Raquel Erdtmann

In the organizer's words:

• Joseph Süßkind Oppenheimer
• A judicial murder
• Literature

The (abbreviated) name "Jud Süß" is a byword for anti-Jewish stereotypes. Yet the truth about the historical figure and the tragedy of his life are largely unknown.

Just a few hours after the Württemberg regent Carl Alexander died suddenly in 1737, his Privy Councillor of Finance Joseph Süßkind Oppenheimer was arrested. The charge: treason. The authorities struggle to find evidence of any wrongdoing, the trial drags on for eleven months, but ends irrevocably with the death sentence. Even at the beginning of the trial, the auction of Oppenheimer's household effects was in full swing: the state secured the best pieces of jewelry, while the most beautiful dresses of his mistress were taken by the respectable ladies of Stuttgart. The proud, self-confident man, who believes in due process of law, increasingly becomes a driven man in prison, desperately fighting for his life.

Raquel Erdtmann has meticulously sifted through eight meters of archive material in her search for historical clues and tells the story of the show trial of Joseph Süßkind Oppenheimer in such an exciting and moving way that it takes your breath away - an important contribution to the deconstruction of historically powerful anti-Semitic myths!

Raquel Erdtmann is a court reporter for the FAZ and Die Zeit. A collection of her court reports has been published under the title Und ich würde es wieder tun (2019).

This content has been machine translated.

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