Prints of Joseph Süss Oppenheimer hanging in his cage on the gallows
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 13.250 inches (33.655 cm) | Width: 16.625 inches (42.228 cm)
Creator(s)
- Peter Ehrenthal (Compiler)
Biographical History
The Katz Ehrenthal Collection is a collection of more than 900 objects depicting Jews and antisemitic and anti-Jewish propaganda from the medieval to the modern era, in Europe, Russia, and the United States. The collection was amassed by Peter Ehrenthal, a Romanian Holocaust survivor, to document the pervasive history of anti-Jewish hatred in Western art, politics and popular culture. It includes crude folk art as well as pieces created by Europe's finest craftsmen, prints and periodical illustrations, posters, paintings, decorative art, and toys and everyday household items decorated with depictions of stereotypical Jewish figures.
Archival History
The prints were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Katz Family
Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Scope and Content
Two prints, one a text only sheet with historical background for the other, a colored engraving of Joseph Süss Oppenheimer (1698-1738) in the cage made to hang and display his body after his execution on January 4, 1738, in Stuttgart, Germany. The undated engravings are from a three page publication issued by Johann Andreas Mattsperger around the time of the execution. Oppenheimer, known as Joseph or Jud Süss, was a Jewish banker who administered the finances of Duke Karl Alexander of Wurttemberg, enriching the Duke and himself. Others were envious and resentful of his success, feelings increased by his actions, such as granting contracts to Jews and easing settlement restrictions. When the Duke died unexpectedly in March 1737, Oppenheimer was arrested, tried for fraud and treason, and sentenced to death. A huge crowd watched the hanging and the body was left hanging in public for six years. In 1939, a film, Jud Süss, was produced by Goebbels's Nazi Propaganda Ministry. The inflammatory, antisemitic film portrayed Jew Süss as a grotesquely exaggerated, greedy, unscrupulous Jewish businessman who rapes a non-Jewish woman. The film was a major success throughout Europe. The print is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic artifacts and visual materials.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
No restrictions on use
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Two prints, removed from a book, and adhered side by side in a double paned red matboard frame. The left sheet (10.875 x 5.750) has 4 paragraphs of German fraktur text in black ink. The right sheet (10.875 x 7.625) has a hand colored copper engraved print of a metal frame cross bar gallows with tripod supports and 4 ground anchored poles set on an equilateral cross shaped platform of large blocks. A pole with a decorative top point is attached vertically to the crossbar; near the top, another pole extends horizontally to the right. Hanging from the end of this pole is a flat bottomed oval cage in which stands a man in a red frock coat and white wig. A sign on the pole to the left announces: "Jud Süss gehenckt morden A. 1738 4 Feb : atat Jud 40" [Jud Süss dead Feb. 4, 1738, age 40.] In the upper right corner is a framed portrait of a man in a white wig and red coat, with the caption: "Joseph Süss Oppenheimer, Jud. A. 1738 Ja. 40."
People
- Suss-Oppenheimer, Joseph, 1698 or 1699-1738--Pictorial works.
Subjects
- Jewish bankers--Pictorial works.
- Court Jews--Persecution--Germany--Wurttemberg.
- Jewish capitalists and financiers--Persecution--Germany--Pictorial works.
- Antisemitism in art.
- Antisemitism--Germany--History--18th century--Pictorial works.
- Anti-Jewish propaganda--Germany--History--18th century--Pictorial works.
- Jews--Persecution--Germany--History--18th century--Pictorial works.
Genre
- Art
- Object