February 12, 1885—In the quiet village of Fleinhausen, in the Bavarian section of Germany, Julius Streicher, the son of a teacher, was born. As an adult, he would only briefly take up the educational profession into which his father and some siblings entered, instead teaching Germany, through his newspaper and publishing house, rancidly racist principles that resulted in the deaths of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazi regime.
In Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer, the father of fictional alter ego Nathan Zuckerman, disturbed by a short story he regards as encouraging anti-Semitism, prevails upon a judge friend of his to send the young writer a questionnaire. One of the questions is, “Can you honestly say that there is anything in your short story that would not warm the heart of a Julius Streicher or a Joseph Goebbels?” That little incident vividly expresses the revulsion this propagandist can still inspire.
It’s hard to believe that Streicher was born 20 years after the last birthday that Abraham Lincoln ever celebrated. While the American used words to remind listeners of their shared humanity with a group they eventually freed, the Nazi publisher used his paper, Der Stürmer (translated, chillingly, as “The Stormtrooper”) in an inflammatory campaign that sought, in stages, to defame, disenfranchise, dehumanize, then destroy the Jews of Germany.
Like Adolf Hitler, Streicher was a decorated (Iron Cross, First Class) WWI veteran who threw in his lot with right-wing extremists in the fevered aftermath of the conflict. He gained credibility with Hitler by merging the German Socialist Party with the fledgling National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), or Nazi Party. Almost overnight, according to Richard J. Evans’ The Coming of the Third Reich, Streicher’s action succeeded in virtually doubling the Nazi Party membership.
Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect-turned-armaments-minister, noted that in the years after the disastrous Beer-Hall Putsch of 1923, Streicher was one of only four men for whom Hitler employed the familiar address du. No wonder: while the presence of intelligent, urbane men such as Speer might have convinced some well-meaning citizens of Western democracies that the threat of Nazism was way overhyped, it was people such as the crude, head-shaven, whip-wielding Streicher who supplied much of the vicious energy of the movement. He was truly one of Hitler's foot soldiers.
It was Streicher who, in the 1920s, was ejected from one public meeting after another, often escorted out by police, for his incivility. It was Streicher who provided Hitler with a foothold in Nuremberg, then gave one of the speeches urging the overthrow of the Weimar government in the 1923 putsch. It was Streicher who organized the first boycott against Jewish merchants after Hitler seized power 10 years later.
Hitler expressed his gratitude by appointing Streicher a Gauleiter (district leader) of Franconia. In that post, Streicher displayed no real talent for administration but plenty for turning other Nazis against him. Running afoul of Herman Goering meant that he ended up being relieved of his government posts.
Hitler had enough residual affection for his old party comrade that he allowed Streicher to remain at Der Stürmer until the end of the Third Reich. That was where his evil genius lay, in any case. Day after day, for 20 years, his newspaper churned out anti-Semitic bile, often in the form of cartoons featuring Jews as, among other things, vampires.
His most baleful influence, I think, might have been on children. As a schoolteacher, Streicher learned how to reach young minds; as a publisher, he twisted them.
In Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer, the father of fictional alter ego Nathan Zuckerman, disturbed by a short story he regards as encouraging anti-Semitism, prevails upon a judge friend of his to send the young writer a questionnaire. One of the questions is, “Can you honestly say that there is anything in your short story that would not warm the heart of a Julius Streicher or a Joseph Goebbels?” That little incident vividly expresses the revulsion this propagandist can still inspire.
It’s hard to believe that Streicher was born 20 years after the last birthday that Abraham Lincoln ever celebrated. While the American used words to remind listeners of their shared humanity with a group they eventually freed, the Nazi publisher used his paper, Der Stürmer (translated, chillingly, as “The Stormtrooper”) in an inflammatory campaign that sought, in stages, to defame, disenfranchise, dehumanize, then destroy the Jews of Germany.
Like Adolf Hitler, Streicher was a decorated (Iron Cross, First Class) WWI veteran who threw in his lot with right-wing extremists in the fevered aftermath of the conflict. He gained credibility with Hitler by merging the German Socialist Party with the fledgling National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), or Nazi Party. Almost overnight, according to Richard J. Evans’ The Coming of the Third Reich, Streicher’s action succeeded in virtually doubling the Nazi Party membership.
Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect-turned-armaments-minister, noted that in the years after the disastrous Beer-Hall Putsch of 1923, Streicher was one of only four men for whom Hitler employed the familiar address du. No wonder: while the presence of intelligent, urbane men such as Speer might have convinced some well-meaning citizens of Western democracies that the threat of Nazism was way overhyped, it was people such as the crude, head-shaven, whip-wielding Streicher who supplied much of the vicious energy of the movement. He was truly one of Hitler's foot soldiers.
It was Streicher who, in the 1920s, was ejected from one public meeting after another, often escorted out by police, for his incivility. It was Streicher who provided Hitler with a foothold in Nuremberg, then gave one of the speeches urging the overthrow of the Weimar government in the 1923 putsch. It was Streicher who organized the first boycott against Jewish merchants after Hitler seized power 10 years later.
Hitler expressed his gratitude by appointing Streicher a Gauleiter (district leader) of Franconia. In that post, Streicher displayed no real talent for administration but plenty for turning other Nazis against him. Running afoul of Herman Goering meant that he ended up being relieved of his government posts.
Hitler had enough residual affection for his old party comrade that he allowed Streicher to remain at Der Stürmer until the end of the Third Reich. That was where his evil genius lay, in any case. Day after day, for 20 years, his newspaper churned out anti-Semitic bile, often in the form of cartoons featuring Jews as, among other things, vampires.
His most baleful influence, I think, might have been on children. As a schoolteacher, Streicher learned how to reach young minds; as a publisher, he twisted them.
One particularly shocking example of his handiwork was Der Giftpilz (“The Poisonous Mushroom”), a children’s tale sometimes used in German classrooms, featuring all kinds of leering, innuendo-filled propaganda (e.g., a cartoon of an Aryan woman, “Inge,” visiting her Jewish doctor is accompanied by this caption: “Two criminal eyes flashed behind the glasses and the fat lips grinned.")
One minute with the contents of Streicher’s publications would be enough to convince anybody that his was an essentially pornographic imagination, and that’s exactly what turned out to be. When he was removed from office in 1940, a large cache of pornography was discovered in his home. For nearly 20 years, he had projected the contents of his own diseased mind onto an entire race.
Though his removal from office meant that he did not help plan the Holocaust nor participate in killings, Streicher was found guilty at the postwar Nuremberg trials and hanged for inciting Germans to commit mass murder. In his final statement at the trial, he vehemently denied any role in this: “I repudiate the mass killings . . . in the same way as they are repudiated by every decent German.”
It was one more big lie told by a regime that specialized in it. As early as February 1940, Streicher predicted in Der Stermer: “"At the end of this Jewish war the extermination of the Jewish people will have been brought about."
After 9/11, Americans were shocked to find that Saudi textbooks were filled with ant-Semitic stereotypes and invective very similar to those peddled by Hitler’s hate merchant. Yet, so far as I’m aware, nobody has ever set out to expose the Julius Streichers of the Arab world. More than 60 years after his death, on an entirely different continent from where he wreaked havoc, the falsehoods he spread continue to infect the minds of millions.
One minute with the contents of Streicher’s publications would be enough to convince anybody that his was an essentially pornographic imagination, and that’s exactly what turned out to be. When he was removed from office in 1940, a large cache of pornography was discovered in his home. For nearly 20 years, he had projected the contents of his own diseased mind onto an entire race.
Though his removal from office meant that he did not help plan the Holocaust nor participate in killings, Streicher was found guilty at the postwar Nuremberg trials and hanged for inciting Germans to commit mass murder. In his final statement at the trial, he vehemently denied any role in this: “I repudiate the mass killings . . . in the same way as they are repudiated by every decent German.”
It was one more big lie told by a regime that specialized in it. As early as February 1940, Streicher predicted in Der Stermer: “"At the end of this Jewish war the extermination of the Jewish people will have been brought about."
After 9/11, Americans were shocked to find that Saudi textbooks were filled with ant-Semitic stereotypes and invective very similar to those peddled by Hitler’s hate merchant. Yet, so far as I’m aware, nobody has ever set out to expose the Julius Streichers of the Arab world. More than 60 years after his death, on an entirely different continent from where he wreaked havoc, the falsehoods he spread continue to infect the minds of millions.
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