The Eternal Jew (1937): The facts

This article is a review of the Nazi anti-semitic propaganda film, The Eternal Jew, released after the Nazi occupation of Poland.

The motivation

The Eternal Jew is a 1940 anti-semitic film released by the Nazi government of Germany as it pursued its policy of vilifying Jews. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels oversaw the production of the film with his hand-picked director Fritz Hippler handling the artistic details. The documentary film used footage obtained in Poland after the Nazi occupation of 1939. The country was home to a significant Jewish population of about three million, and served as a backdrop for the film. Aim The main aim of the film was to portray Jews as wandering people who always took on the role of parasites wherever they settled. The script, written by Eberhard Taubert, made a point of juxtaposing these attributes with exaggerated characteristics bestowed upon the Aryan German race.
Depiction of Jews While the Germans supposedly found satisfaction in production and creation of value, Jews were crafty, only interested in trading what others had created. Jews were also portrayed as being hedonistic and uncultured while Germans were presented as aesthetes who loved a high-quality life. The documentary found the perfect comparison of Jews in rats, filthy vermin that are vile beyond redemption.

Social and ideological scourge

It also made a deliberate effort to link all social and ideological forces that the Nazis opposed with Jewish influences. These included relativism, communism, modern art and sexual liberation. It did not stop at ideological critique, going further to ridicule the kosher slaughter of animals by Jews. This appeared in a long scene showing animals in their death throes, with the aim of consolidating Adolf Hitler’s enthusiastic support (the dictator disapproved of animal slaughter and consumption). The film also slandered several prominent Jews of the era including Albert Einstein - falsely linked to pornography, socialist leader Rosa Luxemburg, Jewish actor Peter Lorre and comedian Charlie Chaplin, who was not even Jewish. It concluded with a long speech given by Hitler in which he eerily warned that if Jews instigated another world war, then it would result in their annihilation in Europe.

Lukewarm response

Response to the film from the German public was lukewarm at best, mostly due to its low quality in comparison to other professionally-produced propaganda works such as Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will and Veit Harlan’s Jew Suss. The audience considered the film hideously extreme even by the racist standards of Nazi Germany, and was growing weary of the anti-semitic propaganda barrage. The virulently anti-semitic nature of the film has ensured that it remains banned for public use in Germany, but it is freely distribute by neo-Nazis in the United States.