Anti-Masonic Exhibition
The Anti-Masonic Exhibition ( Serbian Антимасонска изложба Antimasonska izložba ) in Belgrade was an anti-Semitic propaganda exhibition that took place in occupied Serbia from October 22, 1941 to January 19, 1942 . The central theme was the alleged Jewish - Communist - Freemason World Conspiracy . The exhibition, financed by the Belgrade City Council, was part of the propaganda campaign of the Serbian collaboration government . It resembled the propaganda of the Tsarist secret police in the period before the Russian Revolution . The exhibition had about 80,000 visitors, including the Serbian Prime Minister Milan Nedić .
background
After the Balkan campaign (1941) and the occupation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by forces of the Axis powers , the collaboration regime was installed in Serbia under the leadership of General Milan Nedić . Nedić and his followers implemented the National Socialists' plans to forcibly remove Jews , Roma and Tito partisans from Serbia .
exhibition
The proposal for the exhibition came from Đorđe Perić , the head of state propaganda of the Serbian collaboration government, who was an agent of the secret service before the Balkan campaign . The organizers advertised that the concept of this exhibition was “unique not only in Serbia and the Balkans, not only in Southeast Europe and Europe, but also in the whole world”.
Some of the pictures on the posters were the same as those that had been exhibited in Germany a few years earlier during “ The Eternal Jew” exhibitions in 1937–1939.
Serbian newspapers such as “ Obnova ” (Renewal) and “ Naša borba ” (Our Struggle) praised the exhibition and declared that Jews are enemies of the Serbs and that Serbia is not waiting for Germany to find the “ final solution to the Jewish question ”, but for the extermination itself the Jews should begin.
Over 200,000 different brochures, 60,000 posters, 100,000 flyers and 176 propaganda film clips were published during the exhibition. In addition, the Serbian government issued four special postage stamps on January 1, 1942 , which were related to the exhibition. These postage stamps only showed Jewish and Serbian symbols, but no Nazi symbols, and portrayed Judaism as the source of evil in the world that had to be countered with the use of force.
literature
- Philip J. Cohen: Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History (= Volume 2 of Eastern European Studies ). Texas A&M University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-89096-760-1 , The Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibition, pp. 77-81 .
- Kosta Nikolić: Nemački ratni plakat u Srbiji: 1941–1944 . [The German war poster in Serbia: 1941–1944]. Zavod za udžbenike, Belgrade 2001, ISBN 86-17-18145-1 (with posters from the exhibition).
Web links
- University of Minnesota, Center for Holocaust and Genocide studies: Belgrade's Anti-Masonic exhibition of 1941–42 (with images of the exhibition posters). Retrieved September 27, 2015 .
- Article about hate stamps issued during the Anti-Masonic Exhibition .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Obnova . Belgrade October 17, 1941, p. 3 .
- ↑ Slavko Odić, Slavko Komarica: Noć i magla: Gestapo and Jugoslaviji . [Night and Fog: The Gestapo in Yugoslavia]. Ed .: Centar za informacije i publicitet. tape 2 . Zagreb 1977, p. 89 .
- ↑ Antimasonske poštanske brand . [Anti-Masonic Postage Stamps]. In: Obnova . Belgrade December 23, 1941, p. 8 .