On Noack's Veit Harlan

Veit Harlan, who became one of Joseph Goebbels's favorite film directors during the Third Reich, was born in Berlin on September 22, 1899. A student of famed film director and pioneer Max Reinhardt—who told him that to be a director, Harlan should first know what it was to be an actor—he took up stage acting with limited success. After World War I (during which he volunteered for service on the Western Front), he worked on the Berlin stage.

Harlan began directing motion pictures in 1935, two years after the Nazi rise to power. His talent was noticed by Minister of Propaganda Goebbels, and by 1937 Harlan had been appointed as one of Germany's leading propaganda directors.

In 1940 he directed his most notorious film, Jud Süss. This was originally a novel written in Germany in 1925 by Jewish author Lion Feuchtwanger, who intended the book to be an attack on antisemitism. Harlan transformed it into a movie that was itself viciously antisemitic. Starring Ferdinand Marian in the title role, the plot was twisted to portray the lead character, Süss Oppenheimer, according to standard Nazi stereotypes: greasy hair, hooked nose, unscrupulous, bearded, cowardly, and a rapist. At Oppenheimer's arrest and execution, Harlan showed him screaming and unmanly. By contrast, his executioners were portrayed as upright, solid citizens. After Süss's execution, the Jews of the city were driven into exile.

As a piece of propaganda cinema, the movie had a powerful effect on its audiences, helping prepare the German public for further atrocities against Jews. Many viewed it as though it was a documentary and were driven to acts of violence against Jews in the streets after having seen it. Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, ordered all members of the various organizations under his command to see the movie; this extended to local police and concentration camp guards. Its effectiveness as a propaganda tool was not limited to the general public, as it was used for specific dehumanizing goals regarding the perceived racial enemy and to whip up violence against that enemy.

With the support—and no little interference—from Goebbels, who is reported to have been a frequent visitor to the set and to have even written or rewritten parts of the script, Harlan created an image of Süss and the Jews around him as materialistic, immoral, cunning, and untrustworthy. Indeed, Süss, who shaved off his beard, wore court clothes and worked on his accent to ensure that he would be able to insinuate himself into Gentile society, was considered even more detestable because of this duplicity. The other "Jewish" actors "looked" alien; Süss, appearing to be German, conformed completely to the Nazi image of the treacherous Jew worming his way into "Aryan" society to destroy it from within. The Nazis were thus able to use the Süss story as a parable about the alleged Jewish threat to Germany and why it was good and legitimate to draw out the Jews and destroy their influence wherever possible.

The film became a runaway success across Europe. Seen by tens of millions of moviegoers, it was a huge hit at its premiere at the 1940 Venice Film Festival. During the war years, it was a favorite among Nazi and fascist youth groups throughout Europe, and it was shown to concentration camp guards and German soldiers on the front. Harlan's direction of Marian's performance as the evil Jew led to the film becoming arguably one of the most successful antisemitic propaganda movies ever made.

Building on the success of Jud Süss, Harlan continued to receive appointments from Goebbels, and with considerable directorial license and large budgets (in a period of total war, no less) his star remained ascendant through 1945.

With the end of the war, Harlan was charged by the Allies with fomenting Nazi antisemitism and thereby assisting the Nazis in their murderous actions. Tried for crimes against humanity as...