Nazi Perspectives in Jew Suess and The Eternal Jew

Clearly, from a historical standpoint, both Jew Suess and The Eternal Jew are historically false. Jew Suess skews a popular Jewish legend and The Eternal Jew misinterprets actualities as well as completely fabricates most of its “historical” material. Therefore, what we learn about history from these two films is limited to the choices the directors made about how to portray Jews and what that says about the intended audience of the time. Additionally, we can learn from the German reaction to the films and what that means for the historical climate of the time. As Silberman says, there is no such thing as an ideologically free reading of a text or story. Veit Harlan's reading of Suess Oppenheimer's story is far from ideologically free. Occasionally, however, his ideology is not completely clear. For example, the choices he makes in portraying Suess as Jewish, yet not identifiable with the “Jewish masses” are problematic. Does Harlan want to incite that Jews are difficult to identify and therefore pose a greater danger? Or perhaps did he make Suess identifiable to the German viewer so that they could see some of him in themselves so that they could more deeply abhor his “Jewish” vices. The term “ideologically free reading” holds almost no meaning in reference to The Eternal Jew, as the entire film is an ideological diatribe offering no alternative viewpoint. The film even curtails any possible loopholes in its rhetoric with anti-Semitic “rational”. What we can learn about the Nazi era perspective (besides the Government ideal of anti-antisemitism) is beholden in the reaction of Germans to the film. The fact that the film was not favorably accepted suggests to me that the Germans were not comfortable openly declaring death as the punishment for being Jewish. Although the reception to Jew Suess was positive, its message does not, at any point, mention or encourage mass extermination of Jews. The insight to be gained on the Nazi perspective lies within the nuances of choices made by directors while filming and the reaction of the films by viewers while watching.