Posted on 03/02/2010 9:34:22 PM PST by nickcarraway
In the history of the cinema, the German director Veit Harlan occupies an especially ignominious position. It is his name that is attached to “Jew Süss,” perhaps the most notoriously anti-Semitic movie ever made, a box office success in Nazi Germany in 1940 that was so effective that it was made required viewing for all members of the SS.
But what motivated Harlan to write and direct such a film? Was he a Nazi true believer, an opportunistic careerist or just a filmmaker too fearful of retribution to say no to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief? Those are some of the questions that another German director, Felix Moeller, asks in “Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Süss,” a documentary that opens a two-week engagement Wednesday at Film Forum in Manhattan.
“Harlan may be forgotten, but he was an influential figure, frequently mentioned in Nazi documents and in Goebbels’s diary,” Mr. Moeller said. “That interested me as a historian, but I also wanted to know what the younger generation thinks of this. We think we know everything, but when you ask what your grandfather did on the Eastern Front, what went on in your own family, it’s a different matter, and that story is important to me.”
Mr. Moeller’s film includes some snippets from “Jew Süss,” whose commercial exhibition or sale as a DVD is still prohibited in Germany and several other European countries. Set in the 18th century, it claims to be a dramatization of the true story of how a sinister, cunning Jewish financier, Joseph Süss Oppenheimer, took control of the duchy of Wurttemberg while preying sexually on a pure Aryan maiden,
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
By setting his story a long time in the past, it almost looks like the filmmaker was winking at the viewer.
People blame Hitler and Goebbels for the atrocities of the Nazis, but there was actually quite an appetite for this sort of behavior by the Germans, Austrians, and other during this period.
Hitler got the big crowds, not a moderate , or a Priest.
Welcome to Free Republic.
And good-bye.
Hank
Leni Riefenstahl, though she indeed worked for Hitler, was actually a brilliant film maker—whose career was totally wrecked after the war. Her remarkable skills are what made her so dangerous...and those skills used post-war were basically ignored by Hollywood until very recently.
The US Space program was built upon the work of differently skilled brilliant German rocket scientists—who were also rewarded for their work for us (and who during the war also helped Hitler nearly succeed).
I really don’t see a lot of moral difference—except the rocket scientists were used and recognized early on—but Reifenstahl basically had to wait until her death.
And much of the US consumerist media propogated after WWII was influenced by social control techniques (adopted from Nazi propogandists who were also imported after the war).
Another parallel between pre WWll and today, the number of Jews that supported the Nazis then and the ones that support the Left and Islamicism now...just amazing that so many can be so self destructive.
>>>I’ll never forget when Leni Riefenstahl was honored at the Acadamy Awards in the death montage they do - paying tribute to all the great artists, directors and filmakers that have passed away the previous year. All those idiots cheering for Hitler’s filmmaker. Disgusting.
I hear what you are saying but it’s akin to bashing D W Griffith because later generations disapprove of the message of “Birth of a Nation”. Nonetheless looking at it objectively it is a remarkable film for so early in the history of cinema.
Likewise Leni was a magnificent filmmaker, even if in the service of the Nazi party. And as far as I know she didn’t deal in the sort of hate propaganda as discussed in the main article.
They cheered for Reifenstahl and Polanski, but sat on their hands for Elia Kazan because he talked to HUAC. Their morals are backward.
what is Rahm Emmanuel doing in a Picture with Hitler?
He’s the guy in the dress?
Good post. My father worked/golfed a few times with these German Scientists when he was in Alabama. In fact, he met Von Braun a few times and thought the good Dr. was nothing but a brilliant dreamer.
It is customary to welcome people who are new here, but I will not be doing that in your case.
I think you are missing my point. The Nazi atrocities were committed with the enthusiastic commitment of the German people. Obviously I am against them, as I am Jewish.
He gave nice nationalistic speeches and people loved that. But they were also scared as hell of him and his regime.
And that's all well and good, but when it comes down to it, Hitler and his circle were the ones ordering the exterminations. Not the German people.
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