"The Jewish enemy"

Viac o knihe

The Holocaust's magnitude has captured attention for decades, yet the rationale behind the Nazis' atrocities often remains overlooked. German wartime media portrayed a narrative that depicted German citizens as targets of an international conspiracy, led by a powerful Jewish clique manipulating world leaders like Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Hitler framed the Holocaust as a defensive measure, asserting it was essential to eliminate Jews before they could destroy Germany. Joseph Goebbels and Otto Dietrich’s Press Office crafted this fanatical vision into a coherent narrative, which permeated everyday life through various media. Drawing on extensive archival research, Jeffrey Herf reconstructs the propaganda that Germans encountered, from wall posters at streetcars to radio broadcasts and sensational headlines. This study is the first to examine how anti-Semitism shaped Nazi propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust, revealing how it unified the delusional elements of Nazi ideology. Herf presents a chilling exploration of how Hitler justified war and genocide as a necessity against an imagined omnipotent Jewish enemy. In a time when anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories still affect global politics, this work serves as a crucial reminder of their dangers and offers a new perspective on the paranoia that fueled the Third Reich's ideology.