JULIUS STREICHER'S ANTI-SEMITIC CHILDREN'S BOOK, 'DER GIFTPILZ'
Very rare book Der Giftpilz ("The Poison Mushroom"), by Ernst Hiemer with illustrations by Philipp Rupprecht, published by Streicher's Berlag Der Sturmer, 1938, cloth and paper cover, with some wear, tears and some soiling to cloth at spine, one page loose, else contents are very good to fine. There are 17 color plates within with various insulting captions, including one beneath a sinister-looking figure passing out candy to children: "The Experience of Hans and Else with a Strange Man: 'Here, kids, I have some candy for you. But you both have to come with me'...", and one beneath a young boy showing a lady a mushroom in the forest: "The Poisonous Mushroom: 'Just as it is often hard to tell a toadstool from an edible mushroom, so too it is often very hard to recognize the Jew as a swindler and criminal'...". Julius Streicher, the Nazi publisher of the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Sturmer, issued Der Giftpilz to generate anti-Semitism among young children by wrapping hateful, corrosive lies about Jews in the form of a traditional children's storybook. Today, its naked propaganda is shockingly apparent, but at the time, it was just one step in the Nazis' feverish rush toward the complete destruction of all Jews. The book uses outright fabrications to create a portrait of Jews as ugly, depraved and dishonest outsiders who must be rooted out for the good of society. Streicher used many of the same simplistic and often contradictory premises for Der Giftpilz that he used in his newspaper. Defying logic, the stories taught that Jews were cunning but also stupid; too lazy to work, yet fanatically dedicated to destroying the Aryan "race"; that they were money-worshipping capitalists but also capitalist-bashing Bolsheviks. The illustrations portrayed non-Jews as fair-haired, attractive, ideal Aryans. They showed Jews as dark, sinister, ugly caricatures. Following war's end, American soldiers gathered all copies of these books they could find and destroyed them.