The Eternal Jew is a 1940 propaganda film. Its title in German is Der ewige Jude, the German term for the character of the “Wandering Jew” in medieval folklore. At the insistence of Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, the film was directed by Fritz Hippler.  The film consists of feature and documentary footage combined with materials filmed shortly after the Nazi occupation of Poland. At this time Poland’s Jewish population was about three million, roughly ten percent of the total population.

The movie is done in the style of a documentary, the central thesis being the immutable racial personality traits that, according to Nazi doctrine, characterize the Jew as a wandering cultural parasite. Throughout the film, these supposed traits are contrasted to the Nazi state ideal: while Aryan men are shown to find satisfaction in physical labor and the creation of value, Jews are depicted as finding pleasure in money and a hedonist lifestyle. While members of the Aryan race live healthily, rich Jews are shown as living in bug-infested and dirty homes, even though they could afford better. While Germanic/Nordic man has an appreciation for Northern culture and imagery, Jews are alleged only to find satisfaction in the grotesque and decadent.  The film criticizes Jewish religious practices, and criticises kosher slaughtering, (shechita), as inhumane, contrasting it with Nazi laws requiring that animals be anaesthetized prior to butchering.

 

The film ends with Hitler explaining the problems of the Jewry in Europe and says:

“Should the international finance Jews inside and outside of Europe push people into another world war, the result will not be a victory for Jewry, but the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe.” [applause][1]”

 

Unser Wille und Weg, a Nazi Party monthly aimed at propagandists provides a rationale for why The Eternal Jew was made. The author of the essay “The Film of a 2000-Year Rat Migration,[2]” who remains anonymous, believes the film shows “a full picture of Jewry,” and provides “the best treatment of this parasitic race.”
An unrepentant Fritz Hippler was interviewed in the Emmy Award winning program “The Propaganda Battle” in the PBS series Walk Through the Twentieth Century. In this interview he explains that he regrets that his name was listed as the director of The Eternal Jew because the Allies interrogated him after the war. He thought this was very unfair because, in his opinion, he had nothing to do with the killing of Jews. In an interview shown in the 2000 German documentary series Holocaust, the 90-year old Hippler described the film as “the most disgraceful example of anti-semitism.”

 

THE MOVIE CAN BE WATCHED HERE.