Joseph Süß Oppenheimer (1698? – February 4, 1738) was a German Jewish banker and court Jew for Duke Karl Alexander of Württemberg in Stuttgart. Throughout his career, Oppenheimer made scores of powerful enemies, some of whom conspired to bring about his arrest and execution after Karl Alexander's death. In the centuries since his execution, Oppenheimer's rise and fall have been treated in two notable literary works, and his ordeal inspired two films, including the antisemitic production Jud Süß, released in Nazi Germany in 1940, itself the cause for a famous postwar trial. Career Oppenheimer was born in Heidelberg to a Jewish tax collector and his wife. The father died early, and the exact whereabouts of Joseph Süß in the following years are not certain. By the 1720s, Oppenheimer was working as a court Jew in Mannheim, Darmstadt, and finally Frankfurt am Main. In Frankfurt he was introduced to Karl Alexander, the future Duke of Württemberg, in 1732. When Karl Alexander ascended the throne in the following year, Oppenheimer served as his chief financial adviser. As envoy to Frankfurt in 1733, his privileged position allowed him to live outside the Judengassein in the comfort of the Golden Swan Inn. Arrest, trial and execution When his protector, Karl Alexander, suddenly died on March 12, 1737, Oppenheimer was arrested and accused of various crimes, including fraud, embezzlement, treason, lecherous relations with various women, and accepting bribes. While some Jews tried to help him during the trial, others gave incriminatory testimonies against him. The charge of lechery was dropped in order to protect reputable women. After the heavily publicized trial, Oppenheimer was sentenced to death, without naming any specific crime. When his jailers asked that he convert to Christianity, he refused. Naill Ferguson writes that Süss-Oppenheimer was executed because his prosecutors found him guilty of wielding excessive political power and undermining the position of the Württemberg estates (Stände). Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was led to the gallows on February 4, 1738, and given a final chance to convert to Christianity, which he refused to do. He was throttled, with his last words reportedly being the Jewish prayer, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one". The case records were then declared secret until 1918. His corpse was gibbeted in a cage that hung outside of Stuttgart in the Pragsattel district for six years until the inauguration of Karl Eugen, Duke of