A closer look

Joseph Süß Oppenheimer did his job too well, and it cost him his life. As the financial advisor to the Duke of Württemberg in the 1730s, he successfully modernized the state's shattered economy through heavy taxation. The local nobles despised him for his power and his Jewish faith. The moment his royal patron died, Oppenheimer was arrested on trumped-up charges, executed, and his corpse was left to rot in an iron cage suspended in the sky for six years to send a brutal message.