Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom) ends with a brief description of a speech given by Julius Streicher, in which he declares that humanity cannot be saved without a solution to the Jewish problem. As with Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud bei seinem Eid (Don't Trust A Fox in A Green Meadow Or the Word of A Jew), Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom), also contains many signs pointing to the adoption of "Endloesung," the final solution that was officially established at the Wannsee Conference in 1942.
In the course of my research, I learned that an English translation of Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom) appeared in London in 1938, the same year the book was published in Germany. After obtaining photocopies of the English translation, I discovered that this translation was just one of many publications circulated during the Nazi period by the Friends of Europe, a group opposed to Nazism and dedicated to providing "accurate information about Nazi Germany for use throughout Great Britain, the British Empire, the U.S.A., Europe and wherever the English tongue is known." The foreword to the translation had been written by the Rt. Rev. Dr. H. Hensley Henson, who in 1938 was the Bishop of Durham. I wondered what connection an Anglican bishop might have had with the translation of such a disgusting piece of propaganda and was relieved to learn that as early as 1933, Henson had been voicing his concern about "Germany's religion of Blood and Race, as a menace to Christendom." In his foreword, Henson exhorts "all who desire to form a just estimate of the Anti-semitism of the German State" to read the The Poisonous Mushroom.
Within this compact volume, the Jews are depicted as money-grubbing capitalists on the one hand, and advocates of a murderous communism on the other. They are shown to have control over the professions, the economy, and the government, yet they are considered to be so ignorant that they lower the standards of the German nation. Henson makes the observation that the absurdity of the paradoxical images of the Jews contained in The Poisonous Mushroom would ensure the rejection of anti-semitism were it not for the "dark factors of fear, envy, and fanaticism, which can be worked up into a frenzy of hatred by the sustained and calculated efforts of the State." His conclusion that the struggle against anti-semitism, "of which The Poisonous Mushroom is a disgusting but characteristic expression," should not be viewed as just a German issue, for anti-semitism is a threat to civilization itself is especially valid for today's society, given the proliferation of hate groups and their assaults upon our civilization.
Der Pudelmopsdachelpinscher (The Poodle-Pug-Dachshund-Pincher), another picture storybook written by Ernst Hiemer and published by Der Stürmer in 1940, is, in my opinion, more dangerous than either Don't Trust a Fox in a Green Meadow or the Word of a Jew or The Poisonous Mushroom. Realizing that children are basically very interested in the world of nature that surrounds them, Hiemer constructs little stories centered upon what are generally considered to be despicable traits in certain animals and insects and concludes each story by transferring the undesirable characteristics to the human world via the Jews. The Jews are the drones of society because do not work but rather live from the labor of others.
Like the cuckcoo, Jews are depicted as stealing other people's homes. They are the foreigners who threaten to displace the Germans from Germany. As hyeanas strike disabled animals, Jews are portrayed as preying upon disadvantaged Germans/Christians. Other animals included in these comparisons are the chameleon (the great deceiver), the locust (the scourge of God), the bedbug (the blood sucker), the sparrow (good-for-nothings), the poodle-mops-dachshund-pincher (an inferior race created by cross-breeding various types of races), the poisonous snake (the viper of humanity, and the tapeworm (the parasite of humanity). Finally, Jews are compared to a deadly bacteria, which threatens the existence of the human race. Just as deadly bacteria must be eliminated, so must the Jews be exterminated.
Hiemer concludes with an exhortation to the youth of the world to become actively involved in the war against the Jews. Young Germans are cast as the hope of Germany and the saviors of a world under siege by a Jewish plague. The cumulative effect of so many comparisons with the world of nature, one might think, would be to make the elimination of Jews a natural and expected occurrence. Their extermination is presented as being part of the natural order of things, and the child is invited to rescue the desired natural order from the disaster planned by the Jews. The opportunity is strongly presented for the child to go from being a passive recipient of information on the destruction caused by the Jews to an active participant in the war against the Jews.
In an effort to give my German students a new direction in their study of the Holocaust, I decided to expose them to selections from Nazi propaganda literature designed for children. This, I believed, would be an excellent exercise in critical thinking and prepare them for any encounter they might have with revisionism or racism. There are several other reasons for using propaganda and children during the Hitler years as a topic for Holocaust education. These picture book stories offer an inside view of the means used to indoctrinate young children in the most extreme anti-Semitism imaginable. During the Nuremberg Trial, The Jewish Question in Classroom Instruction, Don't Trust a Fox in a Green Meadow or the Oath of a Jew, and The Poisonous Mushroom were received as documents in evidence. Because they were admitted as evidence and document the practices of the Nazis, these books have an authenticity that sounds a very persuasive warning and sends shock waves of horror in reaction to the evil that is presented to young children. Typically, the horrors of Nazi propaganda are viewed in an adult context. Examining the propaganda that targeted children can provide students with an immediacy that, hopefully, will help them understand that prejudice is not something that is inborn; it is something that must be carefully taught.
Updated By:
Serene Tan 3A
