Biography of Julius Streicher

Julius Streicher

Julius Streicher was one of the best known anti-semites in the entire world.  He was born in Germany in 1885 and was hung in 1946 after the Second World War, for the endless crimes that he committed through his slanderous and hateful lies that he published for years.  He managed with his constant advertising and repetitious slanderous lies to convince the majority of the already hateful German citizens to convince them that their hatred and ultimate destruction of the Jews was a blessing.  The majority of the Germans despicably joined in the annihilation of six million of our brethren (the majority of our helpless, innocent human beings).  Der Stürmer, which was the paper that he and his henchmen produced, was covered with hateful drawings of alleged Jewish images of men and women with long noses, ugly beards, obesity, and disgusting pseudo monstrous features which he chose to target and pretend to be real. It was an example of deadly bullying which was invited and rewarded by the administration of the so called fatherland of the Nazi infested country called Deutschland.  Through the printed “newspaper,” the hate sheet, Der Stürmer, the masses were trained and encouraged to exterminate the six million of their erstwhile neighbors despicably labeled as “vermin.” It took frequency and recency, violence and displaced hatred, to carry out  the deeds that followed.  It can be compared to a volcano that spews out its ashes without cessation. 

Streicher’s suggestions made permissible that which followed.  He took away any sliver of conscience that might otherwise have been present.  There was no regret, permission was given and inhumane deeds, including murders, were sanctioned and rewarded.  The superego, the conscience, disappeared.  Crimes were rewarded. Wrong was right.  It could be seen years before the “Final Solution.”  When the Jewish people had to close their businesses and give up their jobs in 1933, masses of the German citizenry stormed into the shops and stole whatever they wanted.  There was no one to stop them, no reprimands, no consequences.  They gloated as the Jewish former owners were spat on, beaten, beards or hair pulled, physically attacked, and made into helpless bleeding, impoverished human beings.  Mercy did not exist.

Streicher was an ardent follower of Hitler, although Hitler did not take him into his innermost circle.  He used him as needed.  Streicher had to create his own fame.  He fought in the First World War and enjoyed his notoriety. 

When eventually he was captured at the end of the Second World War and stood before the tribunal to defend himself, he took himself out of the realm of the guilty and insisted he had nothing to do with the murder of the six million Jewish people that he destroyed with his slander and libel.  He was adamant in stating  that when he wrote about extermination it did not indicate death.  He only “meant” for the Jewish people to disappear, to go to Madagascar.  His lies became more numerous and greater as his fate became closer.  Like a child that injures another and insists the victim was responsible for the injury, so Julius Streicher attempted to take himself out of the equation of the crimes that he perpetrated and committed.

Let us take the lesson of Streicher and the many anti-semites that are full of hatred, of anger, of malice to our small number of Jewish people that still exist in the world, and never attempt to placate, to accept, or to incorporate their evil thoughts and prejudices .  Let us not befriend them or accept their misbegotten thoughts into our minds.  We must not extend the other cheek to agree with our antagonists, the “Rosches” (evildoers) of the world.  Let us not be deluded by flawed and ambitious politicians who are against our principles because they appeal to us because we identify with  their minority status, let us beware of having “rachmones” (pity) with them for that reason.  Let us look at the character of the individuals that we are attempting to help and take care of those who are decent people, who are just and follow the righteous, not our “Wiedersächer.” Let us stand in unity. Let us not placate  the Streichers of our world.  Never, ever again!

 Lehitraot.

 Dr. Ursula A. Falk is a psychotherapist in private practice and the author of several books and articles.

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