Everything about The Eternal Jew totally explained
The Eternal Jew is a
1940 propaganda film. Its title in
German is
Der ewige Jude, the German term for the character of the "
Wandering Jew" in medieval folklore. At the insistence of
Nazi Germany's Minister of Propaganda,
Joseph Goebbels, the film was directed by
Fritz Hippler. The screenplay is credited to
Eberhard Taubert. The film consists of feature and documentary footage combined with materials filmed shortly after the Nazi occupation of
Poland. At this time Poland's
Jewish population was about three million, roughly ten percent of the total population. Actor
Harry Giese (1903–1991) narrated.
Format
The movie is done in the style of a
documentary, the central thesis being the immutable racial personality traits that, according to Nazi doctrine, characterize the Jew as a wandering cultural parasite. Throughout the film, these supposed traits are contrasted to the Nazi state ideal: while
Aryan men are shown to find satisfaction in physical labor and the creation of value, Jews are depicted as finding pleasure in money and a hedonist lifestyle. While members of the Aryan race live healthily, rich Jews are shown as living in bug-infested and dirty homes, even though they could afford better. While Germanic/Nordic man has an appreciation for Northern culture and imagery, Jews are alleged only to find satisfaction in the grotesque and decadent. Many things that run contrary to Nazi doctrine are associated with Jewish influence, such as modern art, (cultural)
relativism,
anarchic and
socialist movements, as well as
sexual liberation. The film criticizes Jewish religious practices, and criticises
kosher slaughtering, (
shechita), as inhumane, contrasting it with Nazi laws requiring that animals be
anaesthetized prior to butchering.
Cast
Plot and content
One of the opening shots of the film shows a pack of
rats emerging from a sewer, juxtaposed with a crowd of Jews in a bustling Polish street. Close-ups of individuals show sickly, malformed facial features. The narration explains how as rats are the vermin of the animal kingdom, Jews are the vermin of the human race and similarly spread disease and corruption. Unlike rats, however, the narrator continues, Jews have the uncanny ability to change their appearance and blend into their "human hosts." A scene depicts four bearded men in traditional Jewish costume, then shows them shaved and in modern business suits, while the narrator explains that only a "trained eye" can distinguish their Jewish features.
Other scenes include footage of notable figures such as
Albert Einstein (placed adjacent to a series of images about Jewish control of the
pornography industry, even though Einstein was never involved in pornography), socialist leader
Rosa Luxemburg, and even
Charlie Chaplin managed to earn
Adolf Hitler's wrath. Other noted figures are clearly taken out of context as well: for example, the Jewish actor
Peter Lorre is shown in a scene from
Fritz Lang's film
M, in which he played a child murderer. A sequence from the American film
The House of Rothschild is shown, with misleading German subtitles.
Scenes of Jewish life in Poland were also staged to make the Jews objects of ridicule.
Adam Czerniakow, whom the Nazis appointed head of the
Judenrat (Jewish Council), is shown seated in front of a seven-branched
menorah, gesticulating wildly at the director's insistence, because "that is how Jews speak."
Toward the end of the film, after showing how Jews have been responsible for the decline of Western music, science, art, and commerce, is a scene of a
cow being slaughtered for meat by a
shochet (Jewish ritual slaughter), which is prefaced by a warning similar to the one in
Frankenstein, telling women, children, and the squeamish about the upcoming scene. This long scene, lasting several minutes, shows the cows and sheep in all their death throes. The movie's creators apparently filmed this scene on the knowledge that
Adolf Hitler was strongly opposed to
cruelty to animals.
The film ends with Hitler explaining the problems of the Jewry in Europe and says: “If the international finance-Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations into a world war yet again, then the outcome won't be the victory of Jewry, but rather the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!”
Public response
Unser Wille und Weg, a Nazi Party monthly aimed at propagandists provides a rationale for why
The Eternal Jew was made. The author of the essay “The Film of a 2000-Year Rat Migration,” who remains anonymous, believes the film shows “a full picture of Jewry,” and provides "the best treatment of this parasitic race."
The author relates the Jews move from Middle East to Egypt and their following of German colonists to rats traveling as a group, who "even then displayed the same criminal traits that they still displayed". The film is complimented for "its portrayal of the Jews' vulgar methods and the brutality and all-devouring hatred they exhibit when they reach their goal and control finance."
Also called into question is the slaughtering method which causes the author to question the “so-called Jewish religion,” as butchers do their work with grins on their face.
In closing, the author states the film will be a valuable tool in the struggle to break the Jews' “power over us. We are the initiators of the fight against world Jewry, which now directs its hate, its brutal greed and destructive will toward us. We must win this battle for ourselves, for Europe, for the world.”
Postwar significance
Post-war Fritz Hippler contended Joseph Goebbels was truly the creator of
The Eternal Jew with close supervision of Hitler. It was Goebbels who gave Hippler credit as a reward of sorts “for his excellent work in the newsreel department” (Winkel, Roel. Nazi German’s Fritz Hippler, 1909- 2002. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. Carfax Publishing. Vol 23, No 2, 2003. 91-99.).
An unrepentant Fritz Hippler was interviewed in the Emmy Award winning program "The Propaganda Battle" in the
PBS series
Walk Through the Twentieth Century. In this interview he explains that he regrets that his name was listed as the director of
The Eternal Jew because the Allies interrogated him after the war. He thought this was very unfair because, in his opinion, he'd nothing to do with the killing of Jews. In an interview shown in the 2000 German documentary series
Holocaust, the 90-year old Hippler described the film as "the most disgraceful example of anti-semitism."
The film has been banned for public use in Germany, the only exception is use in college classrooms and other academic gatherings, however exhibitors must have formal education in "media science and the history of the Holocaust." *
The Eternal Jew - a Blueprint for Genocide
1933 film
The same title had been used for a
Yiddish-language picture made in the US by the
Jewish Talking Picture Company in
1933.
Further Information
Get more info on 'The Eternal Jew'.
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