Some of the urban legends and conspiracy theories that wander around today, can be traced back to the propaganda of the German Nazi party. The urban legends that were sown into the rumour mill by the Nazi propaganda, has thrived and survived as urban legends in Sweden and France in the 1960s. The “Blood Libel” conspiracy theory also seems to have survived, and is strikingly similar to the “Pizza Gate” conspiracy theory.
The urban legend about “white slave trade” from “Der Stürmer”. The titles is are: “Sold to a brothel, The fate of a non-Jewish woman” and ” Blonde girls, Victims of the international girl trafficking“. The paper’s motto, “Die Juden sind unser Unglück, “The Jews are our misfortune”, appeared at the bottom of the front page of every issue from 1927 onward.
Traces back to back to the propaganda of Hitlers nazi party
Bengt Klintberg Klintberg documented that an urban legend about “white slave trade” twandered around in Sweden in the 60s, and caused acts of antisemitism in France. The same story can be found in Nazi Party propaganda from the 20s and 30s.
The Nazi-controlled weekly Der Stürmer printed this story in nine different versions, from 1927 to 1938. It was alleged here that “international Jewish leagues” were behind the “white slave trade”. Most of these were front page headlines. Some editions had the same story as the main content.
Der Stürmer tried to make these stories credible by referring to other alleged sources, such as newspapers. The stories were also “substantiated” with reference to alleged police actions in distant places that could not be easily checked, like South America.
Unfortunately, there was, and still is, human trafficking. But there never was any genuine conspiracy of Jews selling women from Germany as the Nazis claimed relentlessly in their propaganda.
The so-called “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is a classic conspiracy theory with antisemitic content that was exposed as a forgery as early as 1921. The conspiracy theory, centring on a Jewish elite allegedly wanting world domination, was a part of the core of Nazi ideology.
The conspiracy theory, despite exposure as a fraud, nevertheless, continued to spread afterwards and has done so right up to the present day. Even though these urban legends are shown to be false repeatedly, they still survive in the realm of public opinion.
Conspiracy theories with the so-called “Blood Libel”, where Jews were accused of using blood of christian children to bake matzahs, a flat bread that is used in the Passover festival. The theme can also be found in Nazi antisemitic propaganda. The May 1939 edition of Der Stürmer was dedicated to the so-called “blood libel” in which Jews were accused of practicing ritual murder in order to secure the blood of Christians.
As chapter 4. Conspiracy theories in this blog shows, the “Pizza gate” conspiracy theory, strikingly similar to the “Blood Libel”, has circulated in USA today. The “pizza gate” conspiracy theory has among other motivated armed attack on a pizza restaurant.