Werner Krauss, the Nazi actor who played no less than five Jewish villains in the inflammatory “Jew Suess” movie, is back on the Berlin stage, as star of a legitimate play, for the first time since he was chased out of town three years ago by outraged German students, anti-Nazi public figures and members of the local Jewish community.
Within six months after Hitler took over, Krauss was vice-president of the newly-created Nazi Reich Theater Chamber. When Nazi Minister Joseph Goebbels, at the time of the deportation of Germany’s Jews to the gas chambers, sponsored the “Jew Suess” film as a propaganda weapon to drive home the point that Jews deserve to be exterminated, it was Krauss who made this blatantly Jew-baiting production both on artistic success and an invitation to murder.
Three years have gone by since the protests against Krauss were frontpage news. For a week now, Krauss has been playing the lead role of a play staged in Berlin’s city-owned Schiller Theater. No disturbances have occurred. No one as much as filed a protest.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
