fbpx
Wikipedia

Julius Streicher

Julius Streicher (12 February 1885 – 16 October 1946) was a member of the Nazi Party, the Gauleiter (regional leader) of Franconia and a member of the Reichstag, the national legislature. He was the founder and publisher of the virulently antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer, which became a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine. The publishing firm was financially very successful and made Streicher a multi-millionaire.[1]

Julius Streicher
Streicher in 1935
Gauleiter of Franconia
In office
1 March 1929 – 16 February 1940
LeaderAdolf Hitler
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byHans Zimmermann
(acting, 1940)
Karl Holz
(acting from 1942, permanent from 1944)
Gauleiter of Nuremberg-Fürth
In office
1 October 1928 – 1 March 1929
LeaderAdolf Hitler
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byHimself
Gauleiter of Nordbayern
In office
2 April 1925 – 1 October 1928
LeaderAdolf Hitler
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byHimself
Publisher of Der Stürmer
In office
20 April 1923 – 1 February 1945
Personal details
Born(1885-02-12)12 February 1885
Fleinhausen, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire
Died16 October 1946(1946-10-16) (aged 61)
Nuremberg Prison, Nuremberg, Allied-occupied Germany
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
Political partyNazi Party (1921–1945)
Other political
affiliations
DSP (1918–1921)
Spouse(s)
Kunigunde Roth
(m. 1913; died 1943)

Adele Tappe
(m. 1945)
ChildrenLothar
Elmar
Parent(s)Friedrich Streicher
Anna Weiss
Known forPublisher of propaganda
Signature
Military service
AllegianceGerman Empire
Branch/serviceImperial German Army
Years of service1914–1918
RankLeutnant
Unit6th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment
Battles/warsWorld War I
AwardsIron Cross
Criminal conviction
Criminal statusExecuted
Conviction(s)Crimes against humanity
TrialNuremberg trials
Criminal penaltyCapital punishment

After the war, Streicher was convicted of crimes against humanity at the end of the Nuremberg trials. Specifically, he was found to have continued his vitriolic antisemitic propaganda when he was well aware that Jews were being murdered. For this, he was executed by hanging.[2] Streicher was the first member of the Nazi regime held accountable for inciting genocide by the Nuremberg Tribunal.

Early life Edit

Streicher was born in Fleinhausen, in the Kingdom of Bavaria, one of nine children of the teacher Friedrich Streicher and his wife Anna (née Weiss). He worked as an elementary school teacher, as his father had. In 1913, Streicher married Kunigunde Roth, a baker's daughter, in Nuremberg. They had two sons, Lothar (born 1915) and Elmar (born 1918).[3]

Streicher joined the German Army in 1914. For his outstanding combat performance during the First World War, he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class, as well as earning a battlefield commission as an officer (lieutenant), despite having several reported instances of poor behaviour in his military record,[4] and at a time when officers were primarily from aristocratic families. Following the end of World War I, Streicher was demobilised and returned to Nuremberg.[5] Upon his return, Streicher took up another teaching position there but something unknown happened in 1919, which turned him into a "radical anti-Semite".[6]

Early politics Edit

Streicher was heavily influenced by the endemic antisemitism found in pre-war Germany, especially that of Theodor Fritsch.[7] In February 1919, Streicher became active in the antisemitic Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund (German Nationalist Protection and Defense Federation), one of the various radical-nationalist organizations that sprang up in the wake of the failed German Communist revolution of 1918.[8] Such groups fostered the view that Jews and Bolsheviks were synonymous, and that they were traitors trying to subject Germany to Communist rule.[9][10] In 1920 Streicher turned to the Deutschsozialistische Partei (German Socialist Party, DSP), a group whose platform was close to that of the Nazi Party, or Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (National Socialist German Workers' Party or NSDAP). The DSP had been created in May 1919 as an initiative of Rudolf von Sebottendorf as a child of the Thule Society,[11][12] and its program was based on the ideas of the mechanical engineer Alfred Brunner (1881–1936);[13][a] in 1919, the party was officially inaugurated in Hanover.[12] Its leading members included Hans Georg Müller, Max Sesselmann and Friedrich Wiesel, the first two editors of the Münchner Beobachter. Julius Streicher founded his local branch in 1919 in Nuremberg.[14]

By the end of 1919, the DSP had branches in Düsseldorf, Kiel, Frankfurt am Main, Dresden, Nuremberg and Munich.[13] Streicher sought to move the German Socialists in a more virulently antisemitic direction – an effort which aroused enough opposition that he left the group and brought his now-substantial following to yet another organisation in 1921, the Deutsche Werkgemeinschaft (German Working Community), which hoped to unite the various antisemitic völkisch movements.[15] Meanwhile, Streicher's rhetoric against the Jews continued to intensify to such a degree that the leadership of the Deutsche Werkgemeinschaft thought he was dangerous and criticized him for his obsessive "hatred of the Jews and foreign races."[16]

Nazism Edit

In 1921, Streicher left the German Socialist Party and joined the Nazi Party,[2] bringing with him enough members of the DSP to almost double the size of the Nazi Party overnight.[17][18][19] He would later claim that because his political work brought him into contact with German Jews, he "must therefore have been fated to become later on, a writer and speaker on racial politics".[20][b] He visited Munich in order to hear Adolf Hitler speak, an experience that he later said left him transformed. When asked about that moment, Streicher stated:

It was on a winter's day in 1922. I sat unknown in the large hall of the Bürgerbräuhaus ... suspense was in the air. Everyone seemed tense with excitement, with anticipation. Then suddenly a shout. "Hitler is coming!" Thousands of men and women jumped to their feet as if propelled by a mysterious power ... they shouted, "Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!" ... And then he stood on the podium ... Then I knew that in this Adolf Hitler was someone extraordinary ... Here was one who could wrest out of the German spirit and the German heart the power to break the chains of slavery. Yes! Yes! This man spoke as a messenger from heaven at a time when the gates of hell were opening to pull down everything. And when he finally finished, and while the crowd raised the roof with the singing of the "Deutschland" song, I rushed to the stage.[22]

Nearly religiously converted by this speech, Streicher believed from this point forward that, "it was his destiny to serve Hitler".[23]

In May 1923 Streicher founded the sensationalist newspaper Der Stürmer (The Stormer, or, loosely, The Attacker).[24] From the outset, the chief aim of the paper was to promulgate antisemitic propaganda; the first issue had an excerpt that stated, "As long as the Jew is in the German household, we will be Jewish slaves. Therefore he must go."[25] Historian Richard J. Evans describes the newspaper:

[Der Stürmer] rapidly established itself as the place where screaming headlines introduced the most rabid attacks on Jews, full of sexual innuendo, racist caricatures, made-up accusations of ritual murder, and titillating, semi-pornographic stories of Jewish men seducing innocent German girls.[17]

In November 1923, Streicher participated in Hitler's first effort to seize power, the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. Streicher marched with Hitler in the front row of the would-be revolutionaries. As a result of his participation in the attempted Putsch, Streicher was suspended from teaching.[26] His loyalty to the cause earned him Hitler's lifelong trust and protection; in the years that followed, Streicher would be one of the dictator's few true intimates. Streicher, Rudolf Hess, Emil Maurice,[27] and Dietrich Eckart[28] were the only Nazis mentioned in Mein Kampf;[19] in the book, Hitler praised him for subordinating the German Socialist Party to the Nazi Party, a move Hitler believed was essential to the success of the National Socialists.[29] When the Nazi Party was banned in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt, Streicher in early 1924 joined the Greater German People's Community (Großdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft, GVG) a Nazi front organization established by Alfred Rosenberg. Streicher challenged Rosenberg's weak leadership and on 9 July 1924 was elected as Chairman of the GVG in his place.[30] When Hitler was released from his prison sentence at Landsberg am Lech on 20 December 1924 for his role in the Putsch, Streicher was one of the few remaining followers waiting for him at his Munich apartment.[31] Hitler – who would value loyalty and faithfulness very highly throughout his life – remained loyal to Streicher even when he landed in trouble with the Nazi hierarchy. Although Hitler would allow suppression of Der Stürmer at times when it was politically important for the Nazis to be seen as respectable, and although he would admit that Streicher was not a very good administrator, he never withdrew his personal loyalty.[7]

In April 1924, Streicher was elected to the Bavarian Landtag (legislature),[32] a position which gave him a margin of parliamentary immunity — a safety net that would help him resist efforts to silence his racist message.[citation needed] In January 1925 he also joined the Nuremberg City Council. Hitler re-founded the Nazi Party on 27 February 1925 in a speech at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich. Streicher was present and pledged his loyalty; the GVG was soon formally disbanded.[33] As a reward for Streicher's loyalty and dedication, on 2 April he was appointed Gauleiter of Nordbayern the Bavarian region that included Upper, Middle and Lower Franconia. He established his capital in his home town of Nuremberg. His jurisdiction would undergo several changes in the coming years. On 1 October 1928, it was significantly reduced to the area around Nuremberg-Fürth. On 1 March 1929, it again expanded, absorbing a neighboring Gau. Now encompassing all of Middle Franconia, it was renamed Gau Mittelfranken. Finally, in April 1933, the districts were consolidated and became simply Gau Franken.[34] In the early years of the party's rise, Gauleiter were essentially party functionaries without real power; but in the final years of the Weimar Republic, as the Nazi Party grew, so did their power. Gauleiters such as Streicher wielded immense power and authority under the Nazi state.[35]

Rise of Der Stürmer Edit

Beginning in 1924, Streicher used Der Stürmer as a mouthpiece not only for general antisemitic attacks, but for calculated smear campaigns against specific Jews, such as the Nuremberg city official Julius Fleischmann, who worked for Streicher's nemesis, mayor Hermann Luppe. Der Stürmer accused Fleischmann of stealing socks from his quartermaster during combat in World War I. Fleischmann sued Streicher and disproved the allegations in court, where Streicher was fined 900 marks.[c] Der Stürmer's official slogan, Die Juden sind unser Unglück (the Jews are our misfortune), was deemed non-actionable under German statutes, since it was not a direct incitement to violence.[citation needed]

 
Public reading of Der Stürmer, Worms, 1933

Streicher's opponents complained to authorities that Der Stürmer violated a statute against religious offense with his constant promulgation of the "blood libel" – the medieval accusation that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to make matzoh. Streicher argued that his accusations were based on race, not religion, and that his communications were political speech, and therefore protected by the German constitution.[citation needed]

Streicher orchestrated his early campaigns against Jews to make the most extreme possible claims, short of violating a law that might get the paper shut down. He insisted in the pages of his newspaper that the Jews had caused the worldwide Depression, and were responsible for the crippling unemployment and inflation which afflicted Germany during the 1920s. He claimed that Jews were white-slavers responsible for Germany's prostitution rings. Real unsolved killings in Germany, especially of children or women, were often confidently explained in the pages of Der Stürmer as cases of "Jewish ritual murder".[36]

One of Streicher's constant themes was the sexual violation of ethnic German women by Jews, a subject which he used to publish semi-pornographic tracts and images detailing degrading sexual acts.[37][38] The fascination with the pornographic aspects of the propaganda in Der Stürmer was an important feature for many antisemites.[39] With the help of his cartoonist Phillip "Fips" Rupprecht, Streicher published image after image of Jewish stereotypes and sexually-charged encounters.[40] His portrayal of Jews as subhuman and evil is considered to have played a critical role in the dehumanization and marginalization of the Jewish minority in the eyes of common Germans – creating the necessary conditions for the later perpetration of the Holocaust.[41][42][d] To protect himself from accountability, Streicher relied on Hitler's protection. Hitler declared that Der Stürmer was his favorite newspaper, and saw to it that each weekly issue was posted for public reading in special glassed-in display cases known as "Stürmerkasten". The newspaper reached a peak circulation of 600,000 in 1935.[44] One of the possible solutions to the Nazi's perceived problem Streicher mentioned in the pages of Der Stürmer was transporting Jews to Madagascar.[45]

Streicher's publishing firm also released three antisemitic books for children, including the 1938 Der Giftpilz (translated into English as The Toadstool or The Poisonous Mushroom), one of the most widespread pieces of propaganda, which warned about the supposed dangers Jews posed by using the metaphor of an attractive yet deadly mushroom. Late in 1936 Streicher also issued Trust No Fox on his Green Heath and No Jew on his Oath, an infamously anti-Semitic children's picture book by 18 year old Elvira Bauer. In the book the Jews are depicted as 'children of the devil' and Streicher as the great educator and a hero of all German children.[citation needed]

Streicher did not limit his vituperative attacks to Jews themselves but also launched them against those he perceived as insufficiently hostile towards Jews. For example, he dismissed Mussolini as a Jewish lackey for not being anti-Semitic enough.[46] Between 1935 and the end of the Second World War, upwards of 6,500 persons were identified and denounced in Der Stürmer for not being sufficiently anti-Semitic.[47]

Streicher in power Edit

In July 1932, Streicher was elected as a deputy of the Reichstag from electoral constituency 26, Franconia, a seat that he would hold throughout the Nazi regime.[48] In April 1933, after Nazi control of the German state apparatus gave the Gauleiters enormous power, Streicher organised a one-day boycott of Jewish businesses which was used as a dress-rehearsal for other antisemitic commercial measures. As he consolidated his hold on power, he came to more or less rule the city of Nuremberg and his Gau Franken, and boasted that every Jew had been removed from Hersbruck. Among the nicknames provided by his enemies were "King of Nuremberg" and the "Beast of Franconia." Because of his role as Gauleiter of Franconia, he also gained the nickname of Frankenführer.[49][19] Streicher became a member of the SA on 27 January 1934 with the rank of SA-Gruppenführer and was promoted to SA-Obergruppenführer on 9 November 1937.[50] On 6 September 1935, Hitler named him to the Academy for German Law. The New York Times decried this action with the headline: "Reich Honors Streicher. Anti-Semitic Leader is Named to Academy for German Law."[51]

 
The Grand Synagogue of Nuremberg was built in 1874, and was ordered destroyed in 1938 by Julius Streicher – supposedly because he disapproved of its architecture – as part of what came to be known as Kristallnacht.

Streicher later claimed that he was only "indirectly responsible" for passage of the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws of 1935, and that he felt slighted because he was not directly consulted. Perhaps epitomizing the "profound anti-intellectualism" of the Nazi Party, Streicher once opined that, "If the brains of all university professors were put at one end of the scale, and the brains of the Führer at the other, which end do you think would tip?"[52]

Streicher was ordered to take part in the establishment of the Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life, that was to be organized together with the German Christians, the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, the Reich Ministry of Education and the Reich Ministry of the Churches. A surgical operation prevented Streicher from participating fully in this endeavor.[53] This antisemitic standpoint concerning the Bible can be traced back to the earliest time of the Nazi movement, for instance Dietrich Eckart's (Hitler's early mentor) book Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin: A Dialogue Between Adolf Hitler and Me, where it was claimed that "Jewish forgeries" had been added to the New Testament.[54]

In August 1938, Streicher ordered that the Grand Synagogue of Nuremberg be destroyed as part of his contribution to Kristallnacht. Streicher later claimed that his decision was based on his disapproval of its architectural design, which in his opinion "disfigured the beautiful German townscape."[55]

Fall from power Edit

Author and journalist John Gunther described Streicher as "the worst of the anti-Semites",[56] and his excesses brought condemnation even from other Nazis. Streicher's behaviour was viewed as so irresponsible that he was embarrassing the party leadership;[57] chief among his enemies in Hitler's hierarchy was Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, who loathed him and later claimed that he forbade his own staff to read Der Stürmer.[58]

Despite his special relationship with Hitler, after 1938 Streicher's position began to unravel. He was accused of keeping Jewish property seized after Kristallnacht in November 1938; he was charged with spreading untrue stories about Göring – such as alleging that he was impotent and that his daughter Edda was conceived by artificial insemination; and he was confronted with his excessive personal behaviour, including unconcealed adultery, several furious verbal attacks on other Gauleiters and striding through the streets of Nuremberg cracking a bullwhip.[59][e] He was brought before the Supreme Party Court and judged to be "unsuitable for leadership."[60] On 16 February 1940, he was stripped of his party offices and withdrew from the public eye, although he was permitted to retain the title of a Gauleiter, and to continue publishing Der Stürmer. Hitler remained committed to Streicher, whom he considered a loyal friend, despite his unsavory reputation.[61][f] Streicher's wife, Kunigunde Streicher, died in 1943 after 30 years of marriage.[62]

When Germany surrendered to the Allied armies in May 1945, Streicher said later, he decided not to commit suicide. Instead, he married his former secretary, Adele Tappe.[63] Days later, on 23 May 1945, Streicher was captured in the town of Waidring, Austria, by a group of American officers led by Major Henry Plitt of the 101st Airborne Division.[64][g]

Trial and execution Edit

8 October 1946 newsreel of Nuremberg Trials sentencing

During his trial, Streicher claimed that he had been mistreated by Allied soldiers after his capture.[66] When the German version of the Wechsler-Bellevue IQ test was administered by Gustave Gilbert, Streicher had an average IQ (106), the lowest among the defendants.[67] Streicher was not a member of the military and did not take part in planning the Holocaust, or the invasion of other nations. Yet his actions during the war were significant enough, in the prosecutors' judgment, to include him in the trial of Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal – which sat in Nuremberg, where Streicher had once been an unchallenged authority. He complained throughout the process that all his judges were Jews.[68]

Most of the evidence against Streicher came from his numerous speeches and articles over the years.[69] In essence, prosecutors contended that Streicher's articles and speeches were so incendiary that he was an accessory to murder, and therefore as culpable as those who actually ordered the mass extermination of Jews. They further argued that he kept up his antisemitic propaganda even after he was aware that Jews were being slaughtered.[70]

Streicher was acquitted of crimes against peace, but found guilty of crimes against humanity, and sentenced to death on 1 October 1946. The judgment against him read, in part:

For his 25 years of speaking, writing and preaching hatred of the Jews, Streicher was widely known as 'Jew-Baiter Number One.' In his speeches and articles, week after week, month after month, he infected the German mind with the virus of anti-Semitism, and incited the German people to active persecution. ... Streicher's incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with war crimes, as defined by the Charter, and constitutes a crime against humanity.[2]

He, along with Hans Fritzsche, were the first persons to be indicted for what would later be classified as incitement to genocide,[71] though Fritzsche was acquitted at trial.

 
The body of Julius Streicher after being hanged, 16 October 1946

During his trial, Streicher displayed for the last time the flair for courtroom theatrics that had made him famous in the 1920s. He answered questions from his own defence attorney with diatribes against Jews, the Allies, and the court itself, and was frequently silenced by the court officers. Streicher was largely shunned by all of the other Nuremberg defendants. He also peppered his testimony with references to passages of Jewish texts he had so often carefully selected and inserted into the pages of Der Stürmer.[72]

Streicher was hanged at Nuremberg Prison in the early hours of 16 October 1946, along with the nine other condemned defendants from the first Nuremberg trial. Göring, Streicher's nemesis, committed suicide only hours earlier. Streicher's was the most melodramatic of the hangings carried out that night. At the bottom of the scaffold he cried out "Heil Hitler!". When he mounted the platform, he delivered his last sneering reference to Jewish scripture, snapping "Purimfest!"[73] Streicher's final declaration before the hood went over his head was, "The Bolsheviks will hang you one day!"[74] Joseph Kingsbury-Smith, a journalist for the International News Service who covered the executions,[h] said in his filed report that after the hood descended over Streicher's head, he said "Adele, meine liebe Frau!" ("Adele, my dear wife!").[75]

The consensus among eyewitnesses was that Streicher did not receive a quick death from spinal severing. As with at least several others, the bungled hanging was caused by the wilful incompetence of the hangman, Master Sergeant John C. Woods.[76]

Streicher's body, along with those of the other nine executed men and the corpse of Hermann Göring, was cremated at Ostfriedhof (Munich) and the ashes were scattered.[77]

In literature Edit

Streicher is portrayed in detail, as a criminal psychopath in Philip Kerr's detective novel The Pale Criminal (1990).[78]

References Edit

Informational notes

  1. ^ This system included socialist ideas, such as the takeover of the financial sector by the state, and the cutting-back of the "interest-based economy".
  2. ^ According to Streicher, his dislike of Jews stemmed from an incident when he was but five years old, during which he witnessed his mother weeping after claiming to have been cheated by the Jewish owner of a fabric shop.[21]
  3. ^ The slanderous attacks continued, and lawsuits followed. Like Fleischmann, other outraged German Jews defeated Streicher in court, but his goal was not necessarily legal victory; he wanted the widest possible dissemination of his message, which press coverage often provided. The rules of the court provided Streicher with an arena to humiliate his opponents, and he characterized the inevitable courtroom loss as a badge of honor.
  4. ^ Streicher also combed the pages of the Talmud and the Old Testament in search of passages potentially depicting Judaism as harsh or cruel.[43] In 1929, this close study of Jewish scripture helped convict Streicher in a case known as "The Great Nuremberg Ritual Murder Trial." His familiarity with Jewish text was proof to the court that his attacks were religious in nature; Streicher was found guilty and imprisoned for two months. In Germany, press reaction to the trial was highly critical of Streicher; but the Gauleiter was greeted after his conviction by hundreds of cheering supporters, and within months Nazi Party membership surged to its highest levels yet.[citation needed]
  5. ^ Streicher's characteristic behaviour is portrayed in the 1944 Hollywood film The Hitler Gang.
  6. ^ Streicher was a poet, whose work was described as "quite attractive", and he painted watercolours as a hobby. He had a strong sexual appetite, which occasionally got him into trouble with the Nazi hierarchy.[7]
  7. ^ At first Streicher claimed to be a painter named "Joseph Sailer", but, misunderstanding Plitt's poor German, he came to believe the latter already knew who he was, and quickly admitted his identity.[65]
  8. ^ See the LA Times article commemorating Kingsbury-Smith at: J. Kingsbury-Smith; Honored Journalist

Citations

  1. ^ Zelnhefer, Der Stürmer.
  2. ^ a b c Avalon Project, Judgement: Streicher.
  3. ^ Bytwerk 2001, p. 5.
  4. ^ Snyder 1976, p. 336.
  5. ^ Bytwerk 2001, p. 6.
  6. ^ Bytwerk 2001, p. 8.
  7. ^ a b c Evans 2003, p. 189.
  8. ^ Bracher 1970, pp. 81–82.
  9. ^ Longerich 2010, pp. 12–13.
  10. ^ Kershaw 2000, pp. 137–138.
  11. ^ Kershaw 2000, pp. 138–139.
  12. ^ a b Bracher 1970, p. 93.
  13. ^ a b Kershaw 2000, p. 138.
  14. ^ Franz-Willing 1962, p. 89.
  15. ^ Bytwerk 2001, pp. 12–14.
  16. ^ Rees 2017, p. 22.
  17. ^ a b Evans 2003, p. 188.
  18. ^ Rees 2017, p. 23.
  19. ^ a b c Gunther 1940, p. 76.
  20. ^ Friedman 1998, p. 300.
  21. ^ Rees 2017, p. 21.
  22. ^ Dolibois 2000, p. 114.
  23. ^ Rees 2017, pp. 22–23.
  24. ^ Bytwerk 2001, pp. 51–52.
  25. ^ Bytwerk 2001, p. 52.
  26. ^ Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 921.
  27. ^ Mein Kampf, 1925 - same line as Hess
  28. ^ Mein Kampf volume 2, 1926 - dedication at the end
  29. ^ Bullock 1962, p. 124.
  30. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 353.
  31. ^ Fest 1974, p. 219.
  32. ^ Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 922.
  33. ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 163–164.
  34. ^ Keß 2003, p. 250.
  35. ^ Bartrop & Grimm 2019, p. 270.
  36. ^ Snyder 1989, pp. 47–51.
  37. ^ Bytwerk 2001, pp. 143–150.
  38. ^ Wistrich 2001, p. 42.
  39. ^ Welch 2002, p. 75.
  40. ^ Koonz 2005, pp. 232–233.
  41. ^ Fischer 1995, pp. 135–136.
  42. ^ Welch 2002, p. 76–77.
  43. ^ Bytwerk 2001, pp. 110, 208–214.
  44. ^ Snyder 1989, p. 50.
  45. ^ Kershaw 2001, p. 320.
  46. ^ Bernhard 2019, pp. 97–114.
  47. ^ Bytwerk 2004, p. 141.
  48. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 356.
  49. ^ Nadler 1969, p. 5.
  50. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 343.
  51. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 367.
  52. ^ Wall 1997, p. 98.
  53. ^ Kater, Mommsen & Papen 1999, p. 151.
  54. ^ Steigmann-Gall 2003, pp. 17–24.
  55. ^ Kershaw 2001, p. 132.
  56. ^ Gunther 1940, p. 61.
  57. ^ Snyder 1989, pp. 52–53.
  58. ^ Maser 2000, p. 282.
  59. ^ Snyder 1989, pp. 47, 50–53.
  60. ^ Bayerische Landesbibliothek, Julius Streicher.
  61. ^ Wistrich 1995, pp. 251–252.
  62. ^ Davidson 1997, p. 43.
  63. ^ Davidson 1997, p. 44.
  64. ^ Tofahrn 2008, p. 163.
  65. ^ USHMM, "Henry Plitt Interview".
  66. ^ Bytwerk 2001, p. 42.
  67. ^ Weitz 1992, p. 332.
  68. ^ Snyder 1989, pp. 54–56.
  69. ^ Snyder 1989, pp. 56–57.
  70. ^ Snyder 1989, p. 57.
  71. ^ Timmermann 2006, pp. 827–828.
  72. ^ Conot 2000, pp. 381–389.
  73. ^ Wistrich 1995, p. 252.
  74. ^ Conot 2000, p. 506.
  75. ^ Radlmeier 2001, pp. 345–346.
  76. ^ Duff 1999, p. 130.
  77. ^ Manvell & Fraenkel 2011, p. 393.
  78. ^ Kerr 1993, pp. 385–392.

Bibliography

  • "Avalon Project–Yale University". Judgement: Streicher. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
  • Bartrop, Paul R.; Grimm, Eve E. (2019). Perpetrating the Holocaust: Leaders, Enablers, and Collaborators. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-44085-896-3.
  • Bayerische Landesbibliothek. "Julius Streicher". Retrieved 10 January 2021.
  • Bernhard, Patrick (7 February 2019). "The Great Divide? Notions of Racism in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: New Answers to an Old Problem". Journal of Modern Italian Studies. 24 (1): 97–114. doi:10.1080/1354571X.2019.1550701. S2CID 150519628. Retrieved 24 August 2023.
  • Bracher, Karl-Dietrich (1970). The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National Socialism. New York: Praeger Publishers. ASIN B001JZ4T16.
  • Bullock, Alan (1962). Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. New York: Harper & Row. ASIN B0016LG3PS.
  • Bytwerk, Randall L. (2001). Julius Streicher: Nazi Editor of the Notorious Anti-Semitic Newspaper Der Stürmer. New York: Cooper Square Press. ISBN 0-8154-1156-1.
  • Bytwerk, Randall L. (2004). Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. ISBN 978-0870137105.
  • Conot, Robert E. (2000). Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 978-0-88184-032-2.
  • Davidson, Eugene (1997). The Trial of the Germans: An Account of the Twenty-two Defendants before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-82621-139-2.
  • Dolibois, John (2000). Pattern of Circles: An Ambassador's Story. London and Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87338-702-6.
  • Duff, Charles (1999). A Handbook on Hanging. New York: NYRB Classics. ISBN 978-0-94032-267-7.
  • Evans, Richard J. (2003). The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-303469-3.
  • Fest, Joachim (1974). Hitler. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc. ISBN 0-15-141650-8.
  • Fischer, Klaus (1995). Nazi Germany: A New History. New York: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-82640-797-9.
  • Franz-Willing, Georg (1962). Die Hitlerbewegung: Der Ursprung, 1919–1922 (in German). Hamburg; Berlin: R. v. Decker's Verlag, G. Schenck. ASIN B002PZ024M.
  • Friedman, Towiah (1998). The Two Antisemitic Nazi-Leaders: Alfred Rosenberg and Julius Streicher at the Nuremberg Trial in 1946. Haifa, Israel: Institute of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes. ASIN B0000CPBZE.
  • Gunther, John (1940). Inside Europe. New York: Harper & Brothers.
  • Höffkes, Karl (1986). Hitlers Politische Generale. Die Gauleiter des Dritten Reiches: ein biographisches Nachschlagewerk. Grabert-Verlag, Tübingen. ISBN 3-87847-163-7.
  • Kater, Michael; Mommsen, Hans; Papen, Patricia von (1999). Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses: Antisemitische Forschung, Eliten und Karrieren im Nationalsozialismus (in German). Frankfurt am Main; New York: Campus Verlag. ISBN 978-3-59336-098-0.
  • Kerr, Philip (1993). Berlin Noir. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-140-23170-0.
  • Kershaw, Ian (2000). Hitler: 1889–1936, Hubris. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-39332-035-0.
  • Kershaw, Ian (2001). Hitler: 1936–1945, Nemesis. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-39332-252-1.
  • Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-0-393-33761-7.
  • Keß, Bettina (2003). "Das Konstrukt "Mainfranken": Regional Identität als Mittel zur Machtstabilisation und Standortsicherung". In Silke Göttsch-Elten; Christel Köhle-Hezinger (eds.). Komplexe Welt: Kulturelle Ordunungssysteme als Orientierung. Münster: Waxmann Verlag GmbH. ISBN 3-8309-1300-1.
  • Kingsbury-Smith, Joseph (16 October 1946). "The Execution of Nazi War Criminals". University of Missouri–Kansas City. International News Service (INS). Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  • Koonz, Claudia (2005). The Nazi Conscience. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01842-6.
  • Longerich, Peter (2010). Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280436-5.
  • Manvell, Roger; Fraenkel, Heinrich (2011). Goering. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 978-1-61608-109-6.
  • Maser, Werner (2000). Hermann Göring. Hitlers janusköpfiger Paladin: Die politische Biographie (in German). Berlin: Edition q. ISBN 978-3-86124-509-4.
  • Miller, Michael D.; Schulz, Andreas (2012). Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925-1945, Vol. 1. R. James Bender Publishing. ISBN 978-1-932970-21-0.
  • Miller, Michael D.; Schulz, Andreas (2021). Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925 - 1945. Vol. 3 (Fritz Sauckel - Hans Zimmermann). Fonthill Media. ISBN 978-1-781-55826-3.
  • Nadler, Fritz (1969). Eine Stadt im Schatten Streichers (in German). Nürnberg: Fränkische Verlagsanstalt und Buchdruckerei. ISBN 978-3871912665.
  • Overy, Richard J. (1984). Goering: The Iron Man. London: Routledge. ASIN B01DMTG9N2.
  • Radlmeier, Steffen (2001). Der Nürnberger Lernprozess: von Kriegsverbrechern und Starreportern (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn. ISBN 978-3-82184-725-2.
  • Rees, Laurence (2017). The Holocaust: A New History. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-61039-844-2.
  • Roos, Daniel (2014). Julius Streicher und "Der Stürmer" 1923-1945 (in German). Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. ISBN 978-3-506-77267-1.
  • Ruault, Franco (2006). "Neuschöpfer des deutschen Volkes" Julius Streicher im Kampf gegen "Rassenschande". Beiträge zur Dissidenz (in German). Vol. 18. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-54499-0.
  • Snyder, Louis L. (1976). Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. London: Robert Hale. ISBN 978-1-56924-917-8.
  • Snyder, Louis L. (1989). Hitler's Elite: Biographical Sketches of Nazis Who Shaped the Third Reich. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 978-0-87052-738-8.
  • Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003). The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945. New York; London: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-52182-371-5.
  • Timmermann, Wibke Kristin (2006). "Incitement in international criminal law" (PDF). International Review of the Red Cross. 88 (864).
  • Tofahrn, Klaus W. (2008). Das Dritte Reich und der Holocaust (in German). Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang GmbH. ISBN 978-3-63157-702-8.
  • USHMM. "Julius Streicher: Biography". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum—Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  • Wall, Donald D. (1997). Nazi Germany and World War II. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing. ISBN 978-0-31409-360-8.
  • Weitz, John (1992). Hitler's Diplomat: The Life And Times of Joachim von Ribbentrop. New York: Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 0-395-62152-6.
  • Welch, David (2002). The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-41511-910-8.
  • Wistrich, Robert (1995). Who's Who In Nazi Germany. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-41511-888-0.
  • Wistrich, Robert (2001). Hitler and the Holocaust. New York: Modern Library Chronicles. ISBN 0-679-64222-6.
  • Zelnhefer, Siegfried (5 September 2008). "Der Stürmer. Deutsches Wochenblatt zum Kampf um die Wahrheit". Historisches Lexikon Bayerns (in German). Retrieved 28 April 2019.
  • Zeller, Tom (2007). "The Nuremberg Hangings — Not So Smooth Either (16 January 2007)". The New York Times.
  • Zentner, Christian; Bedürftig, Friedemann (1991). The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich ((2 vols.) ed.). New York: Macmillan Publishing. ISBN 0-02-897500-6.

Further reading

  • Aronsfeld, C. C. (1985). "'Revisionist historians' whitewash Julius Streicher". Patterns of Prejudice. 19 (3): 38–39. doi:10.1080/0031322X.1985.9969824.

External links Edit

  • USHMM. "Henry Plitt Interview". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum—Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  • Spiegel TV short biography (German)
  • Caricatures from Der Stürmer
  • Der Giftpilz ("The Poison Mushroom")
  • Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 12 Transcript of the testimony of Julius Streicher
  • Newspaper clippings about Julius Streicher in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
  • Information about Julius Streicher in the Reichstag database

julius, streicher, february, 1885, october, 1946, member, nazi, party, gauleiter, regional, leader, franconia, member, reichstag, national, legislature, founder, publisher, virulently, antisemitic, newspaper, stürmer, which, became, central, element, nazi, pro. Julius Streicher 12 February 1885 16 October 1946 was a member of the Nazi Party the Gauleiter regional leader of Franconia and a member of the Reichstag the national legislature He was the founder and publisher of the virulently antisemitic newspaper Der Sturmer which became a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine The publishing firm was financially very successful and made Streicher a multi millionaire 1 Julius StreicherStreicher in 1935Gauleiter of FranconiaIn office 1 March 1929 16 February 1940LeaderAdolf HitlerPreceded byOffice establishedSucceeded byHans Zimmermann acting 1940 Karl Holz acting from 1942 permanent from 1944 Gauleiter of Nuremberg FurthIn office 1 October 1928 1 March 1929LeaderAdolf HitlerPreceded byOffice establishedSucceeded byHimselfGauleiter of NordbayernIn office 2 April 1925 1 October 1928LeaderAdolf HitlerPreceded byOffice establishedSucceeded byHimselfPublisher of Der SturmerIn office 20 April 1923 1 February 1945Personal detailsBorn 1885 02 12 12 February 1885Fleinhausen Kingdom of Bavaria German EmpireDied16 October 1946 1946 10 16 aged 61 Nuremberg Prison Nuremberg Allied occupied GermanyCause of deathExecution by hangingPolitical partyNazi Party 1921 1945 Other politicalaffiliationsDSP 1918 1921 Spouse s Kunigunde Roth m 1913 died 1943 wbr Adele Tappe m 1945 wbr ChildrenLotharElmarParent s Friedrich StreicherAnna WeissKnown forPublisher of propagandaSignatureMilitary serviceAllegianceGerman EmpireBranch serviceImperial German ArmyYears of service1914 1918RankLeutnantUnit6th Bavarian Reserve Infantry RegimentBattles warsWorld War IAwardsIron CrossCriminal convictionCriminal statusExecutedConviction s Crimes against humanityTrialNuremberg trialsCriminal penaltyCapital punishmentAfter the war Streicher was convicted of crimes against humanity at the end of the Nuremberg trials Specifically he was found to have continued his vitriolic antisemitic propaganda when he was well aware that Jews were being murdered For this he was executed by hanging 2 Streicher was the first member of the Nazi regime held accountable for inciting genocide by the Nuremberg Tribunal Contents 1 Early life 2 Early politics 3 Nazism 4 Rise of Der Sturmer 5 Streicher in power 6 Fall from power 7 Trial and execution 8 In literature 9 References 10 External linksEarly life EditStreicher was born in Fleinhausen in the Kingdom of Bavaria one of nine children of the teacher Friedrich Streicher and his wife Anna nee Weiss He worked as an elementary school teacher as his father had In 1913 Streicher married Kunigunde Roth a baker s daughter in Nuremberg They had two sons Lothar born 1915 and Elmar born 1918 3 Streicher joined the German Army in 1914 For his outstanding combat performance during the First World War he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class as well as earning a battlefield commission as an officer lieutenant despite having several reported instances of poor behaviour in his military record 4 and at a time when officers were primarily from aristocratic families Following the end of World War I Streicher was demobilised and returned to Nuremberg 5 Upon his return Streicher took up another teaching position there but something unknown happened in 1919 which turned him into a radical anti Semite 6 Early politics EditStreicher was heavily influenced by the endemic antisemitism found in pre war Germany especially that of Theodor Fritsch 7 In February 1919 Streicher became active in the antisemitic Deutschvolkischer Schutz und Trutzbund German Nationalist Protection and Defense Federation one of the various radical nationalist organizations that sprang up in the wake of the failed German Communist revolution of 1918 8 Such groups fostered the view that Jews and Bolsheviks were synonymous and that they were traitors trying to subject Germany to Communist rule 9 10 In 1920 Streicher turned to the Deutschsozialistische Partei German Socialist Party DSP a group whose platform was close to that of the Nazi Party or Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei National Socialist German Workers Party or NSDAP The DSP had been created in May 1919 as an initiative of Rudolf von Sebottendorf as a child of the Thule Society 11 12 and its program was based on the ideas of the mechanical engineer Alfred Brunner 1881 1936 13 a in 1919 the party was officially inaugurated in Hanover 12 Its leading members included Hans Georg Muller Max Sesselmann and Friedrich Wiesel the first two editors of the Munchner Beobachter Julius Streicher founded his local branch in 1919 in Nuremberg 14 By the end of 1919 the DSP had branches in Dusseldorf Kiel Frankfurt am Main Dresden Nuremberg and Munich 13 Streicher sought to move the German Socialists in a more virulently antisemitic direction an effort which aroused enough opposition that he left the group and brought his now substantial following to yet another organisation in 1921 the Deutsche Werkgemeinschaft German Working Community which hoped to unite the various antisemitic volkisch movements 15 Meanwhile Streicher s rhetoric against the Jews continued to intensify to such a degree that the leadership of the Deutsche Werkgemeinschaft thought he was dangerous and criticized him for his obsessive hatred of the Jews and foreign races 16 Nazism EditIn 1921 Streicher left the German Socialist Party and joined the Nazi Party 2 bringing with him enough members of the DSP to almost double the size of the Nazi Party overnight 17 18 19 He would later claim that because his political work brought him into contact with German Jews he must therefore have been fated to become later on a writer and speaker on racial politics 20 b He visited Munich in order to hear Adolf Hitler speak an experience that he later said left him transformed When asked about that moment Streicher stated It was on a winter s day in 1922 I sat unknown in the large hall of the Burgerbrauhaus suspense was in the air Everyone seemed tense with excitement with anticipation Then suddenly a shout Hitler is coming Thousands of men and women jumped to their feet as if propelled by a mysterious power they shouted Heil Hitler Heil Hitler And then he stood on the podium Then I knew that in this Adolf Hitler was someone extraordinary Here was one who could wrest out of the German spirit and the German heart the power to break the chains of slavery Yes Yes This man spoke as a messenger from heaven at a time when the gates of hell were opening to pull down everything And when he finally finished and while the crowd raised the roof with the singing of the Deutschland song I rushed to the stage 22 Nearly religiously converted by this speech Streicher believed from this point forward that it was his destiny to serve Hitler 23 In May 1923 Streicher founded the sensationalist newspaper Der Sturmer The Stormer or loosely The Attacker 24 From the outset the chief aim of the paper was to promulgate antisemitic propaganda the first issue had an excerpt that stated As long as the Jew is in the German household we will be Jewish slaves Therefore he must go 25 Historian Richard J Evans describes the newspaper Der Sturmer rapidly established itself as the place where screaming headlines introduced the most rabid attacks on Jews full of sexual innuendo racist caricatures made up accusations of ritual murder and titillating semi pornographic stories of Jewish men seducing innocent German girls 17 In November 1923 Streicher participated in Hitler s first effort to seize power the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich Streicher marched with Hitler in the front row of the would be revolutionaries As a result of his participation in the attempted Putsch Streicher was suspended from teaching 26 His loyalty to the cause earned him Hitler s lifelong trust and protection in the years that followed Streicher would be one of the dictator s few true intimates Streicher Rudolf Hess Emil Maurice 27 and Dietrich Eckart 28 were the only Nazis mentioned in Mein Kampf 19 in the book Hitler praised him for subordinating the German Socialist Party to the Nazi Party a move Hitler believed was essential to the success of the National Socialists 29 When the Nazi Party was banned in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt Streicher in early 1924 joined the Greater German People s Community Grossdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft GVG a Nazi front organization established by Alfred Rosenberg Streicher challenged Rosenberg s weak leadership and on 9 July 1924 was elected as Chairman of the GVG in his place 30 When Hitler was released from his prison sentence at Landsberg am Lech on 20 December 1924 for his role in the Putsch Streicher was one of the few remaining followers waiting for him at his Munich apartment 31 Hitler who would value loyalty and faithfulness very highly throughout his life remained loyal to Streicher even when he landed in trouble with the Nazi hierarchy Although Hitler would allow suppression of Der Sturmer at times when it was politically important for the Nazis to be seen as respectable and although he would admit that Streicher was not a very good administrator he never withdrew his personal loyalty 7 In April 1924 Streicher was elected to the Bavarian Landtag legislature 32 a position which gave him a margin of parliamentary immunity a safety net that would help him resist efforts to silence his racist message citation needed In January 1925 he also joined the Nuremberg City Council Hitler re founded the Nazi Party on 27 February 1925 in a speech at the Burgerbraukeller in Munich Streicher was present and pledged his loyalty the GVG was soon formally disbanded 33 As a reward for Streicher s loyalty and dedication on 2 April he was appointed Gauleiter of Nordbayern the Bavarian region that included Upper Middle and Lower Franconia He established his capital in his home town of Nuremberg His jurisdiction would undergo several changes in the coming years On 1 October 1928 it was significantly reduced to the area around Nuremberg Furth On 1 March 1929 it again expanded absorbing a neighboring Gau Now encompassing all of Middle Franconia it was renamed Gau Mittelfranken Finally in April 1933 the districts were consolidated and became simply Gau Franken 34 In the early years of the party s rise Gauleiter were essentially party functionaries without real power but in the final years of the Weimar Republic as the Nazi Party grew so did their power Gauleiters such as Streicher wielded immense power and authority under the Nazi state 35 Rise of Der Sturmer EditBeginning in 1924 Streicher used Der Sturmer as a mouthpiece not only for general antisemitic attacks but for calculated smear campaigns against specific Jews such as the Nuremberg city official Julius Fleischmann who worked for Streicher s nemesis mayor Hermann Luppe Der Sturmer accused Fleischmann of stealing socks from his quartermaster during combat in World War I Fleischmann sued Streicher and disproved the allegations in court where Streicher was fined 900 marks c Der Sturmer s official slogan Die Juden sind unser Ungluck the Jews are our misfortune was deemed non actionable under German statutes since it was not a direct incitement to violence citation needed nbsp Public reading of Der Sturmer Worms 1933Streicher s opponents complained to authorities that Der Sturmer violated a statute against religious offense with his constant promulgation of the blood libel the medieval accusation that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to make matzoh Streicher argued that his accusations were based on race not religion and that his communications were political speech and therefore protected by the German constitution citation needed Streicher orchestrated his early campaigns against Jews to make the most extreme possible claims short of violating a law that might get the paper shut down He insisted in the pages of his newspaper that the Jews had caused the worldwide Depression and were responsible for the crippling unemployment and inflation which afflicted Germany during the 1920s He claimed that Jews were white slavers responsible for Germany s prostitution rings Real unsolved killings in Germany especially of children or women were often confidently explained in the pages of Der Sturmer as cases of Jewish ritual murder 36 One of Streicher s constant themes was the sexual violation of ethnic German women by Jews a subject which he used to publish semi pornographic tracts and images detailing degrading sexual acts 37 38 The fascination with the pornographic aspects of the propaganda in Der Sturmer was an important feature for many antisemites 39 With the help of his cartoonist Phillip Fips Rupprecht Streicher published image after image of Jewish stereotypes and sexually charged encounters 40 His portrayal of Jews as subhuman and evil is considered to have played a critical role in the dehumanization and marginalization of the Jewish minority in the eyes of common Germans creating the necessary conditions for the later perpetration of the Holocaust 41 42 d To protect himself from accountability Streicher relied on Hitler s protection Hitler declared that Der Sturmer was his favorite newspaper and saw to it that each weekly issue was posted for public reading in special glassed in display cases known as Sturmerkasten The newspaper reached a peak circulation of 600 000 in 1935 44 One of the possible solutions to the Nazi s perceived problem Streicher mentioned in the pages of Der Sturmer was transporting Jews to Madagascar 45 Streicher s publishing firm also released three antisemitic books for children including the 1938 Der Giftpilz translated into English as The Toadstool or The Poisonous Mushroom one of the most widespread pieces of propaganda which warned about the supposed dangers Jews posed by using the metaphor of an attractive yet deadly mushroom Late in 1936 Streicher also issued Trust No Fox on his Green Heath and No Jew on his Oath an infamously anti Semitic children s picture book by 18 year old Elvira Bauer In the book the Jews are depicted as children of the devil and Streicher as the great educator and a hero of all German children citation needed Streicher did not limit his vituperative attacks to Jews themselves but also launched them against those he perceived as insufficiently hostile towards Jews For example he dismissed Mussolini as a Jewish lackey for not being anti Semitic enough 46 Between 1935 and the end of the Second World War upwards of 6 500 persons were identified and denounced in Der Sturmer for not being sufficiently anti Semitic 47 Streicher in power EditIn July 1932 Streicher was elected as a deputy of the Reichstag from electoral constituency 26 Franconia a seat that he would hold throughout the Nazi regime 48 In April 1933 after Nazi control of the German state apparatus gave the Gauleiters enormous power Streicher organised a one day boycott of Jewish businesses which was used as a dress rehearsal for other antisemitic commercial measures As he consolidated his hold on power he came to more or less rule the city of Nuremberg and his Gau Franken and boasted that every Jew had been removed from Hersbruck Among the nicknames provided by his enemies were King of Nuremberg and the Beast of Franconia Because of his role as Gauleiter of Franconia he also gained the nickname of Frankenfuhrer 49 19 Streicher became a member of the SA on 27 January 1934 with the rank of SA Gruppenfuhrer and was promoted to SA Obergruppenfuhrer on 9 November 1937 50 On 6 September 1935 Hitler named him to the Academy for German Law The New York Times decried this action with the headline Reich Honors Streicher Anti Semitic Leader is Named to Academy for German Law 51 nbsp The Grand Synagogue of Nuremberg was built in 1874 and was ordered destroyed in 1938 by Julius Streicher supposedly because he disapproved of its architecture as part of what came to be known as Kristallnacht Streicher later claimed that he was only indirectly responsible for passage of the anti Jewish Nuremberg Laws of 1935 and that he felt slighted because he was not directly consulted Perhaps epitomizing the profound anti intellectualism of the Nazi Party Streicher once opined that If the brains of all university professors were put at one end of the scale and the brains of the Fuhrer at the other which end do you think would tip 52 Streicher was ordered to take part in the establishment of the Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life that was to be organized together with the German Christians the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda the Reich Ministry of Education and the Reich Ministry of the Churches A surgical operation prevented Streicher from participating fully in this endeavor 53 This antisemitic standpoint concerning the Bible can be traced back to the earliest time of the Nazi movement for instance Dietrich Eckart s Hitler s early mentor book Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin A Dialogue Between Adolf Hitler and Me where it was claimed that Jewish forgeries had been added to the New Testament 54 In August 1938 Streicher ordered that the Grand Synagogue of Nuremberg be destroyed as part of his contribution to Kristallnacht Streicher later claimed that his decision was based on his disapproval of its architectural design which in his opinion disfigured the beautiful German townscape 55 Fall from power EditAuthor and journalist John Gunther described Streicher as the worst of the anti Semites 56 and his excesses brought condemnation even from other Nazis Streicher s behaviour was viewed as so irresponsible that he was embarrassing the party leadership 57 chief among his enemies in Hitler s hierarchy was Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring who loathed him and later claimed that he forbade his own staff to read Der Sturmer 58 Despite his special relationship with Hitler after 1938 Streicher s position began to unravel He was accused of keeping Jewish property seized after Kristallnacht in November 1938 he was charged with spreading untrue stories about Goring such as alleging that he was impotent and that his daughter Edda was conceived by artificial insemination and he was confronted with his excessive personal behaviour including unconcealed adultery several furious verbal attacks on other Gauleiters and striding through the streets of Nuremberg cracking a bullwhip 59 e He was brought before the Supreme Party Court and judged to be unsuitable for leadership 60 On 16 February 1940 he was stripped of his party offices and withdrew from the public eye although he was permitted to retain the title of a Gauleiter and to continue publishing Der Sturmer Hitler remained committed to Streicher whom he considered a loyal friend despite his unsavory reputation 61 f Streicher s wife Kunigunde Streicher died in 1943 after 30 years of marriage 62 When Germany surrendered to the Allied armies in May 1945 Streicher said later he decided not to commit suicide Instead he married his former secretary Adele Tappe 63 Days later on 23 May 1945 Streicher was captured in the town of Waidring Austria by a group of American officers led by Major Henry Plitt of the 101st Airborne Division 64 g Trial and execution Edit source source source source track track track track track track track track track 8 October 1946 newsreel of Nuremberg Trials sentencingDuring his trial Streicher claimed that he had been mistreated by Allied soldiers after his capture 66 When the German version of the Wechsler Bellevue IQ test was administered by Gustave Gilbert Streicher had an average IQ 106 the lowest among the defendants 67 Streicher was not a member of the military and did not take part in planning the Holocaust or the invasion of other nations Yet his actions during the war were significant enough in the prosecutors judgment to include him in the trial of Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal which sat in Nuremberg where Streicher had once been an unchallenged authority He complained throughout the process that all his judges were Jews 68 Most of the evidence against Streicher came from his numerous speeches and articles over the years 69 In essence prosecutors contended that Streicher s articles and speeches were so incendiary that he was an accessory to murder and therefore as culpable as those who actually ordered the mass extermination of Jews They further argued that he kept up his antisemitic propaganda even after he was aware that Jews were being slaughtered 70 Streicher was acquitted of crimes against peace but found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death on 1 October 1946 The judgment against him read in part For his 25 years of speaking writing and preaching hatred of the Jews Streicher was widely known as Jew Baiter Number One In his speeches and articles week after week month after month he infected the German mind with the virus of anti Semitism and incited the German people to active persecution Streicher s incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with war crimes as defined by the Charter and constitutes a crime against humanity 2 He along with Hans Fritzsche were the first persons to be indicted for what would later be classified as incitement to genocide 71 though Fritzsche was acquitted at trial nbsp The body of Julius Streicher after being hanged 16 October 1946During his trial Streicher displayed for the last time the flair for courtroom theatrics that had made him famous in the 1920s He answered questions from his own defence attorney with diatribes against Jews the Allies and the court itself and was frequently silenced by the court officers Streicher was largely shunned by all of the other Nuremberg defendants He also peppered his testimony with references to passages of Jewish texts he had so often carefully selected and inserted into the pages of Der Sturmer 72 Streicher was hanged at Nuremberg Prison in the early hours of 16 October 1946 along with the nine other condemned defendants from the first Nuremberg trial Goring Streicher s nemesis committed suicide only hours earlier Streicher s was the most melodramatic of the hangings carried out that night At the bottom of the scaffold he cried out Heil Hitler When he mounted the platform he delivered his last sneering reference to Jewish scripture snapping Purimfest 73 Streicher s final declaration before the hood went over his head was The Bolsheviks will hang you one day 74 Joseph Kingsbury Smith a journalist for the International News Service who covered the executions h said in his filed report that after the hood descended over Streicher s head he said Adele meine liebe Frau Adele my dear wife 75 The consensus among eyewitnesses was that Streicher did not receive a quick death from spinal severing As with at least several others the bungled hanging was caused by the wilful incompetence of the hangman Master Sergeant John C Woods 76 Streicher s body along with those of the other nine executed men and the corpse of Hermann Goring was cremated at Ostfriedhof Munich and the ashes were scattered 77 In literature EditStreicher is portrayed in detail as a criminal psychopath in Philip Kerr s detective novel The Pale Criminal 1990 78 References EditInformational notes This system included socialist ideas such as the takeover of the financial sector by the state and the cutting back of the interest based economy According to Streicher his dislike of Jews stemmed from an incident when he was but five years old during which he witnessed his mother weeping after claiming to have been cheated by the Jewish owner of a fabric shop 21 The slanderous attacks continued and lawsuits followed Like Fleischmann other outraged German Jews defeated Streicher in court but his goal was not necessarily legal victory he wanted the widest possible dissemination of his message which press coverage often provided The rules of the court provided Streicher with an arena to humiliate his opponents and he characterized the inevitable courtroom loss as a badge of honor Streicher also combed the pages of the Talmud and the Old Testament in search of passages potentially depicting Judaism as harsh or cruel 43 In 1929 this close study of Jewish scripture helped convict Streicher in a case known as The Great Nuremberg Ritual Murder Trial His familiarity with Jewish text was proof to the court that his attacks were religious in nature Streicher was found guilty and imprisoned for two months In Germany press reaction to the trial was highly critical of Streicher but the Gauleiter was greeted after his conviction by hundreds of cheering supporters and within months Nazi Party membership surged to its highest levels yet citation needed Streicher s characteristic behaviour is portrayed in the 1944 Hollywood film The Hitler Gang Streicher was a poet whose work was described as quite attractive and he painted watercolours as a hobby He had a strong sexual appetite which occasionally got him into trouble with the Nazi hierarchy 7 At first Streicher claimed to be a painter named Joseph Sailer but misunderstanding Plitt s poor German he came to believe the latter already knew who he was and quickly admitted his identity 65 See the LA Times article commemorating Kingsbury Smith at J Kingsbury Smith Honored Journalist Citations Zelnhefer Der Sturmer a b c Avalon Project Judgement Streicher Bytwerk 2001 p 5 Snyder 1976 p 336 Bytwerk 2001 p 6 Bytwerk 2001 p 8 a b c Evans 2003 p 189 Bracher 1970 pp 81 82 Longerich 2010 pp 12 13 Kershaw 2000 pp 137 138 Kershaw 2000 pp 138 139 a b Bracher 1970 p 93 a b Kershaw 2000 p 138 Franz Willing 1962 p 89 Bytwerk 2001 pp 12 14 Rees 2017 p 22 a b Evans 2003 p 188 Rees 2017 p 23 a b c Gunther 1940 p 76 Friedman 1998 p 300 Rees 2017 p 21 Dolibois 2000 p 114 Rees 2017 pp 22 23 Bytwerk 2001 pp 51 52 Bytwerk 2001 p 52 Zentner amp Bedurftig 1991 p 921 Mein Kampf 1925 same line as Hess Mein Kampf volume 2 1926 dedication at the end Bullock 1962 p 124 Miller amp Schulz 2021 p 353 Fest 1974 p 219 Zentner amp Bedurftig 1991 p 922 Kershaw 2008 pp 163 164 Kess 2003 p 250 Bartrop amp Grimm 2019 p 270 Snyder 1989 pp 47 51 Bytwerk 2001 pp 143 150 Wistrich 2001 p 42 Welch 2002 p 75 Koonz 2005 pp 232 233 Fischer 1995 pp 135 136 Welch 2002 p 76 77 Bytwerk 2001 pp 110 208 214 Snyder 1989 p 50 Kershaw 2001 p 320 Bernhard 2019 pp 97 114 Bytwerk 2004 p 141 Miller amp Schulz 2021 p 356 Nadler 1969 p 5 Miller amp Schulz 2021 p 343 Miller amp Schulz 2021 p 367 Wall 1997 p 98 Kater Mommsen amp Papen 1999 p 151 Steigmann Gall 2003 pp 17 24 Kershaw 2001 p 132 Gunther 1940 p 61 Snyder 1989 pp 52 53 Maser 2000 p 282 Snyder 1989 pp 47 50 53 Bayerische Landesbibliothek Julius Streicher Wistrich 1995 pp 251 252 Davidson 1997 p 43 Davidson 1997 p 44 Tofahrn 2008 p 163 USHMM Henry Plitt Interview Bytwerk 2001 p 42 Weitz 1992 p 332 Snyder 1989 pp 54 56 Snyder 1989 pp 56 57 Snyder 1989 p 57 Timmermann 2006 pp 827 828 Conot 2000 pp 381 389 Wistrich 1995 p 252 Conot 2000 p 506 Radlmeier 2001 pp 345 346 Duff 1999 p 130 Manvell amp Fraenkel 2011 p 393 Kerr 1993 pp 385 392 Bibliography Avalon Project Yale University Judgement Streicher Retrieved 14 January 2015 Bartrop Paul R Grimm Eve E 2019 Perpetrating the Holocaust Leaders Enablers and Collaborators Santa Barbara CA ABC CLIO ISBN 978 1 44085 896 3 Bayerische Landesbibliothek Julius Streicher Retrieved 10 January 2021 Bernhard Patrick 7 February 2019 The Great Divide Notions of Racism in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany New Answers to an Old Problem Journal of Modern Italian Studies 24 1 97 114 doi 10 1080 1354571X 2019 1550701 S2CID 150519628 Retrieved 24 August 2023 Bracher Karl Dietrich 1970 The German Dictatorship The Origins Structure and Effects of National Socialism New York Praeger Publishers ASIN B001JZ4T16 Bullock Alan 1962 Hitler A Study in Tyranny New York Harper amp Row ASIN B0016LG3PS Bytwerk Randall L 2001 Julius Streicher Nazi Editor of the Notorious Anti Semitic Newspaper Der Sturmer New York Cooper Square Press ISBN 0 8154 1156 1 Bytwerk Randall L 2004 Bending Spines The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic East Lansing MI Michigan State University Press ISBN 978 0870137105 Conot Robert E 2000 Justice at Nuremberg New York Carroll amp Graf Publishers ISBN 978 0 88184 032 2 Davidson Eugene 1997 The Trial of the Germans An Account of the Twenty two Defendants before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg Columbia MO University of Missouri Press ISBN 978 0 82621 139 2 Dolibois John 2000 Pattern of Circles An Ambassador s Story London and Kent OH Kent State University Press ISBN 978 0 87338 702 6 Duff Charles 1999 A Handbook on Hanging New York NYRB Classics ISBN 978 0 94032 267 7 Evans Richard J 2003 The Coming of the Third Reich New York Penguin ISBN 0 14 303469 3 Fest Joachim 1974 Hitler New York Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc ISBN 0 15 141650 8 Fischer Klaus 1995 Nazi Germany A New History New York Continuum ISBN 978 0 82640 797 9 Franz Willing Georg 1962 Die Hitlerbewegung Der Ursprung 1919 1922 in German Hamburg Berlin R v Decker s Verlag G Schenck ASIN B002PZ024M Friedman Towiah 1998 The Two Antisemitic Nazi Leaders Alfred Rosenberg and Julius Streicher at the Nuremberg Trial in 1946 Haifa Israel Institute of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes ASIN B0000CPBZE Gunther John 1940 Inside Europe New York Harper amp Brothers Hoffkes Karl 1986 Hitlers Politische Generale Die Gauleiter des Dritten Reiches ein biographisches Nachschlagewerk Grabert Verlag Tubingen ISBN 3 87847 163 7 Kater Michael Mommsen Hans Papen Patricia von 1999 Beseitigung des judischen Einflusses Antisemitische Forschung Eliten und Karrieren im Nationalsozialismus in German Frankfurt am Main New York Campus Verlag ISBN 978 3 59336 098 0 Kerr Philip 1993 Berlin Noir Penguin Books ISBN 978 0 140 23170 0 Kershaw Ian 2000 Hitler 1889 1936 Hubris New York W W Norton amp Company ISBN 978 0 39332 035 0 Kershaw Ian 2001 Hitler 1936 1945 Nemesis New York W W Norton amp Company ISBN 978 0 39332 252 1 Kershaw Ian 2008 Hitler A Biography W W Norton amp Co ISBN 978 0 393 33761 7 Kess Bettina 2003 Das Konstrukt Mainfranken Regional Identitat als Mittel zur Machtstabilisation und Standortsicherung In Silke Gottsch Elten Christel Kohle Hezinger eds Komplexe Welt Kulturelle Ordunungssysteme als Orientierung Munster Waxmann Verlag GmbH ISBN 3 8309 1300 1 Kingsbury Smith Joseph 16 October 1946 The Execution of Nazi War Criminals University of Missouri Kansas City International News Service INS Retrieved 16 April 2018 Koonz Claudia 2005 The Nazi Conscience Cambridge MA Belknap Press of Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 01842 6 Longerich Peter 2010 Holocaust The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews Oxford New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 280436 5 Manvell Roger Fraenkel Heinrich 2011 Goering New York Skyhorse Publishing ISBN 978 1 61608 109 6 Maser Werner 2000 Hermann Goring Hitlers januskopfiger Paladin Die politische Biographie in German Berlin Edition q ISBN 978 3 86124 509 4 Miller Michael D Schulz Andreas 2012 Gauleiter The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies 1925 1945 Vol 1 R James Bender Publishing ISBN 978 1 932970 21 0 Miller Michael D Schulz Andreas 2021 Gauleiter The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies 1925 1945 Vol 3 Fritz Sauckel Hans Zimmermann Fonthill Media ISBN 978 1 781 55826 3 Nadler Fritz 1969 Eine Stadt im Schatten Streichers in German Nurnberg Frankische Verlagsanstalt und Buchdruckerei ISBN 978 3871912665 Overy Richard J 1984 Goering The Iron Man London Routledge ASIN B01DMTG9N2 Radlmeier Steffen 2001 Der Nurnberger Lernprozess von Kriegsverbrechern und Starreportern in German Frankfurt am Main Eichborn ISBN 978 3 82184 725 2 Rees Laurence 2017 The Holocaust A New History New York PublicAffairs ISBN 978 1 61039 844 2 Roos Daniel 2014 Julius Streicher und Der Sturmer 1923 1945 in German Paderborn Ferdinand Schoningh ISBN 978 3 506 77267 1 Ruault Franco 2006 Neuschopfer des deutschen Volkes Julius Streicher im Kampf gegen Rassenschande Beitrage zur Dissidenz in German Vol 18 Frankfurt am Main Peter Lang ISBN 978 3 631 54499 0 Snyder Louis L 1976 Encyclopedia of the Third Reich London Robert Hale ISBN 978 1 56924 917 8 Snyder Louis L 1989 Hitler s Elite Biographical Sketches of Nazis Who Shaped the Third Reich New York Hippocrene Books ISBN 978 0 87052 738 8 Steigmann Gall Richard 2003 The Holy Reich Nazi Conceptions of Christianity 1919 1945 New York London Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 52182 371 5 Timmermann Wibke Kristin 2006 Incitement in international criminal law PDF International Review of the Red Cross 88 864 Tofahrn Klaus W 2008 Das Dritte Reich und der Holocaust in German Frankfurt am Main New York Peter Lang GmbH ISBN 978 3 63157 702 8 USHMM Julius Streicher Biography United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Holocaust Encyclopedia Retrieved 16 April 2018 Wall Donald D 1997 Nazi Germany and World War II St Paul MN West Publishing ISBN 978 0 31409 360 8 Weitz John 1992 Hitler s Diplomat The Life And Times of Joachim von Ribbentrop New York Ticknor amp Fields ISBN 0 395 62152 6 Welch David 2002 The Third Reich Politics and Propaganda New York Routledge ISBN 978 0 41511 910 8 Wistrich Robert 1995 Who s Who In Nazi Germany New York Routledge ISBN 978 0 41511 888 0 Wistrich Robert 2001 Hitler and the Holocaust New York Modern Library Chronicles ISBN 0 679 64222 6 Zelnhefer Siegfried 5 September 2008 Der Sturmer Deutsches Wochenblatt zum Kampf um die Wahrheit Historisches Lexikon Bayerns in German Retrieved 28 April 2019 Zeller Tom 2007 The Nuremberg Hangings Not So Smooth Either 16 January 2007 The New York Times Zentner Christian Bedurftig Friedemann 1991 The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich 2 vols ed New York Macmillan Publishing ISBN 0 02 897500 6 Further reading Aronsfeld C C 1985 Revisionist historians whitewash Julius Streicher Patterns of Prejudice 19 3 38 39 doi 10 1080 0031322X 1985 9969824 External links Edit nbsp Germany portal nbsp Journalism portalUSHMM Henry Plitt Interview United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Holocaust Encyclopedia Retrieved 16 April 2018 Spiegel TV short biography German Caricatures from Der Sturmer Der Giftpilz The Poison Mushroom Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol 12 Transcript of the testimony of Julius Streicher Newspaper clippings about Julius Streicher in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW Information about Julius Streicher in the Reichstag databaseJulius Streicher at Wikipedia s sister projects nbsp Media from Commons nbsp Quotations from Wikiquote Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Julius Streicher amp oldid 1179363811, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.