Eternal Jew/Jud Suss Take Home Essay

Reaction paper #8 is now considered a take-home portion of your final exam.

It is due on Thursday, May 1st at 9:00am.

Make sure your essay answers the questions posed, uses the readings on reserve in the library and notes on the blog, and is well-written. The bare minimum is 2 pages, but longer essays (as always) are fine.

Question:
The two best examples of anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda are the movies The Eternal Jew and Jud Suss, but while their message is essentially the same, that Jews are a menace that has hurt Germany for hundreds of years, they do so in different ways. The Eternal Jew is presented as a documentary, presenting "fact" on the history of the Jewish people, while Jud Suss is a more Hollywood-esque feature film, with a rather despicable Jewish character as the antagonist. Which one is more effective? If you were a German citizen sitting in the theater watching these films, what impact do you think they would have on you?

NOTE: You need to have an introduction and a thesis that states which one is more effective, and then you need to present BOTH films, proving why you've selected the one you have, and then a conclusion. You can't just say The Eternal Jew is more effective and then only talk about that one film. It doesn't show any real analysis of both films as propaganda.

Class Announcements

1. We have 3 classes left, Mon, 4/14, Wed, 4/16, and Wed, 4/23. We will not have class on Mon, 4/21. In order to make up for the missed class, we will meet for 30 minutes longer each class. Class will be from 2:30-4:15pm.

2. If you are late for your presentation, we will just skip you and come back to you during that class period. Presentations cannot be rescheduled unless there is a full blown emergency and I know ahead of time. If you miss your presentation, unless you've contacted me and made arrangements, you will receive a ZERO. I also expect everyone to attend all of the presentation days. Missing presentation days, even if it isn't your day, will hurt your grade.

3. Please practice your presentation and time it to make sure you're not too short or too long. I WILL cut you off at 10 minutes. Have a backup if you're going to use media. Media not working is not an excuse to postpone your presentation.

4. The research paper is due on Wednesday, April 23rd. No exceptions.

5. All reaction paper rewrites are due on Wednesday, April 30th. You will need to drop them in the box on the front of my office door. I will have a folder for you to put them in. Please attach your original essay that I graded.

6. Your last reaction paper on the Eternal Jew and Jud Suss is now a take-home final exam essay. Please treat it as such. You MUST answer the questions, you MUST use the readings, and it MUST be well-written. It is due in class on the day of the final exam (Thursday, May 1st at 9:00am).

The Jud Suss notes

Jud Suss (1940)

Watch for these themes:

• Jew as an alien
• everything is fine in Germany until the Jews arrive, then dissent and conflict and exploitation
• manipulation of wealth
• manipulation of lecherous drunken prince
• the Jew as rapist of Aryan maidens
  

Directed by Veit Harlan

set in 18th century Wurttembuerg

Jud Suss Oppenheimer weasels his way in and starts controlling the roads and loans

The Jew is seen as a manipulator, banker, leech

Dresses like a German nobleman

insidious

Kristina Soederbaum is the victim of Jud Suss

she is raped (this is called a "blutschande" or "blood crime" whereby pure Aryan blood is sullied by mixing with Jewish blood)

rather than suffer the shame of having a part-Jewish child, Kristina drowns herself (interesting note: this actress played so many similar roles, and kept drowning herself in each picture that she became known as the Reichswasserleiche, or "Reich Water Corpse)

Goebbels declared that the film was not to be described as anti-semitic

film shown throughout occupied Europe

The Jud Suss is put on trial after the Prince dies.

An eye for an eye is not the German way, the dead girl's father says.

Proclaims his innocence mocking Germans who pitied Jews.

His last pleas: "Ich bin nur ein armer Jude..." ("I am just a poor little Jew")

No pity shown.

As Goebbels said in late 1941, "to be sure their fate is a hard one, but more than deserved"

Jud Suss is hanged in a cage as the snow falls and the Jews are expelled from Wurttemberg

Themes:

• assimilated Jews are more dangerous than Polish Jews depicted in The Eternal Jew
• they are all the same: the modernized Jud Suss allied with the cunning magician rabbi
• blutschande is the highest crime
  

Expulsion of Jews justified in the movie

but other than Suss, who was guilty, no Jew is being harmed

Germans not ready for the full truth

By the time the film was widely released, measures had been taken to exterminate large numbers of Jews.

The film justified expulsion of German Jews, perhaps prepared viewers for larger things to come

Still a huge leap from executing Suss to murdering millions

But a viewer who, like many Germans, wanted to believe that the Jews were being sent to the "East" to "work" might leave the theater feeling better about ugly rumors

The Eternal Jew notes

The Eternal Jew is a masterpiece of hate propaganda released in Germany in 1940.

Using American films and other sources, the film demonizes Jews as cheats, polluters of culture, murderers of innocent animals, and spreaders of disease and crime.

Made by Fritz Hippler, a high ranking official in the Goebbels' film propaganda effort, The Eternal Jew portrays the Jew as a culture-destroyer against whom Germany is fighting.

Does the film suggest a genocidal solution?

for week of 4/7-4/9

For Mon, 4/7

• reaction paper #7 due--Reaction paper #7 is due on Mon, 4/7--topic: Return to our first readings out of History Goes to the Movies that discusses how Leni Riefenstahl denied that Triumph of the Will was not propaganda. Now that you've seen the film, what do you think? If you agree with Riefenstahl's assessment of her film, then support her answer using the film. If you believe that it IS propaganda, then use the film to argue with her. In essence, I want you to tell me whether Triumph of the Will is or isn't propaganda, but make sure you use the readings (esp. History Goes to the Movies) in your response.
• read: blognotes on The Eternal Jew and readings on reserve on The Eternal Jew

For Wed, 4/9

• read: blognotes on The Jud Suss and readings on reserve on The Jud Suss
  

Readings for week of 3/31-4/2

For Mon, 3/31
-reread section of Hollywood Goes to the Movies that deals with Leni Riefenstahl's response to her film Triumph of the Will being called propaganda


For Wed, 4/2
--Negro Soldier reaction paper due
--read David B. Hinton, "Triumph of the Will: Document or Artifice?" Cinema Journal, 15:1 (Autumn 1975), 48-57. (available on Jstor)
--read Martha J. Feldman, "Totalitarianism without Pain: Teaching Communism and Fascism with Film," The History Teacher 29:1 (Nov 1995), 51-61. (available on Jstor)

note on Negro Soldier paper

Be sure to include the two Jstor articles by Sklaroff and Cripps in your Negro Soldier paper.