The Eternal Jew

The Eternal Jew is a 1940 antisemitic Nazi propaganda film, presented as a documentary. The film's initial German title was , the German term for the character of the "Wandering Jew" in medieval folklore. The film was directed by Fritz Hippler at the insistence of Nazi Germany's Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. With a screenplay credited to Eberhard Taubert and narrated by Harry Giese, the film consists of feature and documentary footage combined with materials filmed shortly after the Nazi occupation of Poland. At this time, Poland's Jewish population was about three million, roughly ten percent of the total population. Background Hitler and Goebbels believed that film was a vital tool for molding public opinion. The Nazis first established a film department in 1930 and Goebbels had taken a personal interest in the use of film to promote the Nazi philosophy and agenda. Soon after the Nazi takeover, Goebbels insisted in speeches that the role of the German cinema was to serve as the "vanguard of the Nazi military".