cinema would play a large role in the annihilation of European Jewry in the