Lately there has been a lot of noise about the 1924 German silent film ‘Die Stadt Ohne Juden’ with both the ‘Smithsonian Magazine’ (1) and the ‘Times of Israel’ (2) after being featured on the daily news in Germany. (3)
The story is simple enough.
After blaming the jews for their situation and demanding politicians expel the jews as the cause of their problems. The citizens of Vienna initially celebrate the expulsion done using railway carriages, but sentiment changes as theatres go bankrupt and department stores, hotels and resorts suffer after jews boycott German goods around the world and refuse to lend money to the German government and its people. The economy declines to such an extent that a popular movement arises demanding the return of the Jews Without the Jews to blame, the Nazi party collapses and the expulsion law is repealed with the Jews being welcomed back to Vienna.
Now this is generally interpreted as its jewish author Hugo Bettauer intended it to be, but when you dig into the details of what the film version of ‘Die Stadt Ohne Juden’ portrays. It is isn’t quite as ‘anti-anti-Semitic’ as is claimed. This is easily demonstrated when we note that the movement to expel the jews begins with protests against the price of food by Viennese workers.
Jewish speculators and capitalists make a run on the banks as the purchasing power of the German mark rapidly decreases, while the lives of working people get worse. The people of Vienna are portrayed as hungry for work and bred while the (jewish) elite lead dazzling lives of luxury.
The people turn on the jews and blame them for the situation and this is just given the film’s portrayal of the situation. The Nazi party arises to blame them for Vienna’s troubles and seeks to drive them out by using the working class and middle class prejudices while having speeches in the beer halls.
The Nazi party (justly) accuses the jews of stealing the wealth of the people of Vienna. This leads to mass demonstrations among the working people against the jews and demanding that they be thrown out of Vienna.
The articles in the ‘Smithsonian Magazine’ and the ‘Times and Israel’ rather forget to mention this story line and instead present it as a ‘prophetic’ vision of the future of the conduct of the Third Reich. (4)
This rather goes to suggest that while ‘Die Stadt Ohne Juden’ was intended by Bettauer – who was physically removed by a nationalistic German working man in 1925 - to be an ‘anti-anti-Semitic’ film based upon Bettauer’s best-selling 1922 book of the same name. The fact is that it appears that it was used by director Hans Karl Breslauer – who was an ardent Nazi Party member only a year or two afterwards - to promote anti-Semitism and satirize Bettauer’s satire without the egoistical jewish author and his fellow illiterati noticing that they were being gulled.
References
(1) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1924-film-anticipates-holocaust-found-and-restored-180968654/
(2) https://www.timesofisrael.com/recovered-in-paris-flea-market-1924-austrian-silent-film-is-a-holocaust-preview/
(3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlOOZwknVKE
(4) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1924-film-anticipates-holocaust-found-and-restored-180968654/ ; https://www.timesofisrael.com/recovered-in-paris-flea-market-1924-austrian-silent-film-is-a-holocaust-preview/