Joseph Süß Oppenheimer
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Joseph Süß Oppenheimer ( – February 4, 1738) was a German banker who was court Jew for Charles Alexander, Duke of Württemberg, managing several of his enterprises. Throughout his career, Oppenheimer made scores of powerful enemies, some of whom conspired to bring about his arrest and execution after Charles Alexander's death. In the centuries since his execution, Oppenheimer's rise and fall have been treated in two notable literary works, and his ordeal inspired two films, including the antisemitic production '' Jud Süß'', released in
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
in 1940, itself the cause for a famous postwar trial.


Career

Oppenheimer was born in
Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...
to a Jewish tax collector and his wife. The father died early, and the exact whereabouts of Joseph Süß in the following years are not certain. By the 1720s, Oppenheimer was working as a court Jew in
Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (), is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, second-largest city in Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, the States of Ger ...
,
Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...
, and finally
Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
. In Frankfurt he was introduced to Karl Alexander, the future Duke of Württemberg, in 1732. When Karl Alexander ascended the throne in the following year, Oppenheimer served as his chief financial adviser. As envoy to Frankfurt in 1733, his privileged position allowed him to live outside the '' Judengasse'' in the comfort of the Golden Swan Inn.


Arrest, trial and execution

When his protector, Karl Alexander, suddenly died on March 12, 1737, Oppenheimer was arrested and accused of various crimes, including fraud, embezzlement, treason, lecherous relations with various women, and accepting bribes. While some Jews tried to help him during the trial, others gave incriminatory testimonies against him. The charge of lechery was dropped in order to protect reputable women. After the heavily publicized trial, Oppenheimer was sentenced to death, without naming any specific crime. When his jailers asked that he convert to Christianity, he refused. Niall Ferguson writes that Süß-Oppenheimer was executed because his prosecutors found him guilty of wielding excessive political power and undermining the position of the Württemberg estates (Stände). Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was led to the gallows on February 4, 1738, and given a final chance to convert to Christianity, which he refused to do. He was throttled, with his last words reportedly being the Jewish prayer, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one". The case records were then declared secret until 1918. His corpse was gibbeted in a cage that hung outside of Stuttgart in the Pragsattel district for six years until the inauguration of Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg, who in his first act as ruler permitted the burial of his corpse below the gallows.


In literature, art and film

The story of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was the subject of a number of literary and dramatic treatments over the course of the past two centuries. The earliest of these was Wilhelm Hauff's 1827 novella titled '' Jud Süß''. The most successful literary adaptation was
Lion Feuchtwanger Lion Feuchtwanger (; 7 July 1884 – 21 December 1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Republic, Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht. ...
's 1925
novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...
titled '' Jud Süß'' based on a play that he had written in 1916 though never performed and subsequently withdrawn by Feuchtwanger. Ashley Dukes and Paul Kornfeld also wrote dramatic adaptations of the Feuchtwanger novel. In 1934, Lothar Mendes directed a film adaptation of the novel in which Süß was portrayed by actor Conrad Veidt. An anti-semitic Nazi propaganda film titled '' Jud Süß'' was made in 1940 by
Veit Harlan Veit Harlan (22 September 1899 – 13 April 1964) was a German film director and actor. Harlan reached the high point of his career as a director in the Nazi era; most notably his antisemitic film '' Jud Süß'' (1940) makes him controversial. W ...
, in which Süß was portrayed by actor Ferdinand Marian. In the 1990s, the German sculptor Angela Laich created a sculpture devoted to Joseph Süß Oppenheimer as well as illustrations for Hellmut G. Haasis's biography. In 2016 the movie '' Norman'' was released, loosely inspired by Oppenheimer's life, starring Richard Gere.


Biographies

Shortly after Feuchtwanger's novel was published, Selma Stern published a biography of Oppenheimer titled ''Jud Süß: Ein Beitrag zur deutschen und zur jüdischen Geschichte.'' More recently, Hellmut G. Haasis published a biography titled ''Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, genannt Jud Süß: Finanzier, Freidenker, Justizopfer.'' It is still the standard work on the topic. In 2017, Yair Mintzker, a history professor at Princeton University, published a new account of Oppenheimer's trial, ''The Many Deaths of Jew Süss'', which is the most comprehensive treatment of Oppenheimer's trial available in English.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oppenheimer, Joseph Suess 1690s births Year of birth uncertain 1738 deaths Businesspeople from Heidelberg Court Jews 18th-century German Jews German bankers Executed people from Baden-Württemberg People executed for refusing to convert to Christianity 18th-century German businesspeople 18th-century executions in the Holy Roman Empire 18th-century German criminals Jewish German bankers