A Documented Artifact of a Fully Documented Crime
Published in 1938 in Nuremberg by the Stürmer-Buchverlag — the book arm of Julius Streicher’s notorious weekly — Ernst Hiemer’s Der Giftpilz is among the most cited primary sources in the scholarship of state-directed antisemitism. Its seventeen short chapters, paired with Philipp Rupprecht’s (“Fips”) eighteen color plates, were produced for classroom distribution and shaped the visual grammar of Nazi antisemitism aimed at minors. Copies of the original imprint survive in limited numbers; subsequent editions and reprints do not substitute for the 1938 text in codicological, provenance, or reception-history research.
The present copy is a second edition, 1938, ex-library — bearing markings from the library of the state-controlled teacher training college (Lehrerbildungsanstalt) at Oldenburg, Lower Saxony, an institution opened approximately two years before the book’s publication. The provenance is itself an artifact: it documents the channels by which such material was routed to trainee teachers and thence to classrooms.
Bibliographic Record
- Title
- Der Giftpilz. Ein Stürmerbuch für Jung und Alt (The Poisonous Mushroom)
- Author
- Ernst Hiemer (1900–1974)
- Illustrator
- Philipp Rupprecht, working under the pseudonym Fips — 18 color plates
- Publisher
- Stürmer-Buchverlag (Der Stürmer), Nuremberg
- Year
- 1938
- Edition
- Second edition — scarce
- Language
- German (original)
- Collation
- 64 pp., illustrated throughout
- Binding
- Publisher’s hardcover
- Dimensions
- approx. 10.5 × 8.25 in (267 × 210 mm)
- Weight
- approx. 1.2 lbs (550 g)
- Condition
- Exterior good; interior very good, minimal wear, no foxing, all leaves complete and securely bound
- Provenance
- Ex-library, Lehrerbildungsanstalt Oldenburg (Lower Saxony); library markings preserved as historical evidence
Selected Views
Research Context
Der Giftpilz is discussed in the principal surveys of National Socialist propaganda and children’s literature under the Third Reich, including the long-running English-language documentation project by Randall Bytwerk (Calvin University) and the holdings and educational resources of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem. The book’s iconography — the “poisonous mushroom” as metaphor for a falsely “friendly” minority — recurs in the prosecution record of the 1946 Streicher trial before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
“Just as a single poisonous mushroom can kill a whole family, so a solitary Jew can destroy a whole village, a whole city, even an entire Volk.” — cited in tribunal documents and reproduced in virtually every standard scholarly treatment of the Stürmer-Verlag children’s imprints, where the text functions as evidence, not endorsement.
Original 1938 copies matter to research that reprints cannot serve: paper and binding analysis, press-run identification, distribution stamps, library accession marks, ownership inscriptions, and the material traces of classroom use. The present copy carries the institutional provenance that makes such work possible.
Appropriate Use
This copy is offered for, among other uses:
- University and seminary courses on the history of antisemitism, propaganda studies, and the history of childhood under dictatorship;
- Museum and memorial-site (Gedenkstätte) collection building and exhibition;
- Archival and library acquisition as a documented specimen of Stürmer-Verlag output;
- Doctoral, post-doctoral, and independent research in book history, visual culture, and reception studies;
- Private researchers and freelance historians pursuing monograph, article, or documentary work;
- Teacher-training programs developing critical literacy and Holocaust education curricula.
It is not offered for ideological, celebratory, or decorative use, and it is not offered for reproduction, reprinting, or any form of republication. By completing an order, every buyer — institutional or individual — accepts these conditions of use together with the seller’s Terms & Conditions.
Legal & Ethical Framework
Under German law, distribution of propaganda materials of unconstitutional organizations is regulated by §§ 86, 86a StGB. Section 86 (3) StGB — the so-called Sozialadäquanzklausel — expressly exempts conduct serving “civic enlightenment, the defense against unconstitutional endeavors, art or science, research or teaching, reporting on contemporary events or history, or similar purposes.” The jurisprudence of the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has consistently affirmed that original historical imprints supplied for research, archival, educational, and museum purposes fall within this clause.
Shipment and buyer vetting are handled in line with that framework. Placing an order constitutes the buyer’s binding acceptance of the seller’s conditions of sale — including confirmation that the acquisition serves research, educational, documentary, archival, or scholarly purposes in the sense of § 86 Abs. 3 StGB and comparable provisions (e.g., Austria’s Verbotsgesetz 1947). Individual scholars and private researchers are expressly included alongside institutional buyers. The seller reserves the right to decline any order that does not meet these criteria.