Jud Süß (1940)

Jud Süß (pronounced [juːt zyːs], 'Jew Süss') is a 1940 Nazi German historical drama/propaganda film produced by Terra Film at the behest of Joseph Goebbels. Considered one of the most antisemitic films of all time, the film was directed by Veit Harlan, who co-wrote the screenplay with Eberhard Wolfgang Möller and Ludwig Metzger. It stars Ferdinand Marian and Kristina Söderbaum with Werner Krauss and Heinrich George in 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, and was seen by 20 million people. Although its 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 see it.

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. Susan Tegel, author of Nazis and the Cinema, characterizes their postwar attempts to distance themselves from the film as "crass and self-serving"; she argues that their motives for accepting the roles seem to have been more driven by opportunistic ambition than by antisemitism. Harlan was the only major movie director of the Third Reich to stand trial for crimes against humanity. After three trials, he 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 made 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 the 2000s, two documentary films and a drama were released that explore the history and impact of the film.