It is somewhat ironically apposite to watch this now in the UK where we are still having politically charged conversations about anti-Semitism. This silent film is a wonderfully satiric rendition of the Bettauer story about the citizens of a city who fear that it is steadily being taken over by the Jews. Via a series of regulations and eventually law the Jewish are persecuted then ultimately banished. Thereupon, their chickens come home to roost; their city collapses into chaos and the Jews are invited to return - very much on their own terms. The futility and short-sightedness of a "blame culture" is writ large. Personally, I didn't see this as a precursor of the Holocaust; though I can see how the polarised vision of Jewish faith and ethics could certainly provide the oxygen ultimately required for such irrational hatred. It also served to remind me of the huge talents of the musicians who provided the accompaniments to many films like this.

This warning against anti-semitism is well-meant and may have had its purpose at the time, but it is made without the slightest notion of how to make a film. The director has no idea about mise-en-scene; the cast varies from bad till even worse.

The great Austrian comic Hans Moser is wasted. In his part he ends in an asylum for the crazy, that is designed as a set from Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari; one wonders whether the makers had all their mental capabilities.

The restored copy I saw (Dutch Filmmuseum) gives the impression that some scenes were not put into the right place, but may be the original editing was bad as well.

this movie is more or less a document about a book (Die Stadt ohne Juden) from Hugo Bettauer. As a movie itself it shows the typical problems of a film industry in Vienna in the beginning of the 20's.

It is on a meta level a great pleasure. A lot of very interesting people and locations. In the historical context the movie is one of the most interesting documents we have in the movie history of central Europe. It shows that people had an idea what there future would like to be. The most interesting part is the vision of a Vienna without an important minority. It seems like a vary of stereotypes but its a fact that some visions turned into real.

The locations are partly showing buildings and interiors of the 20's and were later identified as "typical Jewish". Like the sanatorium Purkersdorf , or the "jugenstil" interior.

The movie is a great puzzle of statements of the early 20's in an community before the big economic crises and the Holocaust.