Jud Suess (Feuchtwanger)

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Publisher's cover of the first print in 1925
Joseph Suess Oppenheimer

Jud Süss is a novel by Lion Feuchtwanger published in 1925 , which uses the life of the historic Württemberg court Jew Joseph Süss Oppenheimer as a literary model. Feuchtwanger, the son of a Jewish factory owner, was interested in the issues of Jewish assimilation in Germany. Against this background, the fictional character serves him to address the dependence of Jewish life on the powerful and the anti-Jewish clichés typical of the 1920s .

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Main storyline

The novel takes place in 18th century Württemberg . Joseph Suss Oppenheimer , a Jew from a merchant family, rises to the position of powerful finance advisor at the court of the newly elected Catholic Duke Karl Alexander and is admired, feared and despised by the people.

While on the one hand he supports the intrigues and debauchery of the despotic ruler and partly promotes it, on the other hand he does everything to keep his own daughter Naemi away from the hustle and bustle at the Stuttgart court. Therefore, from birth, he placed her with a Rabbi Gabriel, a Kabbalist and Suss' uncle, in a remote hermitage somewhere in the lonely forest of Hirsau , where she spends her youth reading the Song of Songs. One day, however, during a hunting trip, Prelate Weißensee, whose daughter Magdalen Sibylle became Karl's mistress through Oppenheimer's mediation , leads the Duke on the girl's trail out of a feeling of revenge against Suss. Naemi evades his lustful reenactments and falls from the roof of the hermitage.

Süß is a broken man and changes his life in one fell swoop: Outwardly bearing the tragedy with serenity, he seems to offer the guilt-plagued duke his hand in reconciliation, but secretly works on his downfall: he lets himself be let by Karl, who feels his near end Alexander issue a certificate of legitimation for all his actions and at the same time reveals the long-standing coup plans to parliament and estates : the Catholic duke, with the support of the Würzburg prince-bishop , wanted to take advantage of the long-simmering conflict between the estates and the duke and wanted to establish a Catholic military autocracy. Before he can be arrested, Karl Alexander is hit.

Oppenheimer reflected on the spiritual legacy of his rabbinical ancestors and offered himself up as a scapegoat: he was held liable for all machinations and brought to justice. After the loss of his patron, he accepts that popular anger will now be directed against himself and expects his execution. He refuses to save his life by professing the Christian faith. He enjoys the “willless gliding” almost with relish. After the signing of the death sentence, the new regent Karl Rudolf said: "It is a rare occurrence that a Jew pays the bill for Christians" (a historically guaranteed saying).

Judaism

Apart from the actual core of the plot, Feuchtwanger paints a multi-faceted, but in parts nevertheless clichéd picture of German Jewry at the time of the Enlightenment . The Jewish fictional characters stand in the field of tension between poverty and economic advancement, between collective powerlessness and individual economic power, between the deliberate demarcation from the goyim and assimilation up to the acceptance of the Christian religion. Suss, who acquired money and power through his business acumen, strives to be recognized as equal by Christians, but in contrast to his brother, Baron Tauffenberger, does not want to renounce his Jewish faith. Landauer, the equally rich and influential court factor from the Electorate of the Palatinate, underscores his Jewish identity in a provocative manner through clothing and appearance. He seeks power, not its outward signs and recognition by Christian society. The Kabbalist Rabbi Gabriel, Suss' uncle, even chooses the path of radical renunciation of the world.

History of Württemberg

In addition, the reader learns something about the history of Württemberg, which can be seen on behalf of other German principalities . The conflict between Catholic regents and Protestant estates is, however, rather country-specific. It becomes clear that in addition to big politics, everyday life has a historical dimension: In the book, for example, the reader encounters a ramified bureaucratic apparatus with associated intrigues and petty sensitivities and a pig-eyed confectioner who, in a familiar circle at the regulars' table, talks about the scandal stories of the upper ten thousand, about great inflation ”or the“ many things in the country ”.

interpretation

The novel is divided into five large parts: "The Princes", "The People", "The Jews", "The Duke", "The Other". In addition to historically vouched personalities, there are characters who were invented by Feuchtwanger, such as Rabbi Gabriel (Suss' Jewish conscience) and his daughter Naemi, the only consistently positive character in the novel. Feuchtwanger uses the character Naemis to make the change in Oppenheimer's behavior dramaturgically believable; some interpreters also see in it "the pure soul and wisdom of Israel".

Around the actual plot, the work develops a detailed, epic universe with a multitude of characters, storylines and locations, as is known from the best works of Thomas Mann or Lev Tolstoj . Even the smallest of the many minor characters points beyond the work with her biography and her social relationships, makes the diversity of interdependencies in this world clear and would easily be the protagonist for a novel of its own. Examples include the youthful mystic Beata Sturmin, obsessed with the idea of ​​a fight with the devil , or the scheming Würzburg Privy Councilor Fichtel, who seeks pecuniary advantage for his prince-archbishop from all the friction in neighboring Württemberg .

Jud Süss is a literary representation of the philosophical question of whether it is better to cope with reality through active action or through passive observation, a view of the world and the position of man in it that is based on Indian philosophy . Typically for a historical novel by Feuchtwanger, he uses history to put his finger in the wound of the present.

The fact that the central figure is a Jew is secondary, if not unimportant: the author initially planned to write a novel around the tragic figure of the Jewish politician Walter Rathenau , but finally decided on a historical subject , “because you have the lines of one Recognizes mountains better from a distance than in the mountains ”. For the author - especially as a Jew - Oppenheimer was a metaphor for modern man on the threshold between West and East. "(I) saw him treading the path that all of our development follows, the path from Europe to Asia, from Nietzsche to Buddha , from the old to the new covenant." Feuchtwanger could not choose which path this modern person should take a few years later refrain.

The main character is drawn negatively. For much of the novel, Jud Suss is portrayed as calculating, opportunistic and obsessed with power. The description of other Jews "rather emphasizes the strange and mysterious, tries to characterize the Jewish, not to defame it" . The extent to which Feuchtwanger remained attached to anti-Jewish clichés and transported them or believed that they could be used productively in literature is not clearly answered in literary studies.

The sometimes expressive language of the novel has been commented on in various ways by literary critics: "closed, mature work of art" (Sternburg); “Tastelessness” ( Klaus Harpprecht ). Marcel Reich-Ranicki discovered something “penetrative” in Feuchtwanger's language, that it was “sometimes haunting and at the same time intrusive”. Eberhard Hilscher judged that he only “rarely found masterful forms of expression and a diction of aesthetic appeal”.

History of origin

Feuchtwanger's interest in the character of the protagonist was first aroused in 1916 when he came across Manfred Zimmermann's biography of Oppenheimer, published in 1874. First he worked on the material in a drama in three acts, which was premiered in 1917 at the Schauspielhaus Munich and published a year later by Georg Müller Verlag . The reviews were bad; only Heinrich Mann , a friend of Feuchtwanger, judged favorably.

Feuchtwanger soon realized, by his own admission, that the piece was only the “facade” of what he wanted to say, and that an epic work was the more suitable form for his poetic concern. A corresponding manuscript for a novel, begun in July 1921, he completed in September 1922 without finding a publisher. It was not until 1925 that the work was "listlessly produced and sold" by the Drei-Masken-Verlag . The publishing house, actually a theater publisher, employed Feuchtwanger as an editor for Italian and French plays. When there was no longer any market for this and the Feuchtwanger publishing house wanted to get rid of his well-endowed contract, he offered the author the publication of the “Jud Suss” manuscript as compensation for his contract termination. The novel was published in a small edition of 6,000 copies and was a moderate success until the American publisher Ben Huebsch of Viking Press read it and was enthusiastic about it during a trip to Europe.

Impact history

Translations into English

Huebsch had the novel translated into English and published it in October 1926 under the title "Power" in the USA with Viking Press; a month later it appeared in England under the title "Jud Suess" by Martin Secker . The reviews in the English-language press have been very positive. The breakthrough as a world bestseller followed the enthusiastic review of the English star critic Arnold Bennett in the Evening Standard ("a fine historical novel by a German author"). In the first year alone there were 23 editions in England; a paperback edition appeared a little later . Feuchtwanger and his biographers have pointed out that this was the beginning of a triumphant advance for book and author that reflected back to Germany.

Stage versions

The British playwright Ashley Dukes worked the novel into a successful play (premiered in Blackpool in 1929 ); In 1930 the German dramatization by Paul Kornfeld was premiered at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin ; In 1933 a Hebrew stage version of HaYehudi Zi's by Mordekhai Avi-Shaul (who also translated the novel) was created, which was premiered at the Habimah Theater in Tel Aviv .

bestseller

These successes made the novel known to the German public: By 1931 the Drei Masken Verlag had sold a total of 100,000 copies in several editions; then the novel went to Knaur Verlag , which was able to sell another 200,000 copies of a heavily abridged and linguistically edited version by 1933. Feuchtwanger was established as a bestselling author, but not as a writer: In most contemporary reviews, his “Jud Suss” was interpreted as a pro or anti-Jewish trend novel, while its status as a literary work of art was neglected or contested.

exile

The novel, like all of Feuchtwanger's books, was banned by the National Socialists . In the National Socialist press "Jud Suss" was derided as "Jud Mieß", especially because of his success abroad. Feuchtwanger went into exile in France and in 1940 in the USA . The novel continued to be published in German by exile publishers : after the Knaur edition, which Feuchtwanger later always referred to as unsuccessful, from 1934 on Querido and Forum in Amsterdam and the Neuer Verlag in Stockholm .

Jud Suss and the film

Veit Harlan

The claim that Veit Harlan and his screenwriters misused Feuchtwanger's work in 1940 as a template for the anti-Semitic film Jud Suss is not tenable. Whether Joseph Goebbels , Minister of Propaganda and top film censor , read Feuchtwanger's novel can not be proven by historical sources . After studying the still existing script versions, research now assumes that the novel of the same name by Wilhelm Hauff was the literary basis of the film, which has been heavily revised several times. In the first advertising booklet of the production company "Terra", the strip was announced as "A large film: Jud Süß based on the novella by Wilhelm Hauff".

Director Harlan denied having known Feuchtwanger's version of the material throughout his life. In connection with legal disputes over copyrights with Feuchtwanger's widow Marta , Harlan wrote in a letter to UfA-Film GmbH on November 27, 1961 that he did not know the novel. He confirms this once again in his autobiography from 1966 and names neither Hauff nor Feuchtwanger as sources, but the Meyersche Konversationslexikon , legal historical treatises and - following a hint from Goebbels - Martin Luther's anti-Jewish pamphlet " Von den Jüden und their Lügen " from 1543 .

Feuchtwanger's opinion that this film was based on his novel is also due to the fact that some of the actors had already been on stage in the play of the same name. Hence his anger when he wrote to the actors personally in an open letter in 1941: "You, gentlemen, have turned my novel 'Jud Suss' with the addition of a bit of Tosca into a desolate anti-Semitic inflammatory film in the sense of Streicher's and his 'Stürmer' " .

Lothar Mendes

A film based on Feuchtwanger's novel had already been made in Great Britain in 1934 at Gaumont- British Picture: Jew Süss , directed by Lothar Mendes , with whom Conrad Veidt , who had emigrated to England a year earlier, in the title role. Charles Chaplin and Albert Einstein were in the audience at the US premiere in New York City that same year . The film artwork, in which Judaism was portrayed positively, had a respectable success with the critics, but fell through at the box office. Today the film is in the British Film Institute . The film was banned in National Socialist Germany, and it was shown in Austria.

Post-war Germany

Edition problems in East and West

At the same time, Harlan's anti-Semitic inflammatory film Feuchtwanger's success as a writer after the war - mainly due to the media hype surrounding the Hamburg Harlan trials in 1949 and 1950 - did lasting damage in Germany: The reception of the novel “Jud Suss” continued in the Federal Republic of Germany and in the GDR entered late and hesitantly. Although a dissertation “Jud Süß” had already appeared at the Humboldt University in East Berlin in 1953 , the novel was initially not received by the public. Feuchtwanger wrote letters to his publishers, in the east Aufbau-Verlag and Greifenverlag , in the west Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt and Rowohlt , urging publication. For the West, he did not want to rule out “a silent boycott of booksellers ” because of his openly expressed sympathy for the GDR. There were also concerns about the intellectual maturity of the Germans here and there: The time of National Socialism had “ wreaked such havoc in the minds that even books like 'Jud Süss', to whom no one ascribed anti-Semitic tendencies, and today too no serious person can as yet attribute such tendencies to the poisoned brains of backward strata having an anti-Semitic effect, ”said Erich Wendt from Aufbau-Verlag in his reply. Feuchtwanger accepted this reason. However, the work was published by Greifenverlag in 1954.

The work in the Aufbau-Verlag

When the Aufbau-Verlag began to publish its complete works in 1957, almost a year before Feuchtwanger's death, several editions of "Jud Süß" were published in the Federal Republic of Germany, most recently by Rowohlt, as well as paperback editions, including by Ullstein Verlag - all after the loud Feuchtwanger defacing versions of the Drei-Masken- and Knaur-Verlag. The Aufbau-Verlag reconstructed the original version and published it in 1959 together with Die ugliche Herzogin Margarete Maultasch in the first volume of the “Collected Works”, and in 1981 again in a new edition. In 1984 the paperback appeared in the “bb” series. After the fall of the Wall , the publishing house continued to oversee Feuchtwanger's work and in 1991 , the year it was privatized, published a new edition of the collected works. Volume 1 contained only “Jud Suss”. The third edition of the novel was last published as a single edition in 2004, and a paperback edition in the same year.

Reception worldwide

Feuchtwanger's novel has now been translated into more than twenty languages. It is estimated that the total circulation is well over three million copies. In Europe, it is particularly popular in France. In 1982 Jacques Kraemer created a stage version of "Juif Suess".

literature

expenditure

Secondary literature

  • Hellmut G. Haasis: Joseph Suss Oppenheimer, called Jud Suss. Financiers, free thinkers, victims of justice. Rowohlt-Taschenbuch, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-499-61133-3 .
  • Anne von der Heiden: The Jew as a medium. 'Jud Suss'. Diaphanes, Zurich / Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-935300-72-7 (especially S, pp. 153–193 "'Jud Süß' by Lion Feuchtwanger")
  • Frank Dietschreit: Lion Feuchtwanger. Metzler, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-476-10245-9 .
  • Wilhelm von Sternburg: Lion Feuchtwanger. A German writer's life. Structure, Berlin et al. 1994, ISBN 3-351-02415-0 .
  • Arno Herzig : Jewish History in Germany. From the beginning to the present. 2nd Edition. Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-47637-6 .
  • Barbara Gerber: Jud Suess. Rise and Fall in the Early 18th Century. A contribution to historical anti-Semitism and reception research . (Hamburg contributions to the history of the German Jews, 16) Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-7672-1112-2 .
  • Friedrich Knilli: I was Jud Suss - the story of the film star Ferdinand Marian. With a foreword by Alphons Silbermann . Henschel Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89487-340-X .
  • Jörg Koch: "Jud Süß" - the novel by Lion Feuchtwanger (1925). In: Jörg Koch: Joseph Suess Oppenheimer, called "Jud Suess". Its history in literature, film and theater. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-534-24652-6 , pp. 86-98.
  • David Bathrick : 1925 "Jud Süß" by Lion Feuchtwanger is published. In: Sander L. Gilman , Jack Zipes (ed.): Yale companion to Jewish writing and thought in German culture 1096-1996. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1997, pp. 434-439

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Feuchtwanger: About Jud Suss. 1929.
  2. ↑ Dietschereit: Lion Feuchtwanger. 1988, p. 99.
  3. ^ Von Sternburg: Lion Feuchtwanger. 1994, p. 189.
  4. ↑ Manfred Zimmermann: Josef Süss Oppenheimer, a financier of the 18th century: a piece of absolutism and Jesuit history. According to the defense files and the writings of contemporaries. Rieger, Stuttgart 1874.
  5. ^ First published in English in the Atlantic Monthly (April 1941), in German in Aufbau (New York, July 4, 1941). Reprinted in Lion Feuchtwanger: A Book Just For My Friends. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 526-532. Quotation there p. 526.
  6. ^ Letter to the Aufbau-Verlag dated January 15, 1951.
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on August 29, 2005 .