Der Giftpilz

The Poisonous Mushroom

The book is composed of 17 illustrated short stories that bring together all the main motifs of antisemitism in a language adapted for children. Their titles include: ‘How to recognise a Jew’, ‘How Jewish traders cheat’, ‘How the Jew treats his domestic help’, ‘How two women were tricked by Jewish lawyers’, ‘How Jews torment animals’, ‘Money is the God of the Jews’ and ‘Are there any decent Jews?’. The book was edited by Julius Streicher (1885–1946), the founder and publisher of the virulently antisemitic newspaper ‘Der Stürmer’, a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine. The author of the texts, Ernst Hiemer, and the illustrator, Philipp Rupprecht (also known as Fips), collaborated closely with Streicher at Der Stürmer. Streicher was convicted of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trials and later executed. The book was very successful, with four printed editions and a total print run of 40,000. However, it achieved international notoriety when it was used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials, where it was instrumental in the conviction of its editor, Julius Streicher.