Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

192 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 1:187
In Suceava, there was an old hag, a Jewess who sold devils. A man went
to buy and was shown one in the guise of a big snake and she wanted to
know whether the buyer was afraid. He said no. The Jewess turned him
into a frog and when it opened one fierce mouth at him, the man fled and
was cured of all his need of it. (Oi¸steanu 2009, 316)
The Nazis understood the power of myth to control and direct the
peasantry. As they seized power in 1933, a call went out to ban what they
termed folk-alien literature. Folk-alien tales were to be replaced with
“heroic literature”—Nordic myths and legends that depicted German racial
superiority, as in The Strongest One Always Wins. As a means of instilling
ideology, the revamped folktale was so important that teams of writers
would spend countless hours revamping the Nazi agenda to fit with fairy
tales and fables (Dow and Lixfeld 1994; Kamenetsky 1972, 1979; Mieder
1997; Proud 1997). Wolfgang Mieder (1982) further demonstrated the great
lengths Nazis went to in order to write out any references to Jews as part of
the bauernstand and update them as more alien. Censors would quickly
delete any references to pacifism, altruism, or peasant stupidity. The peasant
was upgraded to warrior status (Kamenetsky 1992). By 1938, the Workshop
for German Folklore had developed a bibliography that acted as a
guide for educators and leaders of Hitler Youth. Folklore—especially fairy
tales, legends, jokes, and proverbs—was to prove that the healthy volk
mind had long recognized the Jew’s negative qualities. Examining the Nazi
propaganda themes led historian Norman Cohn to conclude that “the drive
to exterminate Jews sprang from a quasi-demonological superstition”
(1996, xii). Then it was only a matter of spreading the superstition. Such
“inherited folk memory viewed Jews as evil children of Satan” (Perry and
Schweitzer 2002, 260; also see Perry and Schweitzer 2007), and blame was
correctly placed on the clergy; but it was more than that. Folklore and social
fantasy turned out to be natural transmitters of antisemitism, and people
were always hungry for a good tale and morality play.
What a creature is the Jew. Not even his own women he likes.
To share himself a German wife He thinks just cute. You bet your life!
Look at Jew and girl right here: ‘Tis sure he can’t be thought her peer!
Compare him with this German Frau. He cuts a pitiable figure now!
I would the Jew had sense to own. He’d best leave German girls alone.
Try his own “kalle” instead.
—From Bauer’s Don’t Trust a Fox in a Green Meadow or the Word of a Jew