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Julius Streicher was a prominent individual of the Third Reich, that working as a journalist and editor, was the main responsible for the articulation of Nazi propaganda, as well as disseminating anti-Semitism in Germany, going as far as publishing children’s books with anti-Semitic themes. Born in 1885 in Fleinhausen, in the Kingdom of Bavaria, Julius Streicher was a military combatant in the First World War. Having acquired profound political interests as the war ended, he absorbed deeply the anti-Semitic ideology way before the Nazi Party came to power. Becoming one between the hundreds of thousands of Germans seduced by the loquacious and scathing rhetoric of Adolf Hitler about Pan Germanic goals, the restoration of the Homeland, and the defense of national-socialist ideals, in 1921, Streicher visited Munich just to hear a speech by the future dictator of Germany. This experience, apparently, caused him great personal commotion. Soon after this event, Streicher had become a party member, completely incapable – like most of his contemporaries – to foretell the horrors in long term that the hostile and totalitarian character of the national-socialist values would bring – not just for the entire country – over Europe and, by extension, to the rest of the world. In 1923, Streicher founded a newspaper, Der Stürmer, whose main purpose was to be a vehicle for the anti-Semitic ideals of the party, and, soon afterwards, Streicher would take part on the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, the first frustrated attempt by Adolf Hitler to seize power.
As evidence suggests, Streicher was so estimated by Hitler for his loyalty and dedication, that he managed to become one of his few confidents. A fanatic with a hostile character, Streicher attributed everything going wrong in Germany and in the rest of the world to the Jews: from the 1929 financial crisis to the social and moral decline of the German society, from the unemployment to the inflation, from congenital diseases to prostitution, he used all kinds of arguments to – in a very abusive and outrageous manner – vilify Judaism, using excuses to harm or to attack even specific Jews, that, for one reason or another, were disturbing to him. When the Nazi party was not yet in fully control of Germany, Streicher, in several moments, was punished for his prejudiced and defamatory attitudes towards the Jews, obliged to answer to the law and pay for his transgressions, with no other options besides facing the legal penalties that subdued him, as a consequence for the ideologies he defended, as well as the slanders he published on his newspaper. Nonetheless, when the Nazi Party took power, one of the first measures Streicher has taken was to organize boycotts against Jewish commerce, fully committed to purge Judaism from the religious life of Germany. In 1938, Streicher apparently demanded a large synagogue in Nuremberg to be destroyed, soon afterwards using it’s architectural style as prerogative to justify the evil deed. Nonetheless, his arrogance would be his downfall, and the several enmities he had cultivated within the party, especially between Nazi officials of the highest ranks – like Hermann Göring – would eventually become his ruin. Expelled from his position as Gauleiter in 1940, the beast of Franconia – moniker by which his detractors used to call him – relocated to Austria when Germany surrendered to the Allies, just to be captured in a matter of days.
At the Nuremberg Trials, although Julius Streicher was not a member of the army, nor had any direct role during the Holocaust, he was accused of crimes against humanity, given his radical racial militancy against the Jews. At his trial, Streicher, still profoundly contaminated by the subversive racial ideologies that he so ardently defended, exhibited the characteristic traces of arrogance, egocentrism and stubbornness that were so peculiar to his personality, never showing any remorse or regret in the slightest degree, during the process. Sentenced to death by hanging, before being executed, on October 16, 1946, he apparently said, with pride and vanity, “Heil Hitler”. Nonetheless, something terribly wrong occurred during the execution. Apparently, the rope on his neck was put in the wrong level – whether deliberate or accidental, it is not known – and Streicher, which by standard procedure should die immediately, something that was being systematically executed by the responsible authorities, instead, suffocated and agonized by several minutes, before finally dying. His executor, American official John C. Woods, not just gave his word in what concerns the following of standard procedures, guaranteeing the fact that all executions were carried out with perfection, but he said to be “proud” of his work. Dead at 61 years old, and still profoundly shackled by the national-socialist ideologies, Julius Streicher, in the end, was just one more man fooled and deceived by Adolf Hitler, and by the aggrandizing ambitions of his immensurable ego. In the corners of despair, like the vast majority of Germans, Julius Streicher deeply believed in false hopes, that apparently would resolve all the problems of the Homeland, with unwavering fastness. Nonetheless, they forgot to measure up the expensive horrors that, all along the way, would deflagrate the most catastrophic tragedy ever, to shake the world. Whipped by an irrational hatred, as well as an insensible, perfidious and inhumane anti-Semitism, in the end, Julius Streicher was one more Nazi individual that, ultimately, had to face the terrible consequences of his sordid and cruel transgressions. A fate shared by everybody who believed in the well dissimulated treachery that the Third Reich revealed itself to be.
Wagner
Wagner
