Julius Streicher

Julius Streicher ( Fleinhausen , Bavaria , December to February of 1885 - Nuremberg , 16 of October of 1946 ) was a military and Nazi relevant before and during World War II . He was the editor of the National Socialist ideology newspaper Der Stürmer , which became an important part of the Nazi propaganda machine . After the war, Streicher was convicted of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg Trials and executed.

Biography

Youth

Streicher was born in Fleinhausen , then Kingdom of Bavaria , being one of the 9 children of the family of Friedrich Streicher and his wife Anna. In his youth he worked as a primary school teacher like his father, and it would be in 1909 when he began his political career by joining the German Democratic Party. He later commented that it was at this time that he came into contact with Jews, and thereafter formed his anti-Semitic ideals. In 1913 he married Kunigunde Roth in Nuremberg , with whom he had two children: Lotar (born 1915) and Elmar (1918).

Streicher joined the German Army in 1914, after the start of the First World War . During the war he reached the rank of lieutenant and was awarded the Iron Cross , before the end of the war occurred with the Armistice of Compiègne .

Political activity

In 1919, Streicher was an active member of the Schutz und Trutzbund , one of the largest and most important movements völkisch . In 1920 it entered the German Socialist Party ( Deutschsozialistische Partei ), of nationalistic and ethnic character. His struggles with other members of the party led him to another völkisch organization in 1921, the German Working Community ( Deutsche Werkgemeinschaft ), which sought to unify the various völkisch formations and movements . In 1922, Streicher integrated his followers into the German National Socialist Workers’ Party (NSDAP), which was an aid that the future Führer , Adolf Hitler , would never forget.

In 1923 Streicher founded the publication Der Stürmer , in which it occupied the position of publisher, and that used to spread the anti-Semitism. ¹ This newspaper reached a maximum circulation of 480,000 copies in 1935. Its publisher published three anti-Semitic books for children, among which is Der Giftpilz ( The Poisonous Mushroom ) of 1938.

Streicher actively participated in the so-called Putsch in Munich between 8 and 9 November 1923, in which Adolf Hitler tried, unsuccessfully , to seize the power of the Bavarian Government to try to provoke a crisis in the Government of Berlin . Streicher coordinated and grouped the militants of the NSDAP from the Marienplatz to direct the march towards the Odeonplatz, in front of the Feldherrnhalle where they were finally confronted by the police with the consequent death of fourteen nazis in the site, plus two in the Ministry of the War , Done for which he was charged but not taken to prison. Each anniversary of the failed putsch , Streicher directed the escort of the Blutfahne (“Flag of Blood”) as it was called a flag of the Nazi Party that was bloody when being used to avoid the hemorrhage of one of the Nazis dead in the march. After this failure, during the following years Streicher became one of the most intimate collaborators of Hitler. ²

After the refoundation of the Nazi Party in 1925, Streicher was rewarded with the appointment like Gauleiter of Franconia . From 1933 to 1940 he was, in practice, the “king of Nuremberg “, and so he was dubbed.

Fall of power

In 1940, Streicher was stripped of all charges after being involved in a scandal related to the fate of Jewish property appropriated by the Nazis after the antisemitic pogrom of the Night of Broken Crystals ( Kristallnacht ); Also accused him of spreading calumnious rumors about Hermann Göring .

He retired to a farmhouse in Cadolzburg , west of Nuremberg , where he led a life away from public activity until he was taken prisoner by the United States in May 1945 after the end of World War II .

Prosecution and execution

Since Julius Streicher was removed from power, he did not take part in Holocaust planning or the invasion of other nations. Even so, Streicher did play an important role in inciting the extermination of the Jews from his address in the newspaper Der Stürmer . After being detained by the US military authorities, he was imprisoned and placed at the disposal of the International Military Tribunal . In essence, prosecutors relied on Streicher’s incendiary articles as a basis for their indictment, and were charged to the same degree with leading Nazi leaders such as Hans Frank and Ernst Kaltenbrunner .

On October 1, 1946, Streicher was sentenced to death and although he was not involved in the organization of the Holocaust , his anti-Semitic propaganda activities were considered to have contributed to the genocide. ³ It was executed by hanging on 16 October 1946.

His last words were “Purim Fest 1946!” , And moments before his execution came to tell his jailers “Someday the Bolsheviks will hang you.”

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