"It is vital that the Passion play be continued at Oberammergau; for never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what happened in the time of the Romans," Hitler had said. "There one sees Pontius Pilate, a Roman racially and intellectually so superior, that he stands out like a firm, clean rock in the middle of the whole muck and mire of Jewry."
Hitler knew that the deicide theme might have played well in the superstituous Middle Ages (when we were also burning witches, might I add), but his motivation in 1934 was an appeal to the German sense of cultural superiority.