Hitler and his God

The Jewish Stereotype

In the previous chapters we had glimpses of the anti-Jewish aspect of the völkisch movement, because both were inseparable: being völkisch meant being racist, at least to some degree, and in Germany racism was practically synonymous with anti-Semitism. It was the aim of the völkisch movement to restore the health of the body of the Volk; this could only be done if all elements alien to this body, acting as enfeebling parasites or illness-causing germs, were discarded from it. Such an eliminatory attitude, caused by the inherent egoism of all closely bounded groupings, societies and nations, has been the common stance throughout history. In most of Europe the Jews became the suspects and victims of the Christians, who forgot that when the Christian movement was still young they themselves, for almost identical reasons, had been persecuted by the Romans, thrown to the lions, or crucified and lit as torches by Emperor Nero.

“Anti-Semitism became the chief vehicle for the diffusion of the völkisch movement”, writes George Mosse. “Those who were attracted primarily by anti-Semitism had no difficulty in accepting the basic völkisch ideas, and those already in the movement took readily to the precepts of anti-Semitic racism … The anti-Semitism embraced by Hitler was not just an opportunistic device, but a deeply felt conviction strengthened by the whole völkisch outlook. And even though it was part of a spiritual disposition and an attitude toward life that was founded on belief in an irrational cosmology, life forces and nature mysticism (and consequently could have been derided as the outlook of a mentally deranged person), it was real nonetheless.” 532 If this is correct, it should be added that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was a radicalized version of the most aggressive völkisch variations of anti-Semitism which covered the whole spectrum, from respectful coexistence to the views of outright elimination in whatever way. It remains nevertheless a subject of discussion that anyone but Hitler ever thought of doing away with the Jews physically.

The völkisch movement, especially through its youth organizations, became a gigantic instrument to propagate anti-Judaism in Germany; the mentality it stood for, imprinted on the minds of a great part of the German youth, will contribute in a substantial measure to the background which rendered the Holocaust possible. One propaganda technique, borrowed from the popular lore, is to make the “other”, whether enemy or just “not one of us”, into a stereotype. The völkisch stereotype of the Jew would afterwards be taken over by the propaganda machine of the Third Reich. “The Jew lacked a soul, all virtues, and the capacity for ethical behaviour for the reason that Judaism was a fossilized legalism. What a striking contrast this made with the German soul, steeped as it was in communion with the cosmos, the recipient of nature’s mysteries, striving to relate itself to the glorious deeds of its ancestors, and rooted in nature, the soil and the landscape …

“Slowly the stereotype took its effect. On the ethical and religious fronts, it was asked whether, if the Jew lacked a proper soul, he could be classed as human. On the economic and social front it was asserted that Jews had consorted in diabolical intrigues to seize power in order to dominate the Gentile world … In a whole series of novels Jewish characters lacked all human qualities and met miserable fates, victims of their egoistical power drives. The objectification of the Jew as evil by means of his inner drives was reinforced by an emphasis on his outward appearance. Race, after all, was a total criterion. The physical properties of the Jew were accordingly contrasted with the Germanic ideal of beauty; a contorted figure resting on short legs, a greedy and sensual corpulence, and, of course, ‘the Jewish nose’, were unfavourably compared with the aesthetically proportioned figure of the Nordic man. To be sure, such stereotypes had been in existence since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but they were not as critical then. The Jew at that early date was still pictured as a comic, though grotesque, figure. In the image presented by the völkisch thought, he became a menace; he held the Germans in actual bondage.

“The racial stereotype attributed so many grotesque qualities to the Jew that he was in essence dehumanized”, concludes Mosse. 533 Dehumanization is the necessary condition for the superior man to activate and justify his feelings of superiority towards other humans or the rest of humanity as a whole. The “others” are then no longer human beings but a kind of lowly, despicable and expendable things, which can be treated at will and even done away with without psychological qualms. (Franz Stangl, former commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp, called the arriving trainloads of Jews “cargo”.¹) It is one of the wondrous capabilities of the human being to be able to reduce his fellow creatures to things, even to nothings.