To what extent did Luther’s attitude towards Jews and Judaism change over the course of his life?

Paraded and displayed during the Nuremberg, Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies stands as a symbol of his anti-Jewish vitriol and a 400-year continuity of anti-Semitism. Historians have variously attempted to explain Luther’s attitude towards the Jews in terms of religious expediency, psyche, and national consciousness. Traditional interpretations generally hold that Luther’s anti-Semitism was a product of his bitter, later years, stemming from his frustration at their failure to convert to Christianity, and juxtaposed to the apparent tolerance enshrined in his 1523 essay, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew. However, exemplified by scholars such as Lyndall Roper and Heiko Oberman, more recent revisionist scholarship has tended to focus on context, and claims to have identified a theologically-based consistency to his view on Jews. A particularly nuanced argument would hold that fundamental anti-Semitism informed Luther’s attitude to the Jews throughout his career. The greatest degree in change came rather in the measures he proposed for their ‘improvement’ and conversion, and various factors, particularly his conviction in the imminence of the Apocalypse, play a part in this.