Douglas Mercer
February 26 2025
Robert Shaw is most famous for starring in the films Jaws and The Sting but prior to that he was a novelist of some note. In 1967 he wrote a novel called The Man In The Glass Booth which, in 1975, was turned into movie. The plot of the movie is that a rich Jewish Industrialist living in New York deceives Mossad into thinking that he is a long sought after “Nazi” war criminal and so they put him on trial in Jerusalem. Naturally given the topic they have shown this movie as part of Holocaust Remembrance Day and so try to tame it. But when the movie came out people saw it somewhat more clearly, its controversy stemmed from the fact that many saw it as anti-Semitic, and any viewing shows that this is more than plausible.
If you watch Robert Shaw speak the first thing you notice is that he is both a supercilious and an impish man, and you sense that he likes nothing more than to fool with or put things past people. Is it possible that in the guise of a plea for the suffering of the Jewish people he actually delivered the exact opposite? Did he use his enemies to teach his own message? Well, as the old saying goes, with Adolf Hitler it is always a fine line. I for one would not put it past him to try to put one over on the Jews, to have them unknowingly carry his water. Indeed, a fair review of the movie shows that is precisely what he did.
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The Protagonist is portrayed as an egotist who likes to challenge others and the first half of the movie is comprised of his long monologues in his spacious town house in Manhattan. When the subject of the Jews comes up he asks his employee, also a Jew: what kind of a Jew are you? The employee said he had never really thought about it, but he supposed he was an American Jew. The protagonist scoffs and laughs and says an American Jew? Is there such a thing? No, it takes light years to breed a new kind of Jew, our genes are titanium. Subsequent to the time this movie was made (1975) the Jews have spent decades telling anyone who would listen that they are not a race, but a religion or a culture. But in this scene the Jew’s dirty little secret, as it were, is let slip, that of course they are a race, there are no America Jews, or French Jews, or any other kind of Jews: only Jews. And by talking about light years and titanium one gets the idea that the Jews consider themselves superior and stronger than other people. No wonder loud voices decried this movie as “anti-semitic.”
The second half of the movie shows the Jerusalem trial of this Jew posing as a German. He is put in a glass booth and stands trial for the alleged war crimes. During this trial the events of the so-called Holocaust are recounted, and what one notices is that preposterous and outlandish claims are made. Are they being made to parody the always over the top claims that the Jews make, things like Jewish skin turned into lampshades or bodies being sewn together? I think so. In wild passion the protagonist recounts how he forced Jews to piss on their own dead, and of bodies being monstrously piled on top of one another as kind of game. The incidents that he recites far exceed anything the Jews have claimed, and so exaggerated is it that it is obviously a spoof.
Then the prosecutor who is handling the case goes on a histrionic speech where she says that were this to happen again, the Jews would run the entire world into the sea, and as she reaches her blood chilling crescendo, she seems crazed, mad and bloodthirsty. The crowd falls silent at the horror of what she said, and the Judge looks around and is sheepish and admonishes her. Of course, what she has let slip in this instance is the true world view of the Jews, and the cat is out of the bag: that they would without thinking or hesitating gleefully destroy the entire world.
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The climax of the movie is when the protagonist gives an impassioned and powerful defense of Germany and Adolf Hitler.
I will answer your question judge: how did it happen? It happened out of love, not out of hate. Do not make the mistake of thinking that it happened out of hate—it happened out of love. I promise you love, people of Israel, let me speak to you of our Fuhrer out of love, he who answered our deepest German need.
His background? It was undistinguished. To whom did he appeal? The people. At first when he spoke he was shy, he would hesitate, he would stammer, his body stiff, his voice hushed, but then the words came stronger, came steadier, came louder, his body grew free, and he would bang out his right hand like a hammer, louder and louder, his voice tumbling out now like a raging waterfall, shouted shouted out and out and beyond. Then there was absolute silence, a great silence, and then another sweep of the right arm, and a cry an overwhelming cry of love from the people: Germany Awake! German Awake! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!
Why did we love him? Why? Because we were afraid and we knew he was afraid. We did not know what we feared. But he did, and he told us, and because we loved him we believed him. Ya ya ya Juden! Juden! Juden! They hover over the like vultures. It was marvelous to know finally what it was that threatened us and so to end this threat. We had to destroy them! That was the need he satisfied in us. That is why he became our good and wise father. That is why we loved him, the killers of the world were at our throats, we loved him, the hordes from the East and from the West, we loved him, the capitalists, communists, we loved him, starving, we loved him, his hands trembling, we loved him.
His generals lost him the war, they were unworthy, there was only him, no successor, Hess was mad, Goering reviled, Himmler lost, but he was a brave king, a brave king, he told us soon the days of our suffering will be over, already the sun of your good fortune stands behind the clouds and soon the sun will rise upon you, he never deserted us, he only loved to the end, while he lived Germany lived! And the people demanded it, we never denied him. People of Israel we never denied him, and those who tell you different lie in their hearts.
And if he were able to rise from the dead he would prove it to you now. All over again only if we had someone to rise to, someone to throw out our arms to, someone to love, to love like this marvelous father. To tell us how to get rid of our enemies forever, that is for whom we will love and that is for whom we will kill, and in killing we will live and be cleansed! Germany over all! Germany over all! But don’t think that it was done out of hate, it was done out of love.
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After this cascade-like speech the protagonist slumps in his chair in the glass booth and then is shown in a pose of being crucified.
What is happening here? The official understanding is that the protagonist is a Jew who felt guilty for having survived and he thus engaged in a kind of Stockholm Syndrome where he identifies with the aggressors. But the explosive passion of the speech goes far beyond such pedestrian assessments. Who in fact is being crucified in the end? What is being travestied? Who is sending up who?
You could say that it’s in the eye of the beholder, that with Adolf Hitler it’s always a fine line. But remember in the end it’s a crucifixion and he repeat that they never denied him, and says anyone who says different lies, lies in their hearts. No, what Robert Shaw, actor, novelist, playwright, raconteur, man about town, father of nine, did was smuggle in the truth, he stole the key and did it by taking it right from beneath the keeper’s crooked nose. And the message of the movie is that sun of our good fortune is emerging from the clouds.
Shaw And The Jews
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Douglas Mercer
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