Stadt ohne Juden [City without Jews] (Vienna: 1924)

The film you have been asked to watch is a silent film made during the glory-days of film production in Vienna. It is based on a novel of the same name by Hugo Bettauer. Bettauer, then at the height of his popularity, was a popular writer whose pieces appeared regularly in newspapers and whose novels were best sellers. In part this is because of his advocacy for sexual freedoms, especially in the journal he co-edited, the very successful Er und Sie (He and She), a "weekly of lifestyle and the erotic" that spoke freely and positively about issues such as prostitution and homosexuality as well as advocating social reform for the myriads of jobless.

Born in 1872, by 18 Bettauer had converted to Christianity, a step not nearly as unusual, radical or religious as it might seem today. He and his family lived for a while in Switzerland as he tried his luck several times in New York as a journalist for German-language publications, but eventually moved to Vienna where his journalistic and novelistic career took off. In a "year-end round-up" in 1924, one writer noted that from being "one among many newspaper writers just three years before," Bettauer had become "the most widely read" novelist and popular writer of the day. Several of Bettauer's novels were quickly turned into mediocre films to feed the uncritical demand of the time, and he no doubt wrote with an eye to such "repackaging" of his stories.

Despite his conversion, opponents reacted to his popularity and satiric treatment of various political figures by labeling him a Jew. Thus, Er und Sie was criticized in a meeting of Vienna's city council as a "swinish Jewish publication."

Bettauer had worked on the idea for Stadt ohne Juden for some time. In an article in 1922 he explained that he had been struck by the phrase commonly used by anti-Semitic agitators: "Out with the Jews," and began to speculate about how a city would die both economically and culturally without its "Jewish element." The novel, a satirical treatment of anti-Semitism and its advocates sold extremely well and was soon produced as a play and then turned into a film.

The film version was changed from the original story in an unsuccessful effort to reduce controversy; the action was shifted to "Utopia" from Vienna, and the last scene makes the entire tale nothing more than an anti-Semite's nightmare rather than the portrayal of real events. Nevertheless, there was considerable controversy wherever it was shown in Austria, Germany and even New York. In Amsterdam it was screened in 1933 as a protest against the rise of Hitler to power, and it is probably that copy of the film which was discovered in a film archive in 1991 and restored. Its first showing in this area was on the UMd campus with the support of the Austrian Embassy and the version we have (as well as the intertitles) were provided by the Austrian National Film Archives. The National Center for Jewish Film is presently preparing a new release of the film with English sub-titles.
On March 10, 1925 Bettauer himself was shot in his office by a dental technician named Otto Rothstock, a former member of the NSDAP (Nazi) party, and died of his wounds a few days later. The assassin, found guilty, was committed to an asylum but released three years later.

There are good articles about the author and the film on Wikipedia.

Questions to Consider:

1. How are Jews physically represented in the film? Are the scenes of Jewish prayer and synagogues relevant to the rest of the film? If not, why are they included?
2. Most of the "Jewish" characters in the film are either converts, married (or about to be married) to Christians, and not observant. How does the film want to represent the Jewish presence in Vienna ("Utopia")? Is this an accurate representation in your opinion?
3. What dramatic function do the Jewish maid and her butcher boyfriend play? How do they represent the place of Jews in the film's city? (What ethnic groups would be represented in these economic/social functions in American films of the 1920s?)
4. What is the representation of Zionism and the physical conditions awaiting Jews in Palestine (Israel) in the film? Is this an accurate portrayal of conditions there? When was Tel Aviv established, and what was its size and condition by 1922–25?
5. What role did Bettauer assign to Jews in the city, and what did he see as the consequences of their expulsion? In what ways might he and viewers have thought these roles "Jewish"? (Is he simply using ethnic/racial categories as labels for economic and cultural functions? What is theJewish content of these roles?) Why does he take this view? Do you know of other writers who have described Jews as fulfilling particular roles in the city?
6. Does this novel/film represent a particular understanding of the nature of the modern city?