"The Jews are Guilty!"
(November 16, 1941)
In 1940, Joseph
Goebbels began a weekly newspaper called Das Reich in which he generally wrote the lead article each week. Goebbels' anti-Semitism was a bit more "refined" than Julius
Streicher's, but as this essay shows he was more than able to
produce vehement attacks on the Jews.
The historic responsibility of world Jewry for the
outbreak and widening of this war has been proven so clearly that it
does not need to be talked about any further. The Jews wanted war,
and now they have it. But the Führer's prophecy of 30 January 1939
to the German Reichstag is also being fulfilled: If international
finance Jewry should succeed in plunging the world into war once
again, the result will be not the Bolshevization of the world and
thereby the victory of the Jews, rather the annihilation of the
Jewish race in Europe.
We are seeing the fulfillment of the prophecy. The
Jews are receiving a penalty that is certainly hard, but more than
deserved. World Jewry erred in adding up the forces available to it
for this war, and now is gradually experiencing the annihilation that
it planned for us, and would have carried out without a second
thought if it had possessed the ability. It is perishing according
its own law: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
Every Jew is our enemy in this historic struggle,
regardless of whether he vegetates in a Polish ghetto or carries on
his parasitic existence in Berlin or Hamburg or blows the trumpets of
war in New York or Washington. All Jews by virtue of their birth and
their race are part of an international conspiracy against National
Socialist Germany. They want its defeat and annihilation, and do all
in their power to bring it about. That they can do nothing inside the
Reich is hardly a sign of their loyalty, rather of the appropriate
measures we took against them.
One of these measures is the institution of the
yellow star that each Jew must wear. We wanted to make them visible
as Jews, particularly if they made even the least attempt to harm the
German community. It is a remarkably humane measure on our part, a
hygienic and prophylactic measure to be sure that the Jew cannot
infiltrate our ranks unseen to sow discord.
As the Jews first appeared several weeks ago on
the streets of Berlin graced with their Jewish star, the initial
reaction of the citizens of the Reich capital was surprise. Only a
few knew that there were still so many Jews in Berlin. Everyone
suddenly found someone in the neighborhood who seemed like a harmless
fellow citizen, who perhaps complained or criticized a bit more than
normal, and whom no one had thought to be a Jew. He had concealed
himself, mimicked his surroundings, adopting the color of the
background, adjusted to the environment, in order to wait for the
proper moment. Who among us had any idea that the enemy was beside
him, that a silent or clever auditor was attending to conversations
on the street, in the subway, or in the lines outside cigarette
shops? There are Jews one cannot recognize by external signs. These
are the most dangerous. It always happens that when we take some
measure against the Jews, English or American newspapers report it
the next day. Even today the Jews still have secret connections to
our enemies abroad and use these not only in their own cause, but in
all military matters of the Reich as well. The enemy is in our midst.
What makes more sense than to at least make this plainly visible to
our citizens?
In the first days after the introduction of the
Jewish star, newspaper sales in Berlin went through the roof. Each
Jew on the street bought a newspaper to conceal his mark of Cain. As
this was banned, one began to see Jews on the streets of the West
side of Berlin in the company of non-Jewish foreigners. These Jewish
lackeys actually should wear the Jewish star themselves. The excuse
they give for their provocative conduct is always the same: the Jews
are after all human beings too. We never denied that, just as we
never denied the humanity of murders, child rapists, thieves and
pimps, though we never felt the need to parade down the
Kurfürstendamm with them! Every Jew is a decent Jew who has found a
dumb and ignorant Goy who thinks him decent! As if that were a reason
to give Jews a kind of honorable escort. What nonsense.
The Jews gradually are having to depend more and
more on themselves, and have recently found a new trick. They knew
the good-natured German Michel in us, always ready to shed
sentimental tears for the injustice done to them. One suddenly has
the impression that the Berlin Jewish population consists only of
little babies whose childish helplessness might move us, or else
fragile old ladies. The Jews send out the pitiable. They may confuse
some harmless souls for a while, but not us. We know exactly what the
situation is.
For their sake alone we must win the war. If we
lose it, these harmless-looking Jewish chaps would suddenly become
raging wolves. They would attack our women and children to carry out
revenge. There are enough examples in history. That is what they did
in Bessarabia and the Baltic states when Bolshevism marched in, even
though neither the people nor their governments had done anything to
them. There is no turning back in our battle against the Jews--even
if we wanted to, which we do not. The Jews must be removed from the
German community, for they endanger our national unity.
That is an elementary principle of racial,
national and social hygiene. They will never give us rest. If they
could, they would drive one nation after another into war against us.
Who cares about their difficulties, they who only want to force the
world to accept their bloody financial domination? The Jews are a
parasitic race that feeds like a foul fungus on the cultures of
healthy but ignorant peoples. There is only one effective measure:
cut them out.
How stupid and thoughtless are the arguments of
the backward friends of the Jews in the face of a problem that has
occupied mankind for millennia! How they would gape if they could
ever see their dear Jews in power! But that would too late.That is
why it is the duty of a national leadership to take all necessary
measures to keep such a thing from happening. There are differences
between people just as their are differences between animals. Some
people are good, others bad. The same is true of animals. The fact
that the Jew still lives among us is no proof that he belongs among
us, just as a flea is not a household pet simply because it lives in
a house. When Mr. Bramsig or Mrs. Knöterich feel pity for an old
woman wearing the Jewish star, they should also remember that a
distant nephew of this old woman by the name of Nathan Kaufmann sits
in New York and has prepared a plan by which all Germans under the
age of 60 will be sterilized. They should recall that a son of her
distant uncle is a warmonger named Baruch or Morgenthau or Untermayer
who stands behind Mr. Roosevelt, driving him to war, and that if they
succeed, a fine but ignorant U.S. soldier may one day shoot dead the
only son of Mr. Bramsig or Mrs. Knöterich. It will all be for the
benefit of Jewry, to which this old woman also belongs, no matter how
fragile and pitiable she may seem.
If we Germans have a fateful flaw in our national
character, it is forgetfulness. This failing speaks well of our human
decency and generosity, but not always for our political wisdom or
intelligence. We think everyone else as is good natured as we are.
The French threatened to dismember the Reich during the winter of
1939/40, saying that we and our families would have to stand in lines
before their field kitchens to get something warm to eat. Our army
defeated France in six weeks, after which we saw German soldiers
giving bread and sausages to hungry French women and children, and
gasoline to refugees from Paris to enable them to return home as soon
as possible, there to spread at least some of their hatred against
the Reich.
That's how we Germans are. Our national virtue is
our national weakness. We do not want to change all that much, and as
long as our world-famed good nature does no great harm, why should
we? Klopstock gave us some good advice, however: Don't be too good
natured, since our enemies are not noble enough to overlook our
mistakes.
If this advice applies anywhere, it apples to our
relations with the Jews. Carelessness here is not only a weakness, it
is disregard of duty and a crime against the security of the state.
The Jews long for one thing: to reward or foolishness with bloodshed
and terror. It must never come to that. One of the most effective
defenses is an unforgiving, cold hardness against the destroyers of
our people, against the instigators of the war, against those who
would benefit if we lose, and therefore also against the victims, if
we win.
Therefore, we must say again and yet again:
1. The Jews are our destruction. They started this
war and direct it. They want to destroy the German Reich and our
people. This plan must be blocked.
2. There are no distinctions between Jews. Each
Jew is a sworn enemy of the German people. If he does not make his
hostility plain, it is only from cowardice and slyness, not because
he loves us.
3. The Jews are to blame for each German soldier
who falls in this war. They have him on their conscience, and must
also pay for it.
4. If someone wears the Jewish star, he is an
enemy of the people. Anyone who deals with him is the same as a Jew
and must be treated accordingly. He earns the contempt of the entire
people, for he is a craven coward who leaves them in the lurch to
stand by the enemy.
5. The Jews enjoy the protection of our enemies.
That is all the proof we need to show how harmful they are for our
people.
6. The Jews are the enemy's agents among us. He
who stands by them aids the enemy.
7. The Jews have no right to claim equality with
us. If they wish to speak on the streets, in lines outside shops or
in public transportation, they should be ignored, not only because
their are simply wrong, but because they are Jews who have no right
to a voice in the community.
8. If the Jews appeal to your sentimentality,
realize that they are hoping for your forgetfulness, and let them
know that you see through them and hold them in contempt.
9. A decent enemy will deserve our generosity
after we have won. The Jew however is not a decent enemy, though he
tries to seem so.
10. The Jews are responsible for the war. The
treatment they receive from us is hardly unjust. They have deserved
it all.
It is the job of the government to deal with them.
No one has the right to act on his own, but each has the duty to
support the state's measures against the Jews, to defend them with
others, and to avoid being misled by any Jewish tricks.
The security of the state requires that of us all.
Sources: "Die Juden sind schuld!", Das eherne Herz (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1943), pp. 85-91; German
Propaganda Archive. Translation copyright � 1998 by Randall
Bytwerk |