Ferdinand Marian

Ferdinand Heinrich Johann Haschkowetz (14 August 1902 – 7 August 1946), known by the stage name Ferdinand Marian, was an Austrian actor. Though a prolific stage actor in Berlin and a popular matinée idol throughout the 1930s and early '40s, he is best remembered for playing the lead role of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer in the notorious Nazi propaganda film Jud Süß (1940). Early life and career Born in Vienna, the son of an opera singer, Marian turned to the stage early, though he never attended any drama classes. He ran away from home and abandoned his studies as an engineer to work as an extra at several Austrian and German theatres. In 1938 he joined the ensemble of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, where he was acclaimed for his performance as Iago in Shakespeare's Othello. Marian had also appeared in movies like Curtis Bernhardt's Der Tunnel since 1933, and had his breakthrough starring together with Zarah Leander in 1937's La Habanera, directed by Douglas Sirk. His role as the suave but amoral Don Pedro Avila added to his image as an adorable but devious womanizer. Jud Süß Marian's career was overshadowed by his appearance as the title character in Jud Süß, an antisemitic German movie directed by Veit Harlan. This 1940 film, made under the supervision of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, is widely considered to be one of the most hateful depictions of Jews in film. Several top stars had rejected the title role; Marian, urged by Goebbels and fearing consequences by the Reichsfilmkammer, did not dare to refuse.