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Nazi Visual Anti-Semitic Rhetoric

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Nazi Visual Anti-Semitic Rhetoric It’s Them or Us: Killing the Jews in Nazi Propaganda1 Randall Bytwerk Calvin College Why did the Nazis talk about killing the Jews and how did they present the idea to the German public? “Revenge. Go where you wanted me, you evil spirit.” (1933) Between 1919 and 1945, the core Nazi anti-Semitic argument was that Jews threatened the existence of Germany and the Germans, using nefarious and often violent means to reach their ultimate goal of world domination. Germans, on the other hand, were reacting in self-defense and resorted to violence only when driven to it by necessity. This essay considers a subset of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda: images depicting either violence by Jews against Germans or violence by Germans 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Texas A & M University Conference on Symbolic Violence, March 2012. Nazi Symbolic Violence 2 against Jews.2 Although Nazi verbal rhetoric against Jews increased in vehemence over the years (particularly after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941), violent visual rhetoric declined both in frequency and vividness. The more murderous the Nazis became in practice, the less propaganda depicted violence by or against Jews. I divide the essay into three sections: the period before the Nazi takeover in 1933, from 1933 to the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, and from that invasion to the end of the war. I will take examples from a wide range of sources over the period, including posters, official Nazi party publications like Der Angriff in Berlin, the Nazi Party’s weekly illustrated magazine (the Illustrierter Beobachter), daily newspapers, two weekly humor publications, the prestige weekly Das Reich, several contemporary films, and Julius Streicher’s weekly anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer.3 Prelude to Power: 1923-1933 Before Hitler took power in 1933, the Nazis presented everyone in Germany as victims of Jewish power. Jews committed violence against Germany as a nation, against German womanhood, and against Nazis. 2 I will consider images that contain some depiction of violence, but also those that imply what Jolyon Mitchell calls the “off-stage presence” of violence, images that may not themselves be violent, but could result only through violence. See his Media Violence and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 7. 3 Streicher’s publications are in some ways atypical. Although Nazism was anti- Semitic at its core, Der Stürmer was the single widely circulated periodical devoted entirely to anti-Semitism. Even many Nazis found it extreme. However, Streicher’s close personal relationship with Adolf Hitler enabled him to publish his newspaper until February 1945 despite his removal as party leader early in the war, and his work clearly expressed the core Nazi anti-Semitic views. For further details, see my book Julius Streicher, 2nd ed. (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001). Other recent publications on Streicher include two books by Franco Rualt, “Neuschöpfer des deutschen Volkes”. Julius Streicher im Kampf gegen “Rassenschande” (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2006) and Tödliche Maskeraden. Julius Streicher und die “Lösung der Judenfrage” (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2009) and most recently, Julia Schwarz, “Visueller Antisemitismus in den Titelkarikaturen des ‘Stürmer’,” in Wolfgang Benz, ed., Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, v. 19 (Frankfurt: Campus, 2010), 197-216. Nazi Symbolic Violence 3 A 1924 poster, for example, depicted a midget Jew (representing all Jews) riding a German (representing all Germans) shackled by fetters labeled “The Dawes Plan,” an international agreement on German reparations payments due under the Treaty of Versailles. The German has a bit in his mouth and is driven with a whip. “Down with Financial Enslavement! Vote National Socialist!” (1924) The same theme was evident several years later in a cartoon from Joseph Goebbels’s Berlin weekly Der Angriff. German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann tells a bound and blindfolded Germany surrounded by bayonets that things are getting better and better while an oversized Jewish arm empties Germany’s pockets. Nazi Symbolic Violence 4 “Things are getting better and better for you” (circa 1927 Julius Streicher’s Der Stürmer, first published in 1923, carried a profusion of similar images. In 1930, for example, it portrayed a Jewish spider sucking the life from Germans. The spider was a particularly suitable visual metaphor from the Sucked Dry (1930) Nazi Symbolic Violence 5 Nazi perspective since spiders do not physically overcome their prey, but rather trap them in an inescapable web, just as Jews were too weak and cowardly to physically overpower Germans. Streicher specialized in portraying Jews as animals or demonic, making his images even more disgusting. Streicher also found unusual ways to suggest widespread Jewish violence against Germans. He promoted Medieval legends of ritual murder, claiming that Jews frequently murdered Christians to secure their blood for religious purposes. A 1926 image had three ugly Jewish men literally sucking the blood from a bound and naked woman. Butchered Polish girl (1926) Streicher’s material was extreme even for the Nazis, but it makes clear the ability of images to elicit disgust, a powerful emotion that readily leads to action to eliminate the cause of the disgust. Nazi Symbolic Violence 6 Another 1930 cartoon had Jewish physicians experimenting on a German patient, since people were objecting to animal experimentation. This theme was “Well, if the animal protection society is against vivisection, that’s why we have the Goy…” (1930) consistent with a common assertion that Jews viewed Gentiles as no better than animals (in contrast to Nazi propaganda, which saw Jews as the worst sort of animals). Streicher also had a variety of cartoons depicting Germans driven to suicide by Jewish oppression. Jews were literally killing Germans in a variety of graphic, disgusting ways, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. Nazis, too, were victims of Jewish violence. The clearest examples come from Goebbels’s Der Angriff, which conducted a running campaign aimed at Bernhard Weiß, the Jewish vice president of the Berlin police force. In one cartoon, Weiß is hanging Nazis on his Christmas tree, capped by a Star of David. A similar cartoon Nazi Symbolic Violence 7 “If HE were to celebrate Christmas” (circa 1927) showed a “St. Bernard” dog bringing in a fallen Nazi, the Alpine monastery bearing a caricature of Bernhard Weiß. “The loyal ‘Bernhardians’ bring new victims each day to the famous hospital” (circa 1927) As political violence escalated in the final years of the Weimar Republic, Nazis claimed that their members killed or injured by the Communists or Socialists were victims of the Jews, who since they were by nature cowards used ignorant Germans to kill for them. A mid-1932 Stürmer cartoon was typical. A Nazi holds a fallen Nazi Symbolic Violence 8 comrade while his non-Jewish attackers flee. The caption claims Germans are fighting senselessly against Germans, with Jews provoking violence from behind the scenes. “Blood against blood! Too cowardly to fight, the Yid incites others to murder.” (1932) Given Nazi racial theory, a particular concern was sexual relations between Jews and Germans. Mixing races was always deleterious, since “bad blood” corrupted “good blood.” Since Jews according to the Nazis were ugly, they depended on reprehensible methods of sexual conquest. Non-violent means such as money were common, but also violence. Streicher specialized in stories and images alleging Jewish sexual violence. In a typical example, a girl cowers under the huge claw-like hand of a Jew, his evil silhouette in the background. The caption at the bottom of the page: “German girls! Keep away from Jews!” Nazi Symbolic Violence 9 “There followed a hard fight. The girl screamed for help.” (1926) These images were particularly striking and consistent with the larger theme. Although Jews were too cowardly to engage in manly combat and too disgusting to be physically attractive to German women, they were eager to overpower and rape German women, thereby corrupting the Aryan racial stock and speeding the day when Jews would dominate a world no longer possessing the racial purity to enable it to resist. These and other images suggested a fundamentally strong Germany being destroyed by Jews. A 1926 Stürmer cartoon made the point clearly. A powerful German locomotive is switched to the track of death. Germany and the Germans Nazi Symbolic Violence 10 Life or Death (1926) were portrayed stronger than the Jews. Only treachery enabled Jews to overcome the physically and morally superior host people. In contract to Jewish violence that was always directed to an evil end, German violence was in self-defense. Given the image of a massive threat, images sometimes showed a helpless rage from non-Nazis. A 1929 Stürmer cartoon had a father holding an injured or dead child in one arm while raising the other at Jews driving away in a fancy car. The injured child added intensity to the image of impotent rage — with the caption promising that violent retribution would one day come. Nazi Symbolic Violence 11 “The day of revenge is coming” (1929) The Nazis, however, were not cowed by Jewish force. Just as Jews often towered over Germany in Nazi caricatures, Nazis towered over Jews. In a typical cartoon, a huge Nazi holding a hammer looks down on two midgets, at least one of whom is Jewish, who are trying to defend themselves by legal technicalities. The confident Nazi is not discouraged. His rolled-up sleeves and hammer will clearly Laws vs. freedom fighters (circa 1927) Nazi Symbolic Violence 12 make short work of the opposition. A 1931 cartoon in the party’s weekly the Illustrierter Beobachter had a Nazi lowering a pile driver on a Jew, a communist, and a capitalist. “In the beginning was strength…” (1931) The large “1” represented the Nazi position on the ballot.4 In posters, the Nazis presented themselves as victors over the Jews in ways that suggested not only the defeat, but also the death of Jews.
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