Dissolving Boundaries: Assimilation and Allosemitism in E. A. Dupont's Das alte Gesetz (1923) and Veit Harlan's Jud Süss (1940)1

Abstract

A recent swell of interest in entertainment films of the Third Reich has led to repeated observations that there are similarities and continuities in style, theme, and personnel between Weimar and Nazi cinema, observations which have led to questions regarding the extent and significance of these similarities and continuities.2 These questions and comments have opened rather than resolved inquiry regarding the relationship between Weimar and Nazi film. While many scholars suggest that a kinship may exist between films of the Weimar and Nazi eras, most scholarly analyses still treat Weimar and Nazi film separately; as a result there has been little sustained analysis of the formal and thematic continuities between them. In Moderne und Modernisierung: Der deutsche Film der dreifiiger Jahre, Thomas Elsaesser challenges the split between political eras as the only logical division of German film. Elsaesser labels 1930-1936 as a single epoch, characterized by the transition from silent film to sound as well as by economic, technological, and geo-political changes (23) and supports this with examples from both Weimar and Nazi film. While the period circumscribed by Elsaesser is not the one that will be addressed here, Elsaesser's argument demonstrates that the juxtaposition of German films made before and after 1933 yields insights about German cinema that could be missed if Weimar and Nazi films are studied only separately. In Von Henny zu Zarah Leander. Filmgenres und Genrefilm in der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus, Klaus Kreimeier, another one of the few scholars to explicitly analyze the relationship between silent Weimar film and film in the Third Reich, argues that specifically German genre models developed during the 1930s that had their roots in the 1920s: latent stylistic potential from the 1920s came to the fore in the 1930s, whereas some of Weimar cinema's features receded into the background without disappearing altogether (Von Henry Porten 43). The following analysis contributes to discussions of the continuities between Weimar and Nazi cinema by examining the relationship between Veit Hanan'sjud Suss (1940), the most notorious anti-Semitic propaganda feature of the Third Reich, and E.A. Dupont's Das alte Gesetz (1923), perhaps the most successful and best-known of the Jewish-themed films of the Weimar Era that take a philosemitic attitude towards assimilation. While philosemitic assimilation films may not constitute a genre in the strictest sense, a modest number of Weimar films exist that show the difficulties and advantages of Jews' integrating into the Gentile world and promote sympathy towards the Jewish protagonists. Other well-known features of this type include Carl Th. Dreyer'sD/e Gezeichneten (1922) and the Austrian-made Die Stadt ohnejuden (H.K. Breslauer, 1924). Just as the study of standard cinematic genres can reveal latent affinities between Weimar and Nazi cinema (Kreimeier 43), the study of films with shared themes may do likewise. Despite differing contexts and radically different agendas, Das alte Gesetz and Jud Suss share striking formal and structural similarities, which-as will be explained below-derive from their approach to Jewish assimilation. The following comparison between Das alte Gesetz ana Jud Suss does not intend to draw a direct, teleological link between Weimar and Nazi cinema and their representations of Jews and Jewish assimilation. Nevertheless, the similarities between these films indicate that a complete stylistic and ideological break in German film did not take place in 1933. Instead, the parallels between these two films suggest that Weimar cinema established patterns of thought and representation that could be adapted to the needs of the National Socialist cause, yet still contained traces of the previous era. Both films represent Jewish assimilation and associate it with malleable, permeable, or dissolving boundaries. The parallels between these two assimilation films expose significant continuities between Weimar and Nazi cinema, and between philosemitic Weimar and anti-Semitic Nazi discourses, despite their very different attitudes and agendas. …