Christoph David Bernard. Ausführlicher Discurs mit einem seiner guten Freunde, von allem, was ihme in den drey letzten Tagen des unglücklichen Jud Sueß Oppenheimers.

An account of the last three days of Joseph Suess Oppenheimer (1698-1738), a court Jew convicted of fraud and sentenced to death. The author, Christoph David Bernard (1682-1751) a converted Jew, was appointed by the commission that had convicted Oppenheimer to seek his conversion to Christianity - which Oppenheimer firmly resisted to the end. Bernard describes his encounters with Oppenheimer in the form of a conversation between him and a fictitious friend. The account is important in displaying how Oppenheimer met his end. Joseph Suess Oppenheimer was a prominent financial adviser to the Duke of Württemberg, which in turn aroused the fierce opposition of conservative elements in the country. Upon the death of the Duke – his protector – Oppenheimer was arrested by his enemies and accused of embezzlement, treason, sexual misdeeds with the ladies at court, etc. Under intense torture Oppenheimer confessed to almost everything he had been accused of, however, when his jailers demanded he convert to Christianity, he refused. Joseph Suess Oppenheimer was hanged on 4th February 1738 and his corpse was placed in a human-sized, iron bird-cage that was left dangling above the public square of Stuttgart for six years before the body was finally allowed to be returned to his family. The undoing of “Jud Suess,” a wide cause for merriment, remained a subject of ridicule in German anti-Semitic circles for centuries to come.