Jew Suss
Life, Legend, Fiction, Film
Published on 9. June 2011
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-1-84725-017-9 (ISBN)
Description
This is an in-depth study of how this notorious figure has captured the public imagination, in both life and legend. For two centuries the image of Jew Suss has been adapted, distorted and transformed by writers and film directors. In telling the story of those various transformations and the reasons for them, this book paints a broad picture of German history and, in some cases, antisemitism. Joseph Suss Oppenheimer (1698-1738), better know as Jew Suss, was a Court Jew who served as financial advisor to the Duke of Wurttemberg. Clever and handsome, he adapted easily to court life despite his humble origins. He made many enemies - primarily for his unpopular economic policies - and on the Duke's sudden death he was arrested and charged with high treason and abuse of office. Found guilty, he was executed in Stuttgart in an iron cage suspended above a gallows. His spectacular rise and fall, trial and unusual public execution inspired a media outpouring. It captured the public imagination then and in subsequent centuries, finally serving as a parable for the Final Solution and the most notorious of Nazi antisemitic films, Veit Harlan's "Jud Suss" (1940).
Reviews / Votes
A well-researched study. * Literary Review * Ms. Tegel has performed an invaluable service by laying out the real-life story of Joseph Suess Oppenheimer and the sorry tale of his appropriation by Nazi propagandists.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903791504576586960818083204.html?mod=googlenews_wsj * The Wall Street Journal * A well-researched, English-language survey of the Suess motif throughout the ages ... draws on a wealth of primary and secondary sources and focuses not only on what appears on screen and how it got there but on the film's "hinterland". Most interesting [are] the passages on the screenings of the film in Nazi occupied Europe and the conflictual institutional and popular response ... extremely useful ... for scholars and students interested in German film and cultural history * Thomas Nagl, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television * Tegel's thorough archival research, jargon-free prose and linear narrative yield clear pictures of Joseph Suess Oppenheimer's life and execution as well as his representation in literature, drama, and film through 1950. This reception history will benefit non-specialist readers interested in Jud Suess and its transformations over the centuries ... At this point it stands as the most definitive account of the many iterations of a tragic chapter in German Jewish history. -- Daniel H. Magilow * Holocaust and Genocide Studies * With formidable power, this book cuts through convolutions and elucidates a story that begins with a judicial murder and ends with a trial for genocide, and involves large numbers of writers, along with a vast array of ill-wishers, pan-handlers, murderers and courtiers. Susan Tegel has done us proud and once again brought clarity where there was nothing but confusion. -- S. S. Prawer, Taylor Emeritus Professor of German Language and Literature, University of Oxford, UK The film Jud Suess is one of the most notorious examples of Goebbel's antisemitic propaganda. Susan Tegel has set out to explore the historical reality of Suess's life in eighteenth-century Germany and the way that reality has been distorted and reworked ever since. This is a rich and imaginative reconstruction of a complex story and a shocking reminder of how easily history can be abused for political gain. -- Richard Overy, Professor of History, University of Exeter, UK
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Illustrations
12
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
628 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84725-017-9 (9781847250179)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
Susan Tegel, formerly Head of History at the University of Hertfordshire, acted as historical adviser to the legal team which planned to press charges against Leni Riefenstahl for Holocaust Denial in 2002. She is a member of the editorial board of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.
Content
Life and Legend; 1. The Rise of Joseph Suss Oppenheimer (1698-1737); 2. Trial and Execution (1737-38); 3. Life after Death: the eighteenth century legend; Literature; 4. The Nineteenth Century: Villain or Victim?; 5. Best-seller: Leon Feuchtwanger's 1925 novel; Film; 6. The British Jew Suss (1934); 7. Jud Suss and Kristallnacht; 8. The Final Solution; 9. Crimes against humanity.