What is a name of jewish prince who ruled one of 34 principalities before german unification?

You may be thinking about Suss Oppenheim who got a great deal of power in 18th-century Wurtemmberg. His career was the subject of a novel by Lion Feuchtwanger called Jud Suss or Suss the Jew. The Nazis hijacked and twisted this into a truly vile antisemitic film - instead of a Jewish rape victim, there is a Jewish rapist for example. After the war, Feuchtwanger reissued his novel with the washed-out title Power.

What is a name of jewish prince who ruled one of 34 principalities before german unification?
Joseph S眉脽 Oppenheimer (1698-1738) was a Jewish banker and financial planner for Duke Karl Alexander of W眉rttemberg in Stuttgart. He was a nephew and stepson of the banker Samuel Oppenheimer, diplomat and Shtadlan to Kaiser Leopold of Austria.





As a financial advisor for Duke Karl Alexander of W眉rttemberg, he also gained a prominent position as a court Jew and held the reins of the finances in his duchy. He put a duchy monopoly on trade of salt, leather, tobacco and liquor and founded a bank and porcelain factory. In the process he gained a number of jealous enemies who, among other things, claimed that he was involved with local gambling houses.





When his protector Karl Alexander died on March 12, 1737, Oppenheimer was arrested and accused of various things, including fraud, embezzlement, treason, lecherous relations with the court ladies, accepting bribes and trying to bring back Catholicism. The Jewish community tried unsuccessfully to ransom him.





Under heavy torture, Oppenheimer broke down and confessed to just about anything he had been accused of. However, when his jailers demanded that he convert to Christianity, he refused.





Joseph S眉脽 Oppenheimer was brought out to the gallows on February 4, 1738, and was given a last chance to convert to Christianity; for which he refused; thereafter he was hanged and died on Kiddush Hashem with his last words being the Shema Yisroel. His dead body was placed in a human size bird cage; that hung in the public square of Stuttgart for seven years; when his body was finally returned to his family for burial.





His story, under the title Jud S眉脽 or Jew S眉脽 was the subject of an 1827 novella by Wilhelm Hauff, a 1925 historical novel by Lion Feuchtwanger, a 1934 British film and a Nazi propaganda film made in 1940 by Veit Harlan. The Feuchtwanger book and the 1934 film based on it were both condemnations of anti-Semitism with the film being meant as well as a satire of Nazi anti-Semitism.





Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_S%C...