The Eternal Jew is a 1940 antisemitic German Nazi propaganda film.
The movie was produced in the style of a documentary, the central thesis being the immutable racial personality traits that, according to Nazi doctrine, characterize the Jew as a wandering cultural parasite. Throughout the film, these supposed traits are contrasted to the Nazi state ideal: while Aryan men are shown to find satisfaction in physical labor and the creation of value, Jews are depicted as finding pleasure in money and a hedonist lifestyle. While members of the Aryan race live healthily, rich Jews are shown as living in bug-infested and dirty homes, even though they could afford better. The footage to convey this was actually captured in ghettos, where living conditions were very poor and unsanitary surroundings were virtually inevitable. While Germanic/Nordic man has an appreciation for Northern culture and imagery, Jews are alleged only to find satisfaction in the grotesque and decadent. Many things that run contrary to Nazi doctrine are associated with Jewish influence, such as modern art, cultural relativism, anarchic and socialist movements, as well as sexual liberation. The film criticizes Jewish religious practices and criticises kosher slaughtering (shechita) in which animals bleed to death, as inhumane, contrasting it with Nazi laws requiring that animals be anaesthetized prior to slaughter.
Toward the end of the film, after showing how Jews have been responsible for the decline of Western music, science, art, and commerce, is a scene of a cow being slaughtered for meat by a shochet (Jewish ritual slaughter), which is prefaced by a warning similar to the one in Frankenstein, warning women, children, and the squeamish about the upcoming scene. This long scene, lasting several minutes, shows the cows and sheep in all their death throes as they bleed to death. The movie's creators apparently filmed this scene on the knowledge that Adolf Hitler was allegedly opposed to cruelty to animals and had banned kosher slaughter of animals in Germany, and that such footage would shock an audience that was sensitive to animals.
The film ends with Hitler explaining the problems of the Jewry in Europe and says: If the international finance-Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations into a world war yet again, then the outcome will not be the victory of Jewry, but rather the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"
