Fritz Hippler

German film director (1909–2002)

Fritz Hippler (17 August 1909 – 22 May 2002) was a German filmmaker who ran the film department in the Propaganda Ministry of Nazi Germany, under Joseph Goebbels. He is best known as the director of the propaganda film Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew).

Hippler was born and brought up in Berlin as the son of a petty official. His father died in 1918 in the First World War in France. Hippler resented the Treaty of Versailles and its associated regulations, such as the assignment of the Danzig Corridor, the occupation of the Rhineland and the disarmament of Germany as unjustified humiliation, and rejected the Weimar democracy. In 1925 when he was 17, Hippler joined the Nazi Party. In 1927, Hippler became a member of the NSD Studentbund the National Socialist German Students' League.

After receiving his doctorate in 1934, Hippler became a lecturer at the German University of Policy in Berlin. From 1936 he worked as assistant to Hans Weidemann working on the production of German newsreels, directed in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Here he learned the production of documentaries. In January 1939, he took over Weidemann's position. In August 1939, Goebbels promoted Hippler again. He appointed the 29 year old Hippler to head the film department at the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda RMVP. In February 1942, he appointed him to the kingdom of film directors. With these two functions Hippler was one of the most important politicians of the film "Third Reich" after Goebbels. In October 1942, he was Director in the RMVP. His task was control, supervision and direction of German filmmaking. In 1938, Hippler was appointed to the rank of SS Hauptsturmführer. According to Veit Harlan, Hippler loved to wear his SS uniform. In his ministerial functions, Hippler continued to produce films. In 1939 40 he was responsible for the propaganda film The campaign in Poland. In 1940, he was responsible for the management and design of the feature length documentary film The Eternal Jew—according to Courtade, History of Film in the Third Reich, "the vilest anti Semitic Nazi films." The film historian Frank Noack assessed The Eternal Jew as "probably the most radical inflammatory film of all time". An article written by Hippler in the magazine "The film" about its creation marked Jews as "parasites of national degeneracy." He deliberately filmed conditions within the Warsaw Ghetto to show the starving inhabitants, conditions designed by the Germans to increase the death rate. The film served as a preparation and agreement of the population in the coming holocaust and was mainly used for training of police and SS troops. In the same year, as recognition for his service to the Reich, Adolf Hitler bestowed a secret endowment of 60,000 Reichsmarks to Hippler. In addition to The Eternal Jew Hippler also directed the 1940 propaganda documentary Feldzug in Polen about the Third Reich's invasion and occupation of Poland in 1939, and Die Frontschau (The Frontshow), a series of shorts shown to soldiers before being shipped to the Eastern Front. In 1942, Hippler published a book about film theory titled Betrachtungen zum Filmschaffen (i. e., Contemplations on Filmmaking), which included a preface by Emil Jannings. By 1943, he was promoted to Obersturmbannführer.

Goebbels could usually count on his young people. Nevertheless, he frequently criticized their shortcomings. As early as 1939, he recorded in his diaries that Hippler was intelligent but cheeky and totally contradictory. He also stated that Hippler was immature. Goebbels complained repeatedly about the disorganisation of the film department. Hippler suffered apparently with alcohol addiction. Goebbels finally discharged Hippler in June 1943 due to "mishaps, alcoholism, and family problems”, although Hippler claimed in his memoirs that he was removed due to his choice of Erich Kaestner for the screenplay of the film Münchhausen even though several of Kaestner's books and plays had been banned by the Nazis in 1933. After his dismissal, Hippler was accused of falsely denying his partial Jewish descent and demoted from his SS rank. Hippler was sent to an infantry replacement battalion of the country, according to Strauss and underwent mountain infantry training. Then he was again released from active duty and used until February 1945 as a front cameraman in order to produce material for newsreels. On 3 May 1945, he flew into Hamburg as a British prisoner of war.

After the end of the Second World War, Hippler was interned and sentenced to two years in prison. He was able to stage a comeback after his release. He was interviewed in the Bill Moyers PBS documentary series A Walk Through the 20th Century in 1982. Hippler died on 22 May 2002, at the age of 92. He is portrayed by Cary Elwes in the 2001 television film Uprising, and by de in the 2010 film Jew Suss: Rise and Fall.