The striker

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The striker
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description Anti-Semitic newspaper
language German
publishing company Stürmer-Verlag ( Nuremberg )
First edition April 20, 1923
attitude February 22, 1945
Frequency of publication weekly
editor Julius Streicher

Der Stürmer , with the subtitle from 1932 "German weekly paper on the fight for truth", was an anti-Semitic weekly newspaper founded and published on April 20, 1923 by the NSDAP Gauleiter von Franken Julius Streicher in Nuremberg . It was last published on February 22, 1945. The striker used a particularly inflammatory language and was characterized by drastic  reports, pictures and caricatures - pornographic in the case of descriptions of " racial offenses " . The newspaper was not an official Nazi publication, but Streicher's private property. The International Military Court estimated the circulation between 1935 and 1939 at 700,000 copies, the special issues for the Nazi party rallies at at least two million copies. The paper served the propaganda preparation and justification of the Holocaust .

Content and form

Streicher originally founded the paper because of internal struggles in the Nuremberg NSDAP local group. He later used it as a journalist in his long-term political and court dispute with Nuremberg's liberal mayor Hermann Luppe . Ultimately, anti-Semitic agitation came to the fore and was soon practically the only topic.

Accordingly, the main characteristic of the Stürmer reports was the fight against the " degeneration of the Nordic-Germanic race" through racial disgrace . The main content of the striker was therefore almost pornographic , often sadistic descriptions of rape and other forms of sexual coercion of German (non-Jewish) women by Jews .

In order to convince his readers that it was the intention of "the Jews" to harm the "Nordic-Germanic race", the striker used a comprehensive system of sexual denunciation . The anthropological reason for the sexually criminal activities of the Jew is his animal instinct, which predisposes to a pathological addiction to seduction. In order to satisfy this, every means is acceptable to him. The Jew not only assaults Aryan girls and women, but also tirelessly tries to desecrate children. Sodomite acts, homosexual activities and all conceivable perversions are right for the Jews as means to destroy the Aryan race. Even the Jewish pupils and apprentices had nothing else in mind than to instruct their peers to do the fateful masturbation in order to endanger their healthy development. The immense production of pornographic media by Jews would, on the other hand, weaken and endanger their intellectual and moral orientation. Through prostitution and trafficking in girls, syphilitic complaints and other sexually transmitted diseases are specifically transmitted to the Aryans in order to destroy them.

Often the articles were based on reports from readers who gave the full names of the Jewish accused; In some cases, the articles also appeared in the form of current reports on contemporary criminal cases or court hearings.

In addition to the stereotypically sexualized portrayal of Jews as potential sex criminals , whose intention is to harm the “ German race ”, there have also been reports of an alleged Jewish world conspiracy whose aim is to protect the “ German people ” economically, culturally, morally and to harm militarily.

Even religious issues formed part of the anti-Semitic repertoire of striker , for example in the form of Jews as ritual murderers , God murderers and Urfeinden of Christianity . It was on anti-Jewish myths about ritual sacrifices of people , poisoning wells resorted and the like.

In addition, there were defamatory articles about Jewish doctors, lawyers, merchants and cattle dealers from Nuremberg and the surrounding area. According to Dennis E. Showalter, the aim of this article was to mark the Jew as a “bad neighbor” and thus to transfer an abstract anti-Semitic image of the enemy to identifiable members of society.

Generally, Jews were assumed to have malicious intent in all their actions, but at the same time they were portrayed as cunning , cowardly , lying , hypocritical , stingy and greedy . The striker saw it as his task to clearly demonstrate to his readers how " the Jews " really are and thus to actively participate in the economic, social and physical exclusion of these " subhumans " from the " national community " of the " master race ".

The French Republic to defame, who taunted striker mid-1930s the Nationalallegorie of " Marianne " by this national figure dreamy as essentially related and naive and therefore vulnerable posed to Jewish manipulation.

Alignment

In addition to the fight against the Lord Mayor of Nuremberg, to which the first class was dedicated, many other topics were touched upon. In the abundance of different articles, messages and reports, no clear orientation or content structure was initially recognizable.

After the National Socialist seizure of power , the paper became increasingly international. For this purpose, articles from various international journals and magazines dealing with the “ Jewish question ” were mostly quoted in full and exploited for propaganda purposes. The second dominant theme was the “ ritual murder propaganda ”. Based on Streicher's crude construction of a “human-slaughter law”, a Jewish murder plan against non-Jewish humanity was assumed. After a five-year-old boy was found dead with a neck wound in Lower Franconia on March 17, 1929, Otto Hellmuth claimed in Stürmer that it had been a “ Jewish blood murder ” for the “extraction of human blood ”. The third main theme that appeared in every issue after the seizure of power was the fight against racial disgrace, which earned the paper the reputation of a pornographic inflammatory pamphlet.

A central point in Streicher's anti-Semitic propaganda was “sexual anti-Semitism” from the start. On this basis, he called for comprehensive sexual bans between Jews and non-Jews. To this end, he confessed to the contagionist theorem , which Artur Dinter had popularized in his 1917 “sexual anti-Semitic” novel The Sin Against the Blood . After that, a vaginal ejaculation of a Jewish man is enough to change the blood circulation of a " German-blooded " woman so permanently that all of her future descendants contain Jewish blood and hereditary components. Streicher called this process "impregnation". The enactment of the Reich Citizenship Law in 1935, however, led to a turning point in the sexual anti-Semitic and propagandistic orientation of the striker , as it contradicted Streicher's “theory of impregnation”. The racial political office of the NSDAP also described Streicher's theory as “heresy” on the grounds that if “an Aryan” becomes a Jew through one-time sexual intercourse with a Jew and inherits that to further descendants, then “every Jew must also have sexual relations with an Aryan can become an Aryan. The Jewish question could then find a very simple solution, but unfortunately that is not the case. "The National Socialist idea of ​​race is based, as the authority affirmed, on" the fact that [ sic ! ] the racial characteristics of a person are determined by heredity ”. In the following years fewer reports about the “contamination” of German women and girls were published in the Stürmer , although there continued to be vehement rhetoric against “Jewish racial abusers” and so-called multiracial connections and the effectiveness of the Blood Protection Act was questioned several times because of “racial disgrace” offenses .

Layout and printing

The blended in Articles themes of violence and pornography , which often vulgar - anti-Semitic caricatures of Philipp Rupprecht (alias: Fips) were accompanied or photos to the text shown anti-Semitic stereotypes also visually illustrate, gave the striker the character of a lurid tabloid . The caricatures in particular, which were to be seen in almost every issue of the magazine since the end of 1925, were “the trademark and one of the most important success factors” of the striker . Pornographic and anti-Semitic content was mixed.

The striker appeared in octave format with a size of 42 × 31.8 cm. The two-column text was divided into subject areas by large-format subheadings. The call to join the redemption movement of the NSDAP, to advertise for strikers , to read the Völkischer Beobachter and the German people's will was highlighted in a frame .

Characteristic are repetitive, typographically emphasized slogans, mostly conceived in the imperative and cross-gender, such as B. “Do not go to Jewish doctors and lawyers” or “Whoever buys from Jews is a traitor”. At the end of the third page, the slogan addressed to female readers, “Women and girls, the Jews are your ruin!” Appeared in bold type. The title caricatures and drawings often show naked women; Jewish women were mostly drawn unattractively. In order to negate the traditional myth of the “beautiful Jewess”, the attribution beautiful in this context was always written in quotation marks in order to put it in an ironic context.

Under the heading “Am Pillory”, “species-forgotten” women and men were denounced and their punishment demanded. In fact, in the mid-1930s, this resulted in increased pogroms or lynching of alleged "racially abusive people" in Germany. The paper also published lists of arrested Jews who were suspected of violating the Nuremberg Laws introduced in 1935 .

The striker received numerous weekly letters from the editor with anti-Semitic and sometimes denunciating content under the heading “Dear Striker” . They were also evaluated by the Secret State Police from 1935 onwards . The aggressive anti-Semitism of the striker was not made clear by that since 1927 Heinrich von Treitschke "quote are the Jews our misfortune !" Stood at the foot of each front page.

Der Stürmer was printed in the Monninger Willy Liebels printing works , in the Willmy printing works and in the Der Stürmer publishing house . In the spring of 1924, the Hetzblatt was briefly looked after by the medical student from Ipsheim and Fritz Hülf (1899–1972), who worked as an assistant doctor at the Erlangen women's clinic from 1924.

Editing and editing

Until recently, Julius Streicher was largely responsible for the design of the striker as editor and, alongside Ernst Hiemer , as temporary editor-in- chief. Most of the Stürmer editors of the 1930s came from circles close to the NSDAP or, like Streicher, Karl Holz , Albert Forster and Fritz Fink, were active in leading party positions. Streicher was one of the most radical anti-Semites during the National Socialist era . He called for the death penalty for Jewish " racial abusers " and even indirectly accused Hitler of being too indulgent on the " Jewish question ". "Only the solution of the Jewish question can save us." Even some party comrades considered Streicher to be "not entirely sane"; nevertheless he enjoyed the personal protection of Hitler. The striker was banned for a short period of time in the Weimar Republic in 1931, and in 1938, Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels initiated a (only brief) ban. The background to Goebbels' measure was of course not the anti-Semitic content as such, but only the vulgar style of the newspaper; In this respect, Goebbels' actions only corresponded to the NSDAP's concept of propagating an "intellectual" anti -Semitism that was supposedly scientifically consecrated instead of riot anti-Semitism . After the striker had dubbed the first President of Czechoslovakia , Masaryk , among other things, as a half-Jewish heroic old man, Hitler issued a 14-day ban for “insulting a head of state of a foreign power”.

Streicher was indicted for crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trial of the major war criminals in 1946 for inciting hatred of Jews, sentenced to death and executed. The International Military Tribunal decided the relevant indictment with the words: "Streicher's incitement to murder and extermination, which came at a time when the Jews in the East were being murdered under the most appalling conditions, constitutes a clear persecution for political and racial reasons [...] and a crime against humanity. "

Striker boxes

Passers-by in front of a striker box (Worms, 1935)

Thousands of the striker boxes were set up in heavily frequented locations throughout the German Reich , e.g. B. at tram and bus stops, public places, factory canteens, near hospitals and churches and despite their partly pornographic content sometimes even in schools. The showcases were public showcases advertised with anti-Semitic slogans , in which the current issue could be read free of charge. During the 1936 Summer Olympics , the striker boxes at the competition venues were removed or left empty, and the sheet was temporarily not sold at some kiosks. This was intended to preserve the reputation of the German Reich abroad. For the years 1937 and 1939 alone, the striker listed around 700 newly added locations on striker showcases; The boxes that were not reported were not taken into account in these sums.

Refusal of civil protection

Jewish and non-Jewish Germans affected, who were insulted and attacked by the striker , were generally denied any legal protection. According to a ruling by the Berlin District Court in 1937, which rejected a lawyer’s action for insult, Der Stürmer had "the task of awakening and deepening the understanding of racial ideas among the people and of supporting the movement in the necessary fight against Judaism". It should therefore not be seen as a disparagement if “the behavior of individual national comrades is criticized”. Due to his public pillory function , everyone who was friends with Jews or who went shopping with them was threatened to be named by the striker by name and photo. Those denounced by such newspaper reports were sometimes persecuted by the Gestapo or other Nazi control authorities. With the decree of the Reich Security Main Office of October 18, 1940, the criminal police were obliged to send pictures of "Jewish racial abusers" to the striker . The Stürmer editorial team received up to 700 denouncing letters to the editor a day. Photographs were also sent. B. Citizens walking with their Jewish neighbors were seen. These were printed in the “pillory” section specially set up for this purpose and the denounced people were insulted as “Jewish servants”.

Development, distribution and circulation

The striker , initially subtitled by Streicher as “Nürnberger Wochenblatt zur Kampf um die Truth” (Nuremberg Weekly Paper on the Struggle for Truth), evidently emerged from the press organ Der Deutschen Sozialist or Deutscher Volkswille , founded in 1920, after differences between members of the Nuremberg NSDAP local group . The first edition appeared on April 21, 1923 in the form of a leaflet and initially served Streicher as a propaganda tool to attack local political opponents. After the early years, anti-Semitic topics were in the foreground of the reporting. In the 1930s Der Stürmer was listed as one of the political weeklies affiliated with the Reich Association of German Newspaper Publishers . It first appeared on a weekly basis in the Nuremberg area, from around 1933 nationwide, usually available commercially for 20 Pfennig, and from the mid-1930s also abroad. First, Der Stürmer was published by Völkischer Verlag Wilhelm Härdel in Nuremberg, and from 1935 by Streicher's own publisher Der Stürmer . In the beginning, the paper had only a small number of copies, but with the takeover of the NSDAP in 1933, Der Stürmer was increasingly popularized and also distributed to various National Socialist organizations , such as B. the DAF ( German Labor Front ), delivered. The " conformity " of the free press operated by the National Socialists as well as Julius Streicher's function as Gauleiter in Nuremberg may also have had a decisive influence on the striker's development . Between 1923 and 1945 there were also several special editions on special topics. The last issue of the Striker was published on February 22, 1945.

The exact position of the striker cannot be determined. According to Julius Streicher in the Nuremberg Trials, the historian Dennis Showalter estimated that Der Stürmer had a circulation between 17,000 and 20,000 in 1927 and reached six-figure circulation in the years after 1933. Fred Hahn assumes that only Streicher's statement about the print run for 1934 in the amount of 40,000 can be regarded as certain. Randall L. Bytwerk ( Julius Streicher , 1st edition 1983) does not name any sources for the figures in the following table:

Edition from 1927
year output Edition
1927 - 14,000
1933 - 25,000
1934 6th 47,000
1934 13 49,000
1934 17th 50,000
1934 19th 60,000
1934 33 80,000
1934 35 94.114
1934 42 113,800
1935 6th 132,800
1935 19th 202,600
1935 29 286,400
1935 36 410,600
1935 40 486,000
1938 5 473,000

The International Military Tribunal came to the conclusion that the actual number of copies exceeded that officially stated in the imprint: Between 1935 and 1939, the weekly circulation was estimated at 700,000 copies. Special issues for the Nazi party rallies were published in at least two million euros.

more publishments

From 1936 on, the Stürmer-Verlag also published anti-Semitic children's books:

documentary

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Der Stürmer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Siegfried Zelnhefer: The striker. German weekly paper on the fight for truth . In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria
  2. ^ Franco Ruault: New creators of the German people. P. 239.
  3. ↑ Friedrich Koch : Sexual Denunciation. Sexuality in the political debate . 2nd edition, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-434-46229-5 , pp. 64-95.
  4. ^ Franco Ruault: New creators of the German people. P. 230.
  5. ↑ Laura Bensow: "Women and girls, the Jews are your ruin!" - An investigation into anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda using the analysis category of gender. Marta Press, Hamburg 2016, p. 140 .
  6. ^ Daniel Roos: Julius Streicher and "Der Stürmer" 1923-1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2014. p. 88.
  7. ↑ Laura Bensow: "Women and girls, the Jews are your ruin!" - An investigation into anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda using the analysis category of gender. Marta Press, Hamburg 2016, p. 99 f .
  8. ^ Roland Flade: The Würzburg Jews from 1919 to the present. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001–2007, Volume III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 529-545 and 1308, here: p. 534.
  9. ^ Daniel Roos: Julius Streicher and "Der Stürmer" 1923-1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2014. p. 256 ff., P. 263.
  10. ↑ Laura Bensow: "Women and girls, the Jews are your ruin!" - An investigation into anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda using the analysis category of gender. Marta Press, Hamburg 2016, p. 106 f. and 258 ff .
  11. ↑ Myriam Spörri: Pure and mixed blood: On the cultural history of blood group research, 1900-1933. transcript, Bielefeld 2013, p. 83 f.
  12. ↑ Carl-Eric Linsler: Striker caricatures . In: Handbook of Antisemitism. Anti-Semitism in Past and Present , Volume 7: Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Literature, Film, Theater and Art . Berlin 2015, p. 477 .; Karl-Heinz Reuband: The readership of the "Stürmer" in the Third Reich. Social composition and anti-Semitic orientations. Historical Social Research, Issue 126, p. 216.
  13. ^ Daniel Roos: Julius Streicher and "Der Stürmer" 1923-1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2014, p. 22f.
  14. ↑ Laura Bensow: "Women and girls, the Jews are your ruin!" - An investigation into anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda using the analysis category of gender. Marta Press, Hamburg 2016, p. 261 f., 265 f .
  15. ^ Franco Ruault: New creators of the German people. P. 315.
  16. ^ Karl-Heinz Reuband: Denunciation in the Third Reich . (PDF; 143 kB)
  17. ^ Wolfgang Mück: Nazi stronghold in Middle Franconia: The völkisch awakening in Neustadt an der Aisch 1922–1933. Verlag Philipp Schmidt, 2016 (= Streiflichter from home history. Special volume 4); ISBN 978-3-87707-990-4 , pp. 31 and 260 f.
  18. ↑ Laura Bensow: "Women and girls, the Jews are your ruin!" - An investigation into anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda using the analysis category of gender. Marta Press, Hamburg 2016, p. 99 f .
  19. ↑ Accused in the Nuremberg Trial - Albert Speer and Julius Streicher. mirror TV
  20. ^ Daniel Roos: Julius Streicher and "Der Stürmer" 1923-1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2014. p. 242.
  21. ↑ The common sense of the people . In: Der Spiegel . No. 22 , 1978 ( online ).
  22. ^ Judgment of the international military tribunal: Julius Streicher / crime against humanity
  23. ↑ a b Karl-Heinz Reuband : The readership of the "Stürmer" in the Third Reich. Social composition and anti-Semitic orientations. Historical Social Research , Edition 126, pp. 215f
  24. ↑ Alexandra Przyrembel: Rassenschande . P. 185.
  25. ↑ Maria Theodora Baroness von dem Bottlenberg-Landsberg: Karl Ludwig Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg . 1902-1945. A picture of life . Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-931836-94-0 , pp. 111-112.
  26. ^ Karl-Heinz Reuband: The readership of the "Stürmer" in the Third Reich. Social composition and anti-Semitic orientations. Historical Social Research, Edition 126, pp. 217f
  27. ↑ Anja Salewsky: "The old Hitler should die!" Memories of the Jewish Kindertransport to England. Econ Ullstein List Verlag, Munich, 2002, ISBN 3-548-60234-7 . S.
  28. ↑ Laura Bensow: "Women and girls, the Jews are your ruin!" - An investigation into anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda using the analysis category of gender. Marta Press, Hamburg 2016, p. 101 f .
  29. ^ Daniel Roos: Julius Streicher and "Der Stürmer" 1923-1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2014. p. 79.
  30. ^ The striker in the magazine database. ZDB ID 304200-5 .
  31. ↑ Randall Bytwerk: Julius Streicher (1st ed. Stein and Day (NY) 1983, 2nd ed. 2001), chap. 3: The striker: "A Fierce and Filthy Rag" .
  32. ↑ Julius Streicher - Der Judenhetzer . ( Memento from January 2, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Fritz Bauer Institute , Cinematographie des Holocaust