The Many Deaths of Jew Süss: The Notorious Trial and Execution of an Eighteenth-Century Court Jew

A “shrewd, elegant and illuminating” analysis of Joseph Süss Oppenheimer’s trial and execution—one of history’s most infamous episodes of antisemitism (Times Literary Supplement).

Joseph Süss Oppenheimer—“Jew Süss” —is one of the most iconic figures in the history of anti-Semitism. In 1733, Oppenheimer became the “court Jew” of Carl Alexander, the duke of the small German state of Württemberg. When Alexander died, Oppenheimer was arrested, put on trial, and condemned to death for unspecified “misdeeds.” On February 4, 1738, Oppenheimer was hanged in front of a large crowd just outside Stuttgart. He is most often remembered today through several works of fiction, chief among them a vicious Nazi propaganda movie made in 1940 at the behest of Joseph Goebbels.

The Many Deaths of Jew Süss is a compelling new account of Oppenheimer’s notorious trial. Drawing on a wealth of rare archival evidence, Yair Mintzker investigates conflicting versions of Oppenheimer’s life and death as told by four contemporaries: the leading inquisitor in the criminal investigation, the most important eyewitness to Oppenheimer’s final days, a fellow court Jew who was permitted to visit Oppenheimer on the eve of his execution, and one of Oppenheimer’s earliest biographers. What emerges is a lurid tale of greed, sex, violence, and disgrace—but are these narrators to be trusted?

Meticulously reconstructing the social world in which these individuals lived, and taking nothing they say at face value, Mintzker conjures an unforgettable picture of “Jew Süss” in his final days that is at once moving, disturbing, and profound.

© 2017 Princeton University Press (Ebook): 9781400887804

Release date

Ebook: May 22, 2017