Julius Streicher

Nazi party and regime Fascists and Nazis Counter-revolutionary forces 1885–1946 ✕ Executed

Nazi propagandist who founded the antisemitic paper Der Stürmer and was Gauleiter of Franconia

Born in Fleinhausen in Bavaria, the son of a teacher, he became an elementary school teacher and in the First World War won the Iron Cross and a commission as lieutenant. In October 1922, with Hitler present, he founded the Nazi Party branch in Nuremberg, and in May 1923 he launched the antisemitic paper Der Stürmer, which became a central organ of Nazi propaganda and made him a multimillionaire. From 1925 he was Gauleiter of Middle Franconia (later Franconia) and sat in the Bavarian Landtag and the Reichstag. In 1940 the Supreme Party Court judged him “unsuitable for leadership” and stripped him of his party offices, but he went on publishing Der Stürmer. Convicted at Nuremberg for continuing his propaganda while aware that Jews were being murdered, he was the first Nazi held accountable for inciting genocide and was hanged in 1946.

Also known as: Julius Sebastian Streicher