A Cinematic Salvo from Interwar Austria: Hans Karl Breslauer’s Die Stadt ohne Juden (The City Without Jews, 1924)

Occasioned by the centenary of Die Stadt ohne Juden (The City Without Jews, 1924), Hans-Karl Breslauer’s long-forgotten film, this article revisits Hugo Bettauer’s eponymous, best-selling novel on which it was based, exploring its remarkably wide and impassioned reception, and recognizing the ways in which Breslauer and his crew went about translating it to the screen. The article applies renewed attention to the extended cast and crew involved in this storied production. Lastly, it situates Breslauer’s film in relation to interwar German and Austrian cinema, recognizing affinities with and departures from the canonical works of the era and how the film continues to speak to us today.