27x18 inches, 68 1/2x45 3/4 cm. Krüger & Co., Berlin. Condition B: replaced loss in central image; repaired tears, abrasions, darkening and restoration along vertical and horizontal folds.
Die Stadt Ohne Juden [The City Without Jews] (1924), is an expressionist Austrian film by H.K. Breslauer, based on the novel of the same name by Hugo Bettauer. Although it was originally intended as a satirical novel (written by a progressive journalist and writer), responding to the brewing anti-Semitism of the 1920s, it eventually became a unsettling foreshadowing of what was yet to come in Europe. In the film, when the anti-Semitic Chancellor of the Christian Social Party comes to power, he passes a law forcing all Jews to leave the country. Following their departure, the country begins to experience cultural deficits, a suffering economy and unemployment. Eventually the Jews are brought back to Austria, and a parallel love story throughout the novel is also resolved. The film differs from the book in its "happier ending," with a plot twist that the whole story was actually a dream of an anti-Semite, meant to lessen the controversial impact of the movie. Also, the characters in the book could be identified as actual politicians, but this was altered in the film to avoid censorship. The film was shown in 1926 in Berlin, 1928 in NY, and in 1933, for the last time, in Amsterdam as a protest against Hitler. It then disappeared from the public eye until it was rediscovered in the early 1990s, missing the final scene. The black and white sketch in this rare poster features a giant, ghastly figure forcing throngs of Jews onto the streets and out of the city. This featureless form, though created well before his rise to power, sports side-swept bangs eerily similar to Hitler's.
