Dominik Dietz

Ger 598: Weimar German Cinema

Due May 7, 2015
Professor Gilfillan
Portrayal of Jews in Weimar Cinema
There is an assumption that the portrayal of Jews as other and as the stranger
only existed during the Third Reich in Germany; however, this is absolutely not true
because they were already portrayed as other/foreign during the Weimar Republic. This
portrayal is noticeable through numerous films that were produced during the Weimar
era. For example The Golem and Nosferatu are two famous movies from the era that
exemplify the negative representation of Jews. This negative image of Jews arose from
historical stereotypes, that were expressed on film for the first during the era. These
early movies were the inspiration that would later be used by the Nazi regime in their
propaganda films to make it seem like Jews were inferior people, which in their minds
justified the atrocities that they would later commit.

HISTORY OF JEWS IN GERMANY

Jews have had a very long and complex history in Germany that can be dated back to
the fourth century (Shyovitz, n.d.). During this history there were times where the
Jewish community was deeply assimilated into German culture and the German
lifestyle, which allowed them to be accepted as an important aspect of the German
community. For example, during the Golden Age that occurred during the 4th and 11th

century, Jews played an important economical role because they were very successful
merchants (Shyovitz, n.d.). Additionally, in 1812 Prussia became the first to German
state to grant their Jewish inhabitants German citizenship.
Naturally, there were many times where Germany violently or politically attacked the
Jewish community. The first time Jews were identified as being other was during the
Middle Ages and the Crusades because they were not Catholic and many people
thought that they were aligned with the Muslims (Shyovitz, n.d.). Additionally, during the
19th century a schism developed within the Jewish community between the Orthodox
and Reformed Jews because the Reformed Jews though that the traditional compliance
to Jewish Orthodoxy was overly restrictive and irrelevant for modern life in Germany
(Shyovitz, n.d.).

DEFINING THE OTHER

The concept of the other was first discussed in the 18th and 19th centuries in
Continental philosophy and the social sciences. The primary characteristic when
referring to the other is that it is different and/or alien to what is considered normal.
Additionally, when applying the other to describe a person or a group of people we do
so with the intention of excluding them from societal norms and pushing them towards
the margins of society. During the Weimar period there were several groups of people
that fall into this category, such as: the injured war veterans with their missing limbs or
the Jews that resided within Germany because they had different religious practices.

THE STRANGER

The notion of the stranger was discussed in the essay The Stranger by Georg Simmel.
Within the essay he defined the stranger as a person who arrives from somewhere else
and brings new qualities to the new group that he joins. Within the minds of the group
members the stranger is always set apart because he comes from somewhere else.
Simmel asserts that the stranger is near to us because we share a social,
national,occupational or general human nature connection and at the same time he is
far from us because the connection that we share is shared by many people.
Consequently, the social role of the stranger is distinguished from the group because of
this combination of remoteness and nearness.

JEWS IN THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC

In the beginning of the 20th century almost all of the Jews in Germany lived either in
little villages or small towns; however, by 1910 nearly 60 percent of the entire Jewish
population lived in metropolitan cities, those cities with a population over 100,000
(United States Holocaust Memorial Council). According to a census from 1925 of the
564,973 registered Jews in the Weimar Republic 71.5 percent of the Jewish population
lived in Prussia (United States Holocaust Memorial Council). The Western Jews, those
Jews that resided in Germany, had assimilated so deeply to German culture and the
German lifestyle that they considered themselves Germans first and Jews second
(Aschheim, 216). This is supported by the author Georg Hermann that considered
himself a typical Western Jew because he identified more with German culture instead
of with the uncivilized culture of the Eastern Jews (Aschheim, 216).

The assimilation and the acceptance of Jews in Germany changed irrevocably

after the Germans were defeated at the end of World War I. The inescapable reality
between 1918-1923 was that the Germans needed a scapegoat for all that was wrong
in Germany. There was the shocked of defeat, many Germans feared a revolution
because of the political instability, there was a devastating economic collapse and the
overall political climate was brutal and uncertain because there were so many political
factions that existed (Aschheim, 215). Naturally, the easy scapegoat were the Jews
because anytime anything went wrong in Germany they were at fault. Additionally, the
question of the Eastern Jew became vitally important because millions of Jews fled out
of Russia and Eastern Europe to escape the pogroms (Aschheim, 2015). This exodus
of Eastern Jews into Germany provoked the rise of anti-semitism that had already
existed in Germany under the surface for many years.

THE EASTERN JEW QUESTION AND ANTI-SEMITISM

From 1881 until the post-war period nearly three million Jews fled to the West from the
Eastern Front. For many of the refugees Germany was the passageway to their
ultimate intended destination, the United States. This wave of refugees provoked fears
that there would be a mass immigration of Jews into Germany, which allowed the antisemitic feelings that had existed under the surface to be openly expressed. From this
movement arose the important question of the Eastern Jew because they were viewed
as being other and as strangers by Germans.
The perception within Germany was that there was a large influx of Eastern Jews
coming into the country and the metropolitan centers; however, there was a only minor

migration of these refugees into Germany. Nonetheless, there was a perception from
Germans that they were inhabiting large parts of cities such as Berlin. The truth is that
these immigrants were settling into communities that were predominantly Jewish, such
as Berlins Scheunenviertel; however, it was this concentration of Eastern Jews that
helped to perpetuate the perception that they were inhabiting larger parts of German
communities than they actually were. This caused a dichotomy for German Jews
because they had worked tirelessly to assimilate themselves to be accepted as equals
within German society.
On the one hand they viewed the Eastern Jews as an impediment to the
continual integration of German Jews into modern Germany because of their insistence
of following the traditional practices of Judaism. At the same time they also helped the
refugees to fight for fundamental rights and for an improvement to their economic
position through aid organizations. However, many of these aid agencies did not want
the refugees to settle in Germany, rather they wanted the Eastern Jews to settle abroad
in places such as the United States. It was this combination of views from people within
Germany that allowed the anti-semitism that was brewing under the surface to be
brought to the foreground and be expressed publicly through films that evoked fear
through the utilization of Jewish stereotypes.

JEWISH STEREOTYPES
The negative stereotypes of Jews existed long before the Weimar Republic; however, it
was during this era that these stereotypes would be produced on film for the first time to
portray Jews as other and as the stranger. Ultimately, it was these portrayals that

would later be utilized by the Nazis in their propaganda movies. The traditional Jewish
stereotypes can be traced back to the Middle Ages and the Crusades and they evolved
over the course of German history.
During the chaotic Weimar Republic Jews were stereotyped as being capitalistic
exploiters, that they were eugenically different people and that they were believers of
black magic. The idea of Jewish people being capitalistic exploiters goes back to the
Middle Ages and the Crusades when Christians were not allowed to be moneylenders
because the Church thought that collecting interest on loan payments was considered a
sin. Jewish merchants that had been forced to move out of the cities where they lived
filled this void (Padgett, n.d.). Within this role they converted Roman coins into currency
that would be accepted in Jerusalem for the Christians that were heading East (Padgett,
n.d.). The involvement of Jews with money and banking cultivated the reputation of
being greedy and willing to do anything for money.
The notion of Jews being portrayed as eugenically different goes back to the 19th
century when the German social Darwinists believed that people could be classified into
races, with each race bearing both physical and internal distinguishing characteristics
that date back to the dawn of man (United States Holocaust Memorial Council). The
negative physical characteristics that are most commonly attributed to Jews are that
they have curly black hair, large hook-noses and beady eyes, which is part of the
reason why Jews were portrayed as vermin. Additionally, many thought that Jews were
the carriers of disease and that the spread of corruption was caused by them.
The final Jewish stereotype that is portrayed during the Weimar era is the idea
that Eastern Jews are believers and practitioners of black magic. This stereotype

arises from the belief that followers of traditional Jewish worship practices utilized black
magic to create beings such as the Golem and to invoke the dark spirit Astaroth to
bring it to life. This is a stereotype that even German Jews believed in because they
thought that many of the traditional practices were not relevant in modern day Germany.
These stereotypes were perpetuated so that Jews could be portrayed as other
or strange because the Germans needed to place blame on someone for all of the
problems that existed in Germany during that time. This is supported by the 4th point
from the 1920 Nazi Party platform that stated, Staatsbrger kann nur sein, wer
Volksgenosse ist. Volksgenosse kann nur sein, wer deutschen Blutes ist, ohne
Rcksichtnahme auf Konfession. Kein Jude kann daher Volksgenosse sein (Ursprung
und Ziele der Nazi Partei, 1920). Two of the movies that clearly demonstrate these
stereotypes and how Jews are portrayed as other and/or strange are The Golem and
Nosferatu.

PORTRAYAL OF STEREOTYPES IN THE GOLEM

The 1920 silent horror film The Golem: How He Came into the World centers around a
Jewish community in a ghetto in medieval Prague and their Rabbi Loew. At the
beginning of the movie Rabbi Loew, who is the leader of the Jewish community, is
reading the stars and warns the elders with his assistant that there is looming disaster
for the community. The following day this prediction comes to fruition when the Holy
Roman Emperor signs a decree demanding that all Jews leave the city before the next
new moon. To protect his community Rabbi Loew creates a monster, the Golem, out of
clay in order to protect his people. In order for the Golem to awaken the Rabbi must

first summon the spirit of Astaroth with his magical abilities and compel the spirit,
according to the ancient texts, to speak the magic word. Once this occurs the Rabbi
takes the Golem with him to a festival for the Emperor, where the Golem ends up saving
the court after the palace begins to crumble. After this event the Emperor decides to
pardon the Jews and allows them to stay in the city. After the Jews return to their
community Astaroth obtains total control of the Golem, who in turn goes on to cause
havoc within the ghetto, so Rabbi Loew utilizes another spell to remove Astaroth from
the Golem. The movie ends when the Golem is defeated when the amulet in his chest
is removed by a little girl.
The primary stereotype that is portrayed throughout the movie is that Jews are
practitioners of black magic and it very noticeable throughout the entire film. The first
time we are exposed to the idea of black magic occurs at the beginning of the movie
and Rabbi Loew is reading the stars and goes on to predict that something terrible is
going to happen to his community. The second time we see this portrayal is when
Rabbi Loew created the Golem out of clay and awakens it with the spirit of Astaroth. At
the festival the Rabbi utilizes his abilities to project a magical screen showing the history
of the Jews for the court. Then towards the end of the movie the Rabbi once again
reads astrological movements that warns him of an upcoming disaster and then
proceeds to utilize his magical abilities to remove Astaroth from the Golem.
The concept of black magic and reading astrological movements have
traditionally occurred within the pagan religions. Within the Christian religion black
magic or any of its forms have always been banned and seen as heretical and is
supported by the following Bible verses from the Book of Deuteronomy 18:9-14:

When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you
shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There
shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter
as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or
interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a
necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these
things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations
the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless
before the Lord your God(Holy Bible, 1980).
Therefore all of the uses of black magic within the movie are against the teachings of
the Bible and should be punished with the ultimate penalty of death, which is supported
by the Bible verse from the Book of Exodus 22:18, You shall not permit a sorceress to
live (1980). This fundamental Christian view of the movie makes it easy to understand
why people watching this movie during the Weimar era would view the members of the
Jewish community as other and as strangers.
The Golem does an excellent job of portraying the the Jewish community as
other and as strange through various methods. The primary mechanism for this
representation is brought forward through the focus on black magic throughout the
entire movie. The emphasis on this demonstrates how the greater German community
would view this practice as something abnormal and that is practiced by people that live

on the fringes of society, thus excluding them from society. This is supported by
Isenbergs claim that:
Just as the films Decree Against the Jews suggests that Jews practice
black arts and endanger the lives of Christians, The Golems depiction of
the main Jewish characters, and the world that they occupy, confirms
these claims (2009).
Additionally, at the release of the movie there was a large influx of Eastern Jews into
Berlin so there was this perception that they were flooding into Germany by the millions
when in reality it was only 50,000 and this feeling is also supported Isenberg:
On the whole, 50,000 human beings [i.e. Jews] have come to Germany
after the war. It appears, of course, as if it were millions. It is precisely
this sense that is so dramatically depicted in The Golem. Like much of the
late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century reactionary discourse on
Jewish identity, the Jews in The Golem are perceived as quintessentially
urban (2009).
From this portrayal we can see how the Eastern Jews are strangers because they are
humans and they belong to a community of not only other people but more specifically
the German Jewish community. Yet, they do not quite fit in because they come from the
East, they are not as well assimilated to German society and they have strange
religious practices with their use black magic and worship of traditional Jewish rituals.
The Golem focuses on the stereotype of Jews being practitioners of black magic and

how this portrays them as other/strange, whereas the film Nosferatu focuses on
additional stereotypes that negatively portrays the German Jewish community.

PORTRAYAL OF STEREOTYPES IN NOSFERATU

The 1922 Weimar film Nosferatu centers on Hutter who is sent to visit his new client
Count Orlok in Transylvania. On Hutters way he encounters citizens that are absolutely
terrified to hear that he is going to visit the Count because they have heard of many
strange things about Orlok. While Hutter is visiting Orlok several strange things occur
that make Hutter look at the Count in a strange manner. The first occurs while they are
eating and Hutter cuts his finger and begins to bleed and the Count wants to suck the
blood but is not able to because Hutter pulls his hand away. The second occurs when
Hutter begins to suspect that Orlok is a vampire after he reads a book about vampires.
His thoughts are confirmed when during the evening Orlok enters his room in mystical
or magical way because the Count doesnt physically push the door open, instead the
door seems to open just by the Counts mere presence. The next day Hutter explores
the castle and finds Orlok in a coffin.
Later in the movie Count Orloks coffin along with others are shipped down river
to the city and they are filled with rats that cause the crew to get sick. Orlok escapes
from the ship and goes to the home that he had purchased in the city, but his presence
in the city causes more deaths that are attributed to the plague. Ultimately, at the end of
the movie Count Orlok dies as the sun rises because of his fascination with Hutters wife
Ellen. This movie depicts numerous stereotypes of Jews that negatively portray them.

The first stereotype that presents itself in this movie is the portrayal of Jews as
practitioners of black magic. This is demonstrated numerous times during the movie.
The scene when Count Orlok enters Hutters room in the middle of the night without
actually physically pushing the door, rather opening the door with his aura is a great
example of utilizing magical powers. Later in the movie we see the Count loading
coffins onto a cart and everything is done in hyper speed, which could only be done with
magical abilities. Additionally, the scene on the ship when the first mate goes to destroy
the coffins and Count Orlok appears out of thin air is another example of supernatural
powers. Finally, there is the scene where Ellen and the Count are able to communicate
telepathically with each other. These are just a few examples of how black magic is
utilized in the movie to portray Jews as other/strange because this strange practice
did not fit into traditional religious practices.
There were several scenes in the movie that portray Jews as eugenically
different from everyone else. This first is the physical appearance of Count Orlok with
his arched back and strange facial features that are noticeable every time we seen him.
The second time is on the ship when one of the coffins was opened and it was filled with
rats, which leads to the spread of disease that eventually is responsible for a multitude
of deaths in the movie. The last example is when the Count is walking up the stairs to
go to Ellens room and we see the shadow of the Counts hand on the wall. The
shadow doesnt show normal fingers, rather the fingers resemble claws with very
sharp fingernails.
This representation of the physical characteristics of Jews were utilized to
demonstrate that they are indeed eugenically different from other Germans.

Additionally, these characteristics mirror the stereotypes that Jews have noticeably
different physical characteristics compared to other people. The portrayal of Jews as
rats will later be used in Nazi propaganda films and insinuates that they are responsible
for the spread of diseases, much like the spread of disease in the movie.
The final stereotype that presents itself in the movie is the notion of the
capitalistic exploiter. Throughout the entire film we see that the Count is extremely
wealthy, as is evidenced by his castle and his ability to purchase additional real estate in
the city. This helps to reinforce the stereotype that Jews are shrew business people and
have the ability to move wherever they want, even if it makes the local community
uncomfortable. This stereotype is not as obvious or as prevalent as the other two
stereotypes.
All of the stereotypes that are utilized and portrayed in the movie present the
Jews as other and strange. By presenting them something other than normal is
done to ensure that they are excluded from the community as a whole. This is also
evidenced by the fact that Count Orlok lives by himself away from the rest of the
community. Portraying Jews as outcasts and practitioners of black magic or users of
supernatural powers is something that the average German would immediately be able
to understand. This also helped to set a tone within German society that even the
assimilated Jews of Germany where more closely linked to the Eastern Jews that were
immigrating to Germany than they were to the average German. It is these stereotypes
and fears that would be utilize by the Nazis in their propaganda films when they come
into power.

STEREOTYPES UTILIZED BY NAZIS

The Nazis utilized propaganda films to reinforce negative stereotypes of groups of
people that did not fit into their idea of the perfect person. The stereotypes that they
utilized did not come out of thin air, rather many had been around for hundreds of years.
It is also important to note, that they were not the first people to utilize film to show the
negative stereotypes, instead they used the films from the Weimar period as an
example of how they could use them in their owns movies. The stereotypes that were
perpetuated included the idea that Jews were eugenically different from Germans, that
they are vermin that spread diseases and that they are capitalistic exploiters that will
manipulate people to gain a financial advantage.

PORTRAYAL OF JEWS IN THE NAZI PROPAGANDA FILM THE ETERNAL JEW

The most famous or rather infamous Nazi propaganda film that was ever produced was
The Eternal Jew. This film was produced by the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels
and focuses entirely on manipulating the stereotypes of Jews to portray them as
something other than human and that they should be blamed for all of negative things
that had been occurring in Germany and throughout the world due to the Great
Depression.
The stereotypes that are presented in the movie focus on portraying the Jews as
vermin, that they are inferior human beings, that they have the ability to change their
outward appearance and have strange religious practices, and that they are at fault for
the financial difficulties of the German people. All of these stereotypes are portrayed in
such a way that presents Jews as other/strange, which would make it very easy for

people of the time period to look at Jews through the lens that is provided to them in the
movie. Unlike The Golem and Nosferatu where certain stereotypes are prevalent, in
this movie all of the stereotypes are front and center and they are presented that way to
legitimize the ultimate exclusion of Jews from German society (Hornshoj-Moller, n.d.).
One of the underlying themes of the movie is comparing Jews to vermin and
parasites. This is done to draw a comparison between the vast migration of Jews from
the East into Germany and the rats that came into Europe carrying the Plague with
them. The goal of this comparison is to convince people that Jews are the carriers of
disease and spreaders of corruption. To strengthen their point of view each scene is
staged so that only the poorest of the poor along with vermin infestations are included.
Additionally, this strategy is used to portray Jews as inferior people who do not match
up to the ethnically superior Aryans. By doing this Jews are portrayed as other and
as strangers which invoked fear into German society because Germans could draw
conclusions that anything bad that was happening within the country could and should
be blamed on the Jews.
Another stereotype that is presented throughout the movie is that Jews have the
ability to change their appearances. To support this claim there is a comparison of the
civilized German Jews and the Jews from Poland that live in miserable conditions in
the ghettos. The filmmakers proclaim that Jews are able to alter their outer appearance
to blend into civilized German society and ultimately infest it. This is supported by this
lengthy quote from the movie:
.change their outward experience when they leave their Polish nests
and go out into the rich world. [...] When he appears without them, then it

is only the keen-eyed amongst us who recognise his racial origins. [...] It is
true that their fathers and grandfathers still lived in ghettoes, but there is
no trace left now in their external appearance (1940).
This ability to transform appearances ties back to the idea that Jews are the
practitioners of black magic. Within the same realm is the portrayal of Jewish religious
practices.
The religious practices are presented in a way to ensure that they portray Jews
as other and strange. The scene in the movie focuses on the kosher slaughter of
cows and sheep was intended to shock Germans so that they would view Jews
differently because of this strange religious practice. This is supported by a quote from
the movie, These images are a clear proof of the cruelty of Schchtmethode. They
also reveal the character of a race, their blunt brutality under the guise of religious
worship is hidden (1940). The portrayal of religious practices and the ability to change
appearance are utilized to present Jews as practitioners of black magic, which is
intended to exclude them from the rest of German society.
The final stereotype that is perpetuated in the movie is the idea that Jews are
responsible for worlds financial markets and blames them for the unemployment and
inflation that was rampant in Germany during the Great Depression. It is claimed that
they Jews had infiltrated all of the highest earning professions through racketeering,
usury and that they had committed crimes on German financial assets. This is
reinforced by this quote from the movie:
Out of a thousand workers in Berlin, only two were Jews. For the start of

1933, out on one hundred prosecutors in Berlin 15 were Jews. Out of a

hundred judges were 23 Jews. Out of a hundred lawyers 49 Jews. 52
Jews out of a hundred doctors. And out of every hundred of businessmen
60 Jews. The average wealth of Germans was 810 marks each. The
average wealth of each Jew amounted to 10,000 marks (1940).
This image of Jews presents them as people willing to do anything to make money and
links back to the idea that they are capitalistic exploiters. Therefore, they are portrayed
as other/strange because they were only 1 percent of the German population, yet
they were employed in overwhelmingly financially lucrative professions. People would
easily be able to jump to the conclusion that Jews did something illegal or something
shady to be able to get into those positions.

CONCLUSION
All of the primary stereotypes and portrayals of Jews as other and as strange that
are presented in Nazi propaganda movies, especially The Eternal Jew can be linked
back to films from the Weimar era. Jews being stereotyped as capitalistic exploiters,
that they were eugenically different people and that they were believers of black magic
were all done in an effort to portray them as other/strange because a group of people
had to be responsible for the difficult economic and political conditions that existed not
only at the beginning of the Weimar Republic, but also at the beginning of the Nazi
regime. Therefore, the leaders and leading filmmakers of the time drew from historical
stereotypes to exclude the assimilated German Jewish population, along with the

immigrant Eastern Jewish population from the rest of German society. There is a clear
link between the stereotypes presented in the Weimar era films The Golem and
Nosferatu and the Nazi propaganda movie The Eternal Jew.

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