Do you remember when antifeminists would cite the SCUM Manifesto, or a few strangers online writing ‘kill all men’ as an obvious joke or overreaction, as evidence in support of antifeminism? What about conservatives citing a violent kidnapper shouting ‘black lives matter’, or a stranger publicly saying mean things about whites, as evidence against the Black Lives Matter movement (or even against Afro‐Americans in general)?
Well, this tactic was exactly what the Axis deployed: find an obscure ideologue proposing an extreme solution, then magnify his importance to such a ridiculous extent that it justifies one’s own actions. Theodore N. Kaufman, a petty bourgeois Jew without any political power, would have been quickly forgotten by history if only the Axis overlooked him, but he unwittingly made Axis propagandists’ job a little easier by writing a polemic titled Germany Must Perish!, and you better believe that they were going to milk that cow for all that she was worth:
A month after the [re]invasion [of Soviet Eurasia] came one of the most peculiar propaganda elements of the war: Theodore N. Kaufman’s Germany Must Perish! Kaufman was a 31‐year‐old American Jew who owned a theater ticket agency in New Jersey. In March 1941, he self‐published a 100‐page book that called for the sterilization of the entire German population (excepting only Jews and those no longer fertile).
It would be inhumane, he wrote, to kill the Germans, but sterilization would eliminate them within two generations. He also included a map proposing the partition of German territory among neighboring nations. As he wrote in the introduction, Germany had been a source of misery for the rest of the world from its beginning:
This time Germany has forced a TOTAL WAR upon the world.
As a result, she must be prepared to pay a TOTAL PENALTY.
And there is one, and only one, such Total Penalty:
Germany must perish forever!
In fact—not in fancy!¹⁹Kaufman had earlier presented himself as the president (and perhaps sole member) of the American Federation of Peace, which in 1939 had urged Congress either to stay out of Europe’s war, or to sterilize all Americans to keep their children from becoming homicidal monsters.
He did have a gift for public relations. Before reviewers received his book, a small black coffin came in the mail announcing that his book would arrive the next day.²⁰ Kaufman’s effort got limited attention in the United States, generally negative, though he, in the fashion of film publicists, found several passages that could be made to sound positive to include in his second printing.²¹
That would have been the end of it, but copies made their way to [the Third Reich]. Although the United States was not yet a combatant, the [Axis] immediately presented Kaufman’s book as the official American plan to deal with Germany. On July 23, 1941, a month after the [re]invasion of [Soviet Eurasia], a Berlin press conference revealed Kaufman’s plan. The next day, the Völkischer Beobachter ran a story that covered most of the front page: “The Product of Criminal Jewish Sadism: Roosevelt Demands the Sterilization of the German People.”
The article stated that “Theodor Kaufmann [sic]”²² had “a monstrous plan for the extermination of the German people and the total fragmentation of Germany,” noting that he was president of the American Federation of Peace and
one of the closest advisers to the New York Jew Samuel Roseman [sic], who as is well known provides advice and assistance in speechwriting to the current president of the United States, Roosevelt. […] Given the close relationship of the writer to the White House, this monstrous war program can be seen as a synthesis of genuine Talmudic hatred and Roosevelt’s views on foreign policy.²³
The story received prime coverage in other German newspapers as well. Many articles followed in the German press, all of which claimed that Kaufman’s proposal was incontrovertible proof of international Jewry’s intent physically to destroy Germany and its people.²⁴ Das Reich avoided commentary, simply carrying particularly startling passages from Kaufman’s book.²⁵
Significant parts were read over national radio. It is important to remember that from July to September 1941, Third Reich bureaucracies were engaged in energetic and explicit internal discussions on killing the Jews, discussions reflected in more general terms in public discourse.²⁶
But that was only the beginning. Joseph Goebbels read Kaufman’s book early in August. In his diary, he expressed outrage, then wrote:
This Jew did a real service for the enemy [German] side. Had he written this book for us, he could not have made it any better. I will have this published in an edition of millions for Germany and above all for the front, and will write the forward and afterward myself.²⁷
Goebbels realized that Kaufman’s diatribe had little significance in the United States, but that did not prevent him from recognizing its propaganda value.²⁸ Goebbels discussed Kaufman’s book with Hitler a few weeks later, who was also outraged.
Notably, Hanover’s mayor cited Kaufman’s polemic as an excuse to evict the city’s Jews:
Hundreds of Jews in Hanover received notices Monday to evacuate their homes within 24 hours.
They were permitted to take only “the most necessary objects and furniture” and advised [that] the remainder of their property would be sold, the proceeds to be turned over to them “at a given time.” [Read: never.]
One reason cited for the action was said to have been a book written by “the Jew Kaufmann [sic] in New York.” The book, it was alleged, demands sterilization of all Germans and employment of German soldiers as coolies in foreign lands.
[…]
Theodore N. Kaufman, whose book “Germany Must Perish!” was cited by the mayor of Hanover […] in his eviction notice to Jews of that city, said Monday, “This is just a flimsy pretext for another of the innate cruelties of the German people.”
The author said, “I don’t think [that] it was my book that prompted this barbarity. They employed every possible German cruelty against the Jews long before my book was published.”
Silly prejudice aside, Kaufman raised one valid point here: he cannot be blamed for the eviction of Hanover’s Jews, or for any of the Axis’s other atrocities, for that matter. Some anticommunists might think that that is a great idea, but anybody who can apply materialist analysis knows that the causes behind atrocities run far deeper than an irrelevant stranger saying mean things about a kind of people. Freeing up room for gentiles is one example.
In many ways, Kaufman’s importance parallels Haj Amin al‐Husayni’s. Even though the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was an unpopular, Zionist‐appointed politician who failed to prevent thousands of Palestinians from serving the Allies, and failed to organize any efficient Waffen‐SS divisions, he remains the only link that Zionists have between Palestinians and the Shoah, so they inflate his importance to astronomic proportions.
Click here for examples.
Hajj Amin‐al‐Husseini was highly influential and extremely popular throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds.¹⁷ The Husseini family of Jerusalem was one of the most powerful and respected clans in Palestinian Arab society for centuries. The Husseinis claim to be descendants of Hussein, the son of the Caliph Ali and his wife Fatima, daughter of Muhammad.¹⁸ For centuries, the Husseinis had held important positions in Palestine, including Mufti of Jerusalem.¹⁹ Under the British Mandate in Palestine, due in part to the power and prestige of his family, Hajj Amin al‐Husseini served as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and president of the Supreme Muslim Council. Thus, he was the most powerful Arab official in British Palestine and controlled a large budget and a network of patronage that included imams of mosques, judges in the Islamic courts, Islamic schools, and Islamic endowments (waqf).²⁰ By virtue of these two offices, Husseini “became the most influential Arab in Palestine.”²¹
On the contrary, René Wildangel documented that, among other facts, ‘Filastin, like the other traditional Christian paper, al‐Karmil, edited by Najib Nassar, was generally closer to the biggest opposition bloc (al‐muʻarada) against Amin al‐Husayni, and was dominated by the Nashashibi family. Al‐Sirat al‐Mustaqim, edited by ʻAbdullah al‐Qalqili, supported the same faction’ and ‘Arab Palestinian support for the old political élite disintegrated, and the dissatisfaction with the mufti, which had been growing for quite some time, fed the growing factionalism in Palestinian politics.⁴⁷’
No matter: Benjamin Netanyahu had to blame him for the Shoah, and ordinary Zionists shoehorn mentions of him wherever they please. For example:
If one insists on invoking the Holocaust, it should also not be forgotten that the Palestinians actively collaborated with Hitler. Their leader, Haj Amin al‐Husseini, met with Hitler to collaborate on plans to eliminate the Jews. So Palestinians are not innocent of Holocaust guilt.
You get the picture.
True, Kaufman was no war criminal (not even a minor one like the Mufti), but that is irrelevant: Walter Rauff caused far more damage than one Mufti ever did, yet he is of far less concern to Zionists. So criminality is not the issue here. Kaufman became important because the Axis decided that he should be, then the Zionists bestowed the Grand Mufti with the same importance, not so much because of something intrinsic to his misbehavior, but because of his value to propagandists.
The propagandists would have completed their jobs all the same; these two blokes only made them a little easier.
That being said, in at least one of these cases the professional liars still had some trouble reprogramming ordinaries despite the unwitting aid and their exhaustive efforts:
The […] German response to [Fascism’s] anti‐Semitic argument was more indifference than internalization. Despite the steady anti‐Semitic propaganda [that] we have surveyed, [Fascist] internal communication consistently worried about the lack of passionate anti‐Semitism on the part of the German population.⁸⁹
Anti‐Semitism increased gradually as the war went on. For the first two years, most Germans did not pay much heed to the alleged Jewish threat, since there seemed little chance the Jews would be able to do anything to Germany. Propaganda emphasized Germany’s other enemies, and the [Axis was] winning the war. The Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst or SD) of the SS provided confidential reports on public morale until 1943, when Goebbels had them eliminated because they too accurately reflected public doubts about the war.⁹⁰
A July 1941 SD report, written after the first appearance of the Kaufman story, noted that people read newspaper accounts with interest, but without any particular concern. “Frequently, there were characteristic expressions of popular humor: ‘Sure, they would if they could.”’ It did seem to strengthen anti‐Semitic attitudes, but others saw it as propagandistic preparation for the expected entrance of the United States into the war.⁹¹
Click here for events that happened today (August 16).
1904: Minoru Genda, Axis aviator, was born.
1919: Karl‐Heinz Euling, Waffen‐SS captain, was unleashed on the earth.
1933: Pro‐Reich Canadians provoked a riot at Christie Pits.
1934: Rome ordered the 48,000 troops rushed to the Austro‐Italian border during the July Putsch to return to their regular bases. Meanwhile, Schicklgruber’s amnesty announcement went into effect, releasing the prisoners in time to vote in Sunday’s referendum.
1935: Representatives of France, Great Britain and Fascist Italy met in Paris to negotiate a solution to the Abyssinia Crisis. Haile Selassie offered new economic concessions to Italy, stressing that he would not accept a military occupation but would grant facilities for mining, road construction and railway operations.
1942: As the Soviets evacuated Maykop and Axis positions in Egypt were bombed by Yankee aeroplanes for the first time, the Kriegsmarine began Operation Wunderland with the objective of entering the Kara Sea and destroying as many Soviet vessels as possible. Meanwhile in Bilbao, Spain, a mass was held at the Basilica of Begoña to commemorate members of the Begoña Regiment who died in the Civil War. After the service there was some shouting between the Carlist and Falangist factions, and during the ensuing scuffle a Falangist threw two hand grenades and wounded thirty people.
1944: First flight of a jet with forward‐swept wings, the Junkers Ju 287.
1945: Takijirō Ōnishi, Axis admiral, took his own life.