Jud Süß

Jud Süß (pronounced [juːd sys], "Süss the Jew") is a 1940 Nazi propaganda film produced by Terra Filmkunst at the behest of Joseph Goebbels, and considered one of the most antisemitic films of all time. The movie was directed by Veit Harlan, who wrote the screenplay with Eberhard Wolfgang Möller and Ludwig Metzger. The leading roles were played by Ferdinand Marian and Harlan's wife Kristina Söderbaum; Werner Krauss and Heinrich George played key supporting roles. The film has been characterized as "one of the most notorious and successful pieces of antisemitic film propaganda produced in Nazi Germany." It was a great success in Germany, with some 20 million viewers. Although the film's budget of 2 million Reichsmarks was considered high for films of that era, the box office receipts of 6.5 million Reichsmarks made it a financial success. Heinrich Himmler urged members of the SS and police to watch the movie. After the war, some of the leading cast members were brought to trial as part of the denazification process. They generally defended their participation in the film on the grounds that they had only done so under duress. Despite significant evidence to support their arguments, Susan Tegel, author of Nazis and the Cinema, characterizes their postwar attempts to distance themselves from the film as "crass and self-serving". However, she concedes that their motives for accepting the roles seem to have been more driven by opportunistic ambition than by antisemitism. Veit Harlan was the only major movie director of the Third Reich to stand trial for "crimes against humanity". After three trials, Harlan was given a light sentence because he convinced the courts that the antisemitic content of the film had been dictated by Goebbels and that Harlan had worked to moderate the antisemitism. Eventually, Harlan was reinstated as a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany and went on to make nine more films. He remained a controversial figure and the target of protests. Together with Die Rothschilds and Der ewige Jude, both released in 1940, the film remains one of the most frequently discussed examples of the use of film to further the Nazi antisemitic agenda. In 2010, two documentary films were released that explore the history and impact of this movie.