Jew Suss: Rise and Fall

7/21/2021

**Commentary** by Frank Stern, cultural and film historian **Can film be crime?** **The 1940 Nazi propaganda film JUD Süss** Over 20 million saw the 1940 propaganda film JUD SÜSS in Germany, Austria and the Wehrmacht-occupied countries of Europe. The film (directed by Veit Harlan) was not simply a cinema film, but was also used among SS Einsatzgruppen, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the crews of the concentration and extermination camps. When the Nazi empire collapsed, this feature film was therefore one of the first productions by Ufa and Terra to be withdrawn from circulation by the Allied victorious powers and its public screening was placed under reserve. This is how it has remained to this day. JUD SÜSS belongs to a long list of prohibited and whose essential message is r