In the Land of the Dead

This chapter concentrates on David Fassmann, one of the earliest known biographers of Joseph Süss Oppenheimer. Fassmann was a litterateur and fabulist from Leipzig who somehow managed to anticipate some of the best modern literature on the historical figure of Jew Süss. Fassmann's life story and his several treatments of Oppenheimer's life story will help scholars understand at least some of the reasons why, even as it unfolded, the scandal surrounding Oppenheimer's trial reached well beyond the confines of the small duchy of Württemberg. It should also help them appreciate the tangled nature of Oppenheimer's case: how reality and repute, truth and fiction, were wound around each other in his story as if in a skein.