Programs for the antisemitic propaganda film 'The Jew Ziss'

Programs for the antisemitic propaganda film 'The Jew Ziss'

Program of the production company "Illustrierter Film-Kurier" for the antisemitic propaganda film "Jud Süß" - "The Jew Ziss", which was released in Nazi Germany in 1940 directed by Fayette Harlan, at the invitation of the propaganda minister Josef Goebbels. One of the most poignant propaganda films of all time, it presents an antisemitic plot based on Leon Feuchtwanger's book "The Jew Ziss" which was adapted for the purposes of influencing German public opinion, On behalf of the Nazi propaganda ministry.

In 1934, Michael Balcon produced in England the film "Jew Suess", starring Conrad Weidt, as a film designed to warn against German anti-Semitism. This pro-Jewish film caught the attention of Josef Goebbels who believed in the power of the films to influence the public, and in 1939 sought to create a film that would help shape public opinion against the Jews towards the formation of the "Final Solution." Goebbels initiated the production of a German version that became one of the sharpest and most famous antisemitic propaganda films ever made. He asked Harlan to direct the sharp anti-Semitic work "The Jew Ziss" based on a screenplay by Eberhard Wolfgang Miller, which tells the story of Josef Ziskind Oppenheimer, But in the aspect that adopts the Nazi view of Jews and serves the party's propaganda. Harlan was involved in writing the script and took on himself the directing work. The Austrian actor who was chosen for the role to play Ziss, was Ferdinand Marian, a man who does not have a typical Aryan appearance and has already gained experience in playing villain roles on the stage of theater and cinema.

Marian was reluctant to serve as a Representative figure in Goebbels' propaganda and did not want to identify with the Jewish figure or Nazi propaganda. But in the end he had no choice but to give in to Goebbels' pressure, due to a high monetary payment offered to him for the job - a sum of fifty thousand marks, double any salary he had received so far.

The film Introducing Ziss, a greedy and vicious Jewish merchant living in the Frankfurt ghetto. Ziss engages in an interest-bearing loan, and to promote himself economically and socially he uses manipulation, corruption and bribery. To disguise himself, he shaves his beard and peot and replaces his long coat with Christian attire. His intrigue pays off, ostensibly, and he reaches an influential political position in the court of the Duke of Württemberg, where he continues to amass power and wealth. He manages to remove the order against Jews, and an entire gang from Frankfurt arrives in Stuttgart and begins to make Trouble, plunder the Christians and oppress the local economy.

The conspiratorial manipulations of the Jew lead the Duchy to the brink of civil war, but eventually justice is served and Ziss' corruption is exposed. He is disqualified, prosecuted and sentenced to be hanged. At the end of the film, the ban on the presence of Jews in Stuttgart is renewed and they are deported, with the girl's father urging future generations to keep the law forever in order to prevent much suffering.

The film intended to illustrate the danger to Germany precisely from the assimilated Jews, those who look and dress like modern Germans. Such Jews, who shed the Jewish identification marks and that it is difficult to immediately discern their cunning, they are the most dangerous, according to "The Jew Ziss" in his Nazi version.

The film, which hit theaters in 1940, was a huge success and was watched by 20 million viewers in Germany and another 20 million viewers across Europe. The image created in the film, of the hated, and conspiratorial Jew, served Nazi propaganda well during these years, and increased among the population the feeling of rejection and hatred towards the Jews, which was already at its peak, at the outbreak of the war. His success was immeasurably greater than that of the film "The Eternal Jew" that came out at the time, in the pretense of a documentary film that blatantly portrays the Jews as rats and as harmful, dirty and ugly parasites.

[8] pages. 30 cm. Slight tears. Good condition.