Nazi Propaganda and The Merchant of
Venice
Shylock and Nazi Propaganda
• "Never trust the artist, trust the tale.“
• We will never know what was in Shakespeare's mind when he began writing
"The Merchant of Venice."
• what he intended and what he accomplished are not necessarily the same thing • Shylock is meant to be a villain.
• his motives and his personality are clear
• Given the opportunity he attempts to commit legalized murder.
• Shylock is a Jewish villain, but he didn’t have to be. He could have been a
Christian villain.
• He may not have added anything to existing stereotypes, but as the most famous Jewish character in literature he helped to spread them and to keep them alive. He belongs to the history of anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
• Anti-Semitism of the most vicious kind had become the official policy of one of the most advanced nations in the world
• the Nazis retained the traditional German respect for
Shakespeare and referred to it as “Our Shakespeare”
• “A newspaper in Konigsberg carried an essay to coincide with a production in the local theater. The writer conceded that at first sight there was something worrying about a play in which a Jew was portrayed as hard-working and thrifty, and the Christians could easily be mistaken for irresponsible idlers. But Shylock, properly understood, was cowardly and malicious, while in the trial scene both Antonio and his friends acted with a selflessness that proved their true worth”
Theatre Use
• "Merchant of Venice" of the Nazi years was the production that opened at the Burg theater in Vienna in May 1943.
• The director, Lothar Muthel, had been a member of the Nazi party since 1933
• It was used to portray the message Hitler wanted known to the world
“Jew Suss”
• By 1943 there were very few Jews left in Vienna
• Krauss had been a spitting image of Shylock in the
1920's
• he had played in the 1940 film "Jew Suss," in which he had played all the Jewish roles
• "Jew Suss" marked a new stage in Nazi propaganda
• “It was repeatedly shown in occupied territories on the eve of roundups and "actions" to intensify anti-Jewish feeling and dispel any possible sympathy for the victims.”
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Published in the same year, Susan Zuccotti’s The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, and Survival focuses on the 15 percent of Jews who did not survive the Holocaust during German-occupied Italy, and asked how such was the case. Although Zuccotti is suspicious of apologizing for Italy’s Holocaust by arguing that “despite its ninetieth-century ghettos and the promptings of its Fascist rulers, had no significant anti-Semitic tradition,” and by suggesting that only a minority of non-Jews in Italy collaborated with the persecution, The Italians and the Holocaust on its own had no apparent intention to serve the national ideology. What makes the book part of this trend of mystification of Holocaust rescue is its introduction, which…
- 208 Words
- 1 Page
Good Essays -
This website pertains to the life of Adolf Hitler. It includes his actions regarding politics, facts and his contribution to the Holocaust. The format is very detailed and easy to understand. Within the document there are links to further resources, which is helpful. The facts that are given are straightforward and overall a reliable site to use.…
- 559 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Second of all, in the Nazi culture, they achieve their goals by violence and force. The aftereffect of these actions comes with the destruction, hence, the Nazi culture taints the setting and the landscape with violence and death. Their negative acts and influence provoke pain through the Jewish community as they experience loss. For example, on November 9th, 1938, Nazi leaders conducted a progrom in spite of the Jews, “In two days […] over 7,000 businesses were trashed and looted, dozens of Jewish people were killed, and Jewish cemeteries, hospitals, schools and homes were looted while police and fire brigades stood by” (“The ‘Night of Broken Glass’”). Additionally, gallows and executions were held at concentration camps, the ghettos and even in public streets. That being said, the anti-Semitism caused…
- 548 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Literature can be an extremely powerful tool of persuasion. One man with one idea has the potential to influence hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people through writing. In fact, one particularly influential piece of literature convinced an entire population of people to ostracize, shun, and even murder their fellow citizens. Compelling texts such as Hitler’s Mein kampf allow me to believe that literature could be considered propaganda. These pieces of literature, when written to pacify a specific audience, can strongly appeal to humanity’s “passions”, as Plato suggests. I believe that authors use literature as a vehicle to demonstrate their personal beliefs and influence their audience to share those beliefs.…
- 606 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Propaganda is often seen as negative, because of its use of exaggerated statistics or false statements to manipulate whomever is looking at that poster or advertisement to believe that it’s true. For example, the propaganda in Nazi Germany, they would control what the German citizens could see, read, and hear. Dr. Joseph Goebbels, was put in charge by Hitler, in order to control the propaganda that the public population had access to. Therefore, it was his job to make sure that the German citizens were only allowed contact to what made the Nazi campaign seem like the best and only opinions they had. Goebbels said “The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to…
- 191 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
The Holocaust was a very brutal event that took place in Europe in the 20th Century. It was genocide; Adolf Hitler and the Nazis murdered about 6 million Jews. This began after Hitler was announced Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. The Holocaust did not affect just Germany, but the whole world. Hitler with his convincing speeches persuaded many people to go against the Jews. He formed a political party called the Nazis and together they ruined many Jews’ lives. To get more people to join them, they created propaganda that made it seem like the Jews were bad people. The main way used to kill Jews was sending them to concentration camps. The camps were very terrible, many dead bodies were found stacked up together after the Holocaust…
- 142 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
In the Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare illustrates his feelings towards Jews in 17th century England through the use of a commonly known stereotype during the time, the racial tension between Jews and Christians. Shylock is the focal point of the play, and acts as the traditional stereotype of the Jew in Elizabethan times. The merchant of venice is often seen as an anti-semitic work due to the stereotypical portrayal of the jewish character shylock. Some would argue that the most inevitable interpretation of shylock as a miserly wretch who care for nothing but his money is shakespeare expressing now – unfashionable anti-jewish views. However , one must remember that this view was seen as entirley normal and acceptable at the time, and most of the jews of elizabethan england had stoicly accepted such treatment.…
- 474 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
In conclusion, during the implementation of the so-called Final Solution the mass murder of European Jews, SS officials at killing centers complied the victims of the Holocaust to maintain the deception necessary to deport the Jews from Germany and occupied Europe as smoothly as possible (“Nazi Propaganda”). Until the end of the propaganda, Morgenthau envisioned stripping Germany of its heavy industry and returning the country to an agrarian economy (“Deceiving the Public”).…
- 72 Words
- 1 Page
Good Essays -
” It is not the purpose of propaganda to create a series of alterations in sentiment…. Its chief function is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd.” Adolph Hitler Mein Kampf Ch 6 (1)…
- 2946 Words
- 12 Pages
Powerful Essays -
The precursor to concentration and death camps were the ghettos in Poland and Hungary. Ghettos were built similar to concentration camps, except they were in an urban area and consisted of pre existing buildings. One apartment would normally house multiple families, and this cramped environment facilitated the spread of disease. Jews were intentionally allowed to only buy a small amount of food. Combined with the sheer cold, many lives were taken just by the poor living conditions.…
- 1299 Words
- 6 Pages
Good Essays -
In the year of 1933, Adolf Hitler took power and the holocaust occurred. The vigorous dictator had a set of ideas and goals that took place across Europe. Hitler’s ideologies consisted of Germany and Austria having superiority over the Jewish population, whom were accused for all the issues Germany faced. Hitler “believed that only by waging a war of conquest against Russia could the German nation gain the living space and security it required and, as a superior race, deserved,” (Sources,369). Mein Kampf is a thorough work of literature that Hitler used as a guide for fourteen years; it enlightened people about the principles that were intended to transpire. Hitler was also a strong believer on Social Darwinism, and having said that, Social Darwinist believed that the process of survival of the fittest, by natural selection, should have been sped up by the government. With nationalistic thought, Hitler attempted to eradicate the Jews with the belief of Germany benefiting from this. This then lead to the catastrophe of the Holocaust where “estimates of the number of dead range as high as fifty million, including twenty-five million Russians, who sacrificed more than the other participants in both population and material resources,”(Sources, 369).…
- 1090 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
The Holocaust was a genocide in which 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazi regime. The Holocaust occurred in January 30, 1933 – May 8, 1945. The Nazi party was able to carry out their systematic plan of genocide through various cruel, discrimination, and violence. Nazi had to generate a sense of hate towards the Jewish people. “The Pyramid shows biased behaviors, growing in complexity from the bottom to the top. Although the behaviors at each level negatively impact individuals and groups, as one moves up the pyramid” (adl.org). The Nazi propaganda falls under the first level in the “pyramid of hate” which is bias. The “pyramid of hate” describes concentrations camps as bias-motivated violence because they would murder and threaten the Jews and other minorities. All in all, the Holocaust embodies all levels of the pyramid which constitutes this historical event as the first notable modern-era genocide.…
- 438 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
The emergence of the Holocaust and the Nazi party views can largely be determined as a result of modernity, as a reaction against the times. Yet, at the same time it can be argued that the National Socialist party can be characterized as a modern development. Modris Eksteins, George Mosse, and Zygmundt Bauman offer an in-depth look into both the anti-modern and modern aspects of the Nazi movement and the resulting Holocaust. Ekstein's work proves to be the most thorough of the three works in following the growth and progress of the Nazi party and Hitler's rise to power. Bauman covers more of the political side of the National Socialists, and especially appeals to morality and ethics, or rejection thereof, to portray his very opinionated points. Mosse, on the other hand, analyzes the people who fell victim to the ideology of the Nazi party, "In a sense, this study is a historical analysis of people captured to such an extent by an ideology that they lost sight of civilized law and civilized attitudes toward their fellow men," (Mosse, 9). For all three authors, modernity is the major force for change- the change that results in the rise of the national socialist party.…
- 1938 Words
- 8 Pages
Powerful Essays -
When one is ambitious in gaining power by the force of evil or by the used of violence, there is no stopping this one from what he or she is going to do. This is one of the moral ethical of humanity, something that every human being must suffer during their time of existence. It is also what William Shakespeare tried to show humanity that being ambitious will never bring any good to one person nor will it give happiness to one person. During the time of Shakespeare, the time of the Renaissance, many dukes, lords, thanes, monarch, and commoners were ambitious in gaining power. They all slew each other, even their own bloodline to gain power over the other. Shakespeare then wrote a play know as Macbeth, to show everyone of every class and society of how ambition can led one person from good to evil. Even in today world that there are still people that are ambitious in gaining power. Adolf Hitler, the tyrant of Germany, is very much similar to Shakespeare's character, Macbeth. If one ever compares the two tyrants, one would thinks that they are twin brothers or that Hitler based his character off of Shakespeare's work. Both Hitler and Macbeth are similar in many ways, their ambition for gaining power, their liking for killing people, and their triumphant and hatred amongst the people.…
- 1287 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In Shakespeare’s edgy and suspenseful play, “The Merchant of Venice”, the character of Shylock may evoke complex feelings within the reader. Shylock is clearly a villain in the sense that he repeatedly takes advantage of people in vulnerable economic situations and makes a handsome living in this way. He is not a likeable character throughout “The Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare; he avoids friendships, he is cranky, and he is steadfast in his beliefs to the point of being rigid.…
- 696 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays