The Nuremberg Racial Laws

   Diligently pursuing his appointed task of linking the bible to Naziism, the aforementioned Jim Walker has posted on his website a quote from one of the Nuremberg defendants, the aforementioned Julius Streicher. Attempting to justify himself before the tribunal, Herr Streicher said about the Nuremberg Race Laws:

Yes, I believe I had a part in it insofar as for years I have written that any further mixture of German blood with Jewish blood must be avoided. I have written such articles again and again; and in my articles I have repeatedly emphasized the fact that the Jews should serve as an example to every race, for they created the racial law for themselves-- the law of Moses, which says, "If you come into a foreign land you shall not take unto yourself foreign women." And that, Gentlemen, is of tremendous importance in judging the Nuremberg Laws.. These laws of the Jews were taken as a model for these laws. When after centuries, the Jewish lawgiver Ezra demonstrated that notwithstanding many Jews had married non-Jewish women, these marriages were dissolved. That was the beginning of Jewry which, because it introduced these racial laws, has survived throughout the centuries, while all other races and civilizations have perished. [http://www.nobeliefs.com/henchmen.htm](note 21)

   Here we have what some would call an open and shut case. This will demonstrate to some that the bible is a bad book, and that the people who believe in it are menaces to society who should be excluded from public life.
   It is true that Herr Streicher read the bible - however, his opinions of the bible were different from what someone who passively relied on Mr. Walker's information might think. The following quotation from Der Stuermer sheds more light on what Herr Streicher thought of the bible. It also reveals the folly of taking isolated religious statements by Nazis at face value.

"* * * and all the same, or, let us say, just because of this, the history book of the Jews, which is usually called the Holy Scriptures, impresses us as a horrible criminal romance, which makes the 150 penny-dreadfuls of the British Jew, Edgar Wallace, go green with envy. This 'holy' book abounds in murder, incest, fraud, theft, and indecency." (2697-PS). [get title http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Streicher.htm] (note 22)

Another statement from one of Streicher's speeches reveals him to have been either a deliberate liar, or hopelessly ignorant of the bible's message: "Do you not know that the God of the Old Testament orders the Jews to consume and enslave the peoples of the earth?" [http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Streicher.htm](note 23)
   Why would someone who hated the bible and considered it to be a book of lies and murder appeal to it for his defense? It doesn't take any deep philosophical insight to understand that a man on trial for his life might resort to any trick, any evasion, to minimize his guilt. The testimonies of the defendants at Nuremberg do not reveal the courage and honesty of upright men of integrity prepared to suffer for their convictions. There was a great deal of equivocation, evasion, dishonesty. The judges at any rate were not convinced by Streicher's argument "We were only following the bible" - they sentenced him to be hanged.
   One could stop with the simple argument that the Jewish law about marriage was related to religious belief, not to race - two vastly different and non-related concepts. The bible has nothing to do with modern scientific racism. The fact that countless Christians in innumerable countries have read the laws of Moses in the Old Testament but never thought of inventing racial laws (let alone enforcing them) shows clearly that this is a modern interpretation, and a German one.
   It is interesting to note that a website such as http://www.evilbible.com shares the view of a vicious and brutal Nazi about the bible as a book of lies, murder, and indecency. That should give some enemies of the bible cause for reflection, but of course it will not.
   It is also worthwhile to ask why Mr. Walker gave the impression that Herr Streicher believed in the bible and was following it, when in fact he hated the bible and saw it as a bunch of lies. It is possible that Mr. Walker was not aware of the quote - however, since he has carefully assembled many quotes from Nazi leaders, and I found this quote from Streicher in about five minutes in the first links that came up in a search, it is more likely that Mr. Walker also came across it. His goal is to make the Nazis seem like Christians, however, and this quote would not help him achieve his goal, so he probably just covered it up. After all, if you tell lies that are agreeable to people who hate Jesus and Christianity, they will not carefully examine your evidence, but will blindly and uncritically accept it.
   There are some other quotes by Herr Streicher that say something about the Nazi approach to scripture. He was quoted above as saying "That was the beginning of Jewry which, because it introduced these racial laws, has survived throughout the centuries...." Jewry began with the racial laws? So much for God's covenant with Abraham and the deliverance of the Jews from Egypt. That is the essence and secret of Judaism - racial purity?
   Another false statement is "The Jew slaughtered in one night 75,000 people ; when he emigrated to Egypt he killed all the first-born, i. e. a whole future generation of Egyptians" [http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Streicher.htm](note 24). The Jews killed the Egyptians when they emigrated there! I don't think even someone like Mr. Walker would want to assert that the Nazis believed Torah was inspired by God and historically true.
   Mr. Streicher also had an equally profound misunderstanding of the New Testament. He is quoted as saying "Christ was not a Jew but an Aryan" [http://www.nobeliefs.com/henchmen.htm].(note 25) This basic teaching of "German Christianity" or "Positive Christianity" - about which more later - is not the view of someone who takes the bible literally. His view of Christianity as a whole is expressed here: "Why cannot you realize, you Protestant clergymen, you Catholic priests, you who have scales before your eyes and serve the god of the Jews who is not the God of Love but the God of Hate. Why do you not listen to Christ, who said to the Jews, 'You are children of the devil'." [http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Streicher.htm](note 26)
   The Catholics and Protestants were serving the God of the Jews. The concept of Christianity as nothing but a Jewish trick that corrupted and weakened the proud and fierce German warriors of old with false ideas about guilt and sin will be examined later. It was with this is mind that Herr Streicher said that the Jews "had ruined the German nation in body and soul" [http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Streicher.htm]. (note 27) The idea that the Jews ruined the soul of Germany through the introduction of Christianity and its "Jewish" concepts of the afterlife, heaven, hell, and God (along with other ideas such as democracy and Marxism) was not unique to Streicher. Hitler did not want to alienate potential supporters by saying such things publicly, but his associates said such things freely. Hitler could then disavow such statements publicly while he tolerated or encouraged them privately.
   Herr Streicher also refers to the Jews here as "children of the devil." That he could read the four gospels - if he ever did read them - and completely miss all of Christ's teachings about God, the day of judgement, and the world to come, shows that he did not take the bible seriously. Streicher's attempt to pin his bizarre ideology on the bible was only a lie, similar to another lie that he told the court in a vain attempt to save his life: that he had not wanted to exterminate the Jews, but had only wanted to separate them, or have them immigrate. This cowardly and farcical denial of his crime was easily refuted by his numerous published statements calling for the extermination of the Jews and even rejoicing that the extermination was actually being carried out. The following extract shows the worth of testimony by honest and upright Nazi war criminals. Speaking of Streicher's attempts to deny his guilt at Nuremberg, Dr. Stuart Stein has written:

As early as 1938 he began to call for the annihilation of the Jewish race. Twenty-three different articles of " Der Sturmer " between 1938 and 1941 were produced in evidence, in which the extermination " root and branch " was preached. Typical of his teachings was a leading article in September, 1938, which termed the Jew a germ and a pest, not a human being, but" a parasite, an enemy, an evildoer, a disseminator of diseases who must be destroyed in the interest of mankind." Other articles urged that only when world Jewry had been annihilated would the Jewish problem have been solved, and predicted that fifty years hence the Jewish graves "will proclaim that this people of murderers and criminals has after all met its deserved fate." Streicher, in February, 1940, published a letter from one of " Der Sturmer's" readers which compared Jews with swarms of locusts which must be exterminated completely.
In December, 1942, referring to an article in the "London Times" about the atrocities, aiming at extermination, Streicher said that Hitler had given warning that the second World War would lead to the destruction of Jewry. In January, 1943, he wrote and published an article which said that Hitler's prophecy was being fulfilled, that world Jewry was being extirpated, and that it was wonderful to know that Hitler was freeing the world of its Jewish tormentors.
With knowledge of the extermination of the Jews in the Occupied Eastern Territory, this defendant continued to write and publish his propaganda of death. Testifying in this trial, he vehemently denied any knowledge of mass executions of Jews. But the evidence makes it clear that he continually received current information on the progress of the " final solution ". His press photographer was sent to visit the ghettos of the East in the Spring of 1943, the time of the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto.
A leading article of "Der Sturmer" in May, 1939, shows clearly his aim:
"A punitive expedition must come against the Jews in Russia. A punitive expedition which will provide the same fate for them that every murderer and criminal must expect. Death sentence and execution. The Jews in Russia must be killed. They must be exterminated root and branch."
In the record are twenty-six articles from " Der Sturmer", published between August, 1941 and September, 1944, twelve by Streicher's own hand, which demanded annihilation and extermination in unequivocal terms. He wrote and published on 25th December, 1941:
"If the danger of the reproduction of that curse of God in the Jewish blood is to finally come to an end, then there is only one way-the extermination of that people whose father is the devil."  [http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Streicher2.htm] (note 28)

But, he tried to deny all of this and claimed he was just following the bible. If someone has confidence in Julius Streicher and wants to take him or any other Nazi at his word, they are at liberty to do so. Some people will stop at nothing in their attempts to blacken Christians and Christianity.