Germany Must Perish!

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Germany Must Perish! is the title of a 104-page book written and self-published by Theodore N. Kaufman, which advocates the genocide of the German nation.

A March 24, 1941, Time magazine review compared the book to Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, noting that, unlike Swift, Kaufman's work was not satirical.[1] An advertisement in the New York Times, stated that the book was released to the public on March 1, 1941, which Kaufman also promoted by mailing a miniature black cardboard coffin with a hinged lid to reviewers.[2] Inside the coffin was a card proclaiming, "Read GERMANY MUST PERISH! Tomorrow you will receive your copy."[3]

The back of the book's dust jacket contains excerpts from purported reviews of the book. For instance, one blurb reads, "A PLAN FOR PERMANENT PEACE AMONG CIVILIZED NATIONS! --New York Times." In reality, the Times never reviewed the book. The quotation is the entirety, plus an exclamation point, of a one-line summary of Germany Must Perish! published in "Latest Books Received" section of the paper.[4] Kaufman summarized Germany Must Perish! in the Times ad as: "A dynamic volume outlining a plan for the extinction of Germany and containing a map showing possible dissection and apportionment of its territory."[5]. In the book, Kaufman advocated the genocide of the entire German people by forced sterilization and the territorial dismemberment of Germany after an Allied victory in World War II.

At the time that Germany Must Perish! was first published, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was still nine months away and the United States had not yet entered the war. Stories of genocide by the German state were neither widely known nor believed.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Time
  2. ^ Anonymous. Advertisement for Germany Must Perish!. New York Times. 1 March 1941. p. 13.
  3. ^ "A Modest Proposal (Books)."
  4. ^ Anonymous. "Latest Books Received." New York Times. March 16 1941. p. BR29.
  5. ^ Advertisement for Germany Must Perish!.

[edit] References

  • Bytwerk, Randall L. "The Argument for Genocide in Nazi Propaganda," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 91 (2005), 37-62.
  • Herf, Jeffrey. The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 110-115.
  • Vidal-Naquet, Pierre Assassins of Memory Essays on the Denial of the Holocaust, New York: Columbia University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-231-07457-1

[edit] External links

Other external links:


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