Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

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Blackadder2000
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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#16

Post by Blackadder2000 » 20 Feb 2017, 10:12

David Thompson wrote:For readers interested in the reasons for Julius Streicher's death sentence see:

IMT judgment against Julius Streicher
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 416#240416

There is a five-page discussion there (at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27013) on the judgment. Unless someone has something new to add, the forum has a policy against redundant threads.
Thank you! I hope the admins delete my topic.

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#17

Post by Hawkwind » 21 Feb 2017, 21:38

Blackadder2000 wrote:In my opion, I don't really understand how Streicher could have been sentenced to death at the Nürnberg trials.
He didn't have any real power, (In February 1940 he was even stripped of his party offices and withdrew from the public eye, although he was permitted to continue publishing Der Stürmer) and although his newspaper Der Stürmer was dispicable, it still can be considered to be Freedom of Press.

So, IMO the death sentence of Streicher is controversial. Any thoughts?
I don't think freedom of the press applies to Nazi Germany. But it's true that Streicher had been marginalized by the end of the war. He remained a Gaulieter (I think) until the end of the war but he certainly wasn't a person of influence along the lines of Goering or Hess. His execution would be like the Iraqis defeating the United States in 2003 and executing George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Larry Flynt.


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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#18

Post by Sergey Romanov » 22 Feb 2017, 01:24

> George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Larry Flynt.

That is, if Larry Flynt had been using his media as a megaphone to help start the war and commit specific war crimes.
Which would fall under incitement.

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#19

Post by David Thompson » 22 Feb 2017, 01:44

Hawkwind -- You wrote:
His execution would be like the Iraqis defeating the United States in 2003 and executing George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Larry Flynt.
In case you missed it, the name of this section of the forum is the Holocaust & 20th Century War Crimes section -- we are not concerned with 21st Century similies here. Please stay on topic when posting.

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#20

Post by Blackadder2000 » 22 Feb 2017, 13:32

I'm reading a lot about the subject at the moment.

Even Göring stated (while he was in prison in 1946) that he didn't understand why Streicher was being tried as a "major war criminal" since he didn't have any real influence.

Göring despised Streicher, but still considered him to insignificant to be tried at Nürnberg. Most high-ranked nazi's despised Streicher by the way.

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#21

Post by BarKokhba » 23 Feb 2017, 03:02

The www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org has a fascinating and fact-based article on Streicher, and why he was executed as a war criminal in Nuremberg. Although he was not directly involved in mass atrocities, he was directly implicated in a number of documented beatings and torture sessions of helpless jailed individuals. His work creating the Jewish boycott of 1933, and use of swinish propaganda in the decades-long publications of his anti-Jewish newspapers certainly paved the way for normalizing violence against Jews in Germany, directly contributing to the Holocaust. The Judges at Nuremberg felt that way and had him executed.

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#22

Post by michael mills » 25 Feb 2017, 13:30

The Judges at Nuremberg felt that way and had him executed.
Not all the judges. The US judge Biddle considered Streicher just "a little Jew-baiter", and thought it preposterous that he was considered to be part of the National Socialist conspiracy against peace.

Any unbiased analysis of the case against Streicher can only come to the conclusion that the legal justification for his conviction for crimes against humanity and his death sentence was extremely tenuous. Since he had not been involved in the commission in any of the wartime crimes of the German Government, having not held any position of power during that period, the most he could be charged with was incitement to the commission of crimes. However, for a charge of incitement to be justified, there has to be a demonstrated causal connection between the words of the alleged inciter and the deeds of the person who committed the crime.

In the case of Streicher, that causal connection did not exist. The mass-killing of Jews, the underlying justification for Streicher's conviction and execution, was carried out by the SS, under the command of Himmler and Heydrich, and there is no evidence whatever that they were influenced in any way by Streicher's sexually-based anti-Jewish utterances, his portrayal of the Jew as rapist and murderer of children. In fact, according to the evidence of Eichmann, Streicher was despised by the SS leaders, who considered his anti-Semitism to be "unscientific", based on nonsensical ideas such as that the blood of Jews was somehow different from the blood of "Aryans", or that a German woman who had sexual intercourse with a Jewish man would be rendered physiologically incapable of bearing German children in future, since the Jewish man's spermatozoa somehow penetrated her ovaries and changed the genes in her eggs.

The reason why Himmler and Heydrich accepted what they saw as the necessity to physically destroy the Jews was that they were influenced by the political ideology that the Jews were conspiring to destroy Germany and the German people, and that they had invented Communism for that purpose. That ideology was totally unrelated to the sexually-based anti-Semitism purveyed by Streicher, which according to Eichmann was totally rejected by the SS leadership.

The most probable reason why Streicher was put on trial with the surviving top leaders of National Socialist Germany, men with the power of Goering and Ribbentrop, is that he was seen as a substitute for the dead Hitler, particularly in the latter's role as the ultimate driver of the anti-Jewish policies and actions of the government he led. If Hitler had lived to be put on trial (an eventuality that was actually foreseen by the Allies and somewhat dreaded), it is certain that the main charge against him personally would have been ultimate responsibility for the killing of millions of Jews.

Hitler was dead and could not be put on trial, but somebody had to be tried and condemned for the crimes against the Jews, and Streicher was the obvious candidate since, unlike the other defendants, his whole career within the National Socialist Government had been based on the propagation of anti-Semitism, even though that career had come to an end well before the most extreme crimes against the Jews began to be committed.

Furthermore, it was easy to put Streicher in the frame for the crimes against the Jews, even though he had not committed them, because he was such a despicable person, a sadist and a sexual deviant, and had committed brutal acts when he was in a position of power before the outbreak of war, such as going to prisons and whipping the prisoners. (Although, so far as I know, he never took advantage of his political position to personally commit acts of violence specifically against Jews).

In fair unpoliticised trial, Streicher might well have been convicted of "hate speech", and also of specific acts of violence such as the whipping of prisoners, and perhaps sentenced to an appropriate term of imprisonment, but there is no way he would have been convicted of involvement in a genocide carried out by others over whom he had no control, who rejected him and his ideas, and were not influenced by him in any demonstrable way.

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#23

Post by Sergey Romanov » 25 Feb 2017, 15:35

michael mills wrote: Any unbiased analysis of the case against Streicher can only come to the conclusion
How would you know given that you are not unbiased in any shape or form? :D

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#24

Post by Sergey Romanov » 25 Feb 2017, 15:46

> In fact, according to the evidence of Eichmann, Streicher was despised by the SS leaders, who considered his anti-Semitism to be "unscientific", based on nonsensical ideas such as that the blood of Jews was somehow different from the blood of "Aryans", or that a German woman who had sexual intercourse with a Jewish man would be rendered physiologically incapable of bearing German children in future, since the Jewish man's spermatozoa somehow penetrated her ovaries and changed the genes in her eggs.

Let's not pretend that the actual murderers were somehow highbrow.

Otherwise Himmler wouldn't have sent 100 copies of the book "The Jewish Ritual Murders" to Kaltenbrunner for the Einsatzkommandos, esp. for the men dealing with the "Jewish question". That was exactly the level of Streicher.

http://web.archive.org/web/200009292352 ... m80z2.html
Last edited by Sergey Romanov on 25 Feb 2017, 15:49, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#25

Post by Sergey Romanov » 25 Feb 2017, 15:49

Oh, one last thing:

> according to the evidence of Eichmann
> which according to Eichmann

I hope you understand that exculpatory statements by Eichmann do not amount to proven facts.

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#26

Post by Boby » 25 Feb 2017, 18:53

Sergey Romanov wrote:> In fact, according to the evidence of Eichmann, Streicher was despised by the SS leaders, who considered his anti-Semitism to be "unscientific", based on nonsensical ideas such as that the blood of Jews was somehow different from the blood of "Aryans", or that a German woman who had sexual intercourse with a Jewish man would be rendered physiologically incapable of bearing German children in future, since the Jewish man's spermatozoa somehow penetrated her ovaries and changed the genes in her eggs.

Let's not pretend that the actual murderers were somehow highbrow.

Otherwise Himmler wouldn't have sent 100 copies of the book "The Jewish Ritual Murders" to Kaltenbrunner for the Einsatzkommandos, esp. for the men dealing with the "Jewish question". That was exactly the level of Streicher.

http://web.archive.org/web/200009292352 ... m80z2.html
But did Himmler believe in such histories?

The document talks of using the "ritual-murder" in the press for propaganda purposes and to facilitate the handling of the jewish question in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, etc.

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#27

Post by Sergey Romanov » 25 Feb 2017, 20:53

Boby wrote:
Sergey Romanov wrote:> In fact, according to the evidence of Eichmann, Streicher was despised by the SS leaders, who considered his anti-Semitism to be "unscientific", based on nonsensical ideas such as that the blood of Jews was somehow different from the blood of "Aryans", or that a German woman who had sexual intercourse with a Jewish man would be rendered physiologically incapable of bearing German children in future, since the Jewish man's spermatozoa somehow penetrated her ovaries and changed the genes in her eggs.

Let's not pretend that the actual murderers were somehow highbrow.

Otherwise Himmler wouldn't have sent 100 copies of the book "The Jewish Ritual Murders" to Kaltenbrunner for the Einsatzkommandos, esp. for the men dealing with the "Jewish question". That was exactly the level of Streicher.

http://web.archive.org/web/200009292352 ... m80z2.html
But did Himmler believe in such histories?
I did not imply this. It's not clear from the document (he does recommend to falsify some ritual murder "news" but the first part reads as if he treats the accusations as real, so it's ambiguous), but apparently he hoped that the Einsatzkommando people would take it seriously (and, supposedly, shoot the Jews more enthusiastically), otherwise it's unclear why the book would be distributed among them.

It is also notable how he wanted to cooperate specifically with the Stürmer people, which shows that they weren't as marginal as Michael wants to present it.

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#28

Post by Boby » 25 Feb 2017, 22:34

In any case it was May 1943, so the worst phase of the Einsatzgruppen was already over.

Is there any documentary evidence of some form of active cooperation between the SS/RSHA with Streicher in 1941 or 1942?

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#29

Post by Sergey Romanov » 26 Feb 2017, 01:47

Boby wrote:In any case it was May 1943, so the worst phase of the Einsatzgruppen was already over.

Is there any documentary evidence of some form of active cooperation between the SS/RSHA with Streicher in 1941 or 1942?
That was hardly the point of posting this document.

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Re: Julius Streicher at Nürnberg Trials

#30

Post by michael mills » 26 Feb 2017, 01:51

Sergey Romanov seems to be suggesting that the men of the Einsatzgruppen in occupied Soviet territory were motivated to shoot Jews by Streicher's propaganda that Jews were committing "ritual murders".

But that is not reflected in the reports of shooting actions sent back to Berlin by the Einsatzgruppen. Those reports do not say: "We came to village X and shot all the Jews because they were committing ritual murders of the local people, or polluting the blood of the local women by having sexual intercourse with them".

Rather they wrote: "We came to village X and shot all the Jews because they were the supporters of the Communist system/carrying out acts of sabotage against the German forces/ inciting the local people against us/ helping the partisans/engaging in black market activities etc etc". In other words, the reasons given for shooting the Jews were essentially political, unrelated to the sort of sexually-based racism propagated by Streicher.

It is quite possible that the Einsatzgruppen spread typical Streicher propaganda among the local people as a means of gaining their support, since the concept of Jews as perpetrators of ritual murder was deeply embedded in the mindset of the Ukrainian peasantry, as shown by the Beiliss case in the early 205t Century. However, if that did happen, it was a marginal phenomenon, since the weight of evidence shows that the main propaganda line taken by the German occupiers on Soviet territory was a political one, the idea that the Germans were liberating the local people from Communist tyranny, of which the Jews were allegedly the main supporters.

In any case, the local people, particularly in the regions annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939and 1940, did not need the influence of Streicher's material to stir them up against the Jews. They hated the Jews on their own initiative, and often started acts of mass violence against the Jews on their own, even before the arrival of the Germans.

For example, when German crossed the border into Soviet-occupied Lithuania in the early morning of 22 June 1941, they were greeted by the sight of Jews hanging from the trees. The hangings had been carried out by local Lithuanians as soon as the Soviet administration began its withdrawal during the daytime of 21 June.

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