8. Der Ewige Jude (1940)
Der Ewige Jude/The Eternal Jew is not a Hollywood film. It was made in Nazi Germany under the auspices of Joseph Goebbels as a propaganda film, to smear the Jewish race and incite hatred against them. I have included it to highlight how film can be manipulated to sinister ends and to produce controversial scenes that go beyond the pale in their audacity. Solely produced to promote anti-Semitism and accumulate support for the Final Solution, Der Ewige Jude is one of the vilest films committed to celluloid. In what may be the film's most objectionable scene, director Fritz Hippler contrasts pictures of poor Jews in the Warsaw ghettoes who are inadequately dressed and obviously malnourished (the narrator asserts that "this is the natural state of the Jew") with images of rats - to compare the migration of East European Jews westwards with that of rats. The narrator states that just as rats are the vermin of the animal race, so are Jews the vermin of the human race and similarly spread disease and corruption. The narration continues but it is so offensive and degrading to human decency I will not elaborate on its hateful ideology. The access to this film is carefully controlled due to its inflammatory content.