This article is adapted from "'Van den vos Reynaerde' (1943): How a Medieval Fable Became a Dutch Anti-Semitic Animation Film" that appeared in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (vol. 14, no. 2, 1994), which in turn was revised and translated from "Reynaert en het Jodenbeest" (Reynard and the Jew Animal), that appeared in De Volkskrant, May 25, 1991.

Title credit: About Reynard the Fox. (Nederland Film, 1943) Courtesy Nederland Filmmuseum (frame enlargement Ole. Schepp).

In 1941, Nederland Film was set up in The Hague by a member of the NSB (Dutch National Socialist) party with the aid of the occupying Germans to make animated films with a Nazi point of view. Its most ambitious project was Van den vos Reynaerde (About Reynard the Fox), an outrightly anti-Semitic film, and one of the first animated color films made in Holland. However, Reynard was never shown publicly and in the turmoil of the war was lost; in 1991, a fragment of the film was unearthed in Germany, thus permitting us to get a closer look at this fascinating film.

"Even on his way home, Reynard succeeded in catching a fat hen. 'And it will always be that way.'" The final sentence of the Dutch novel, Van den vos Reynaerde, is just as innocent as the face of Reynard the Fox. This time, however, it is not Reynard who is the villain. Yes, he does steal a few chickens, but that's the way he is. Much worse is Jodocus, the rhinoceros, a cunning, money-grubbing animal who came from far away to settle in the land of the late King Nobel. His family has secretly followed him from the East and together they seize power, taking control of the money market and poisoning the people with strange new ideas. With their entrance, the decline of the empire begins.

Van Genechten's Tale
The book version of Van den vos Reynaerde, by the Flemish-born Robert van Genechten, is without doubt anti-Semitic. It is a plea for racial purity and for a so-called natural order, in which a powerful leader governs the people, and in which the Jews undermine those values. This sequel to the medieval fable, Reynard the Fox, was first published in 1937 in Nieuw-Nederland (New Netherlands), a cultural and political monthly of the NSB. In 1941, it was published as a book and distributed in The Netherlands and Belgium. Over the next few years, a small fortune was invested in an animated film version, a remarkable example of Nazi propaganda of the highest technical quality.