An Infamous Document of National Socialist Indoctrination
Issued by Julius Streicher's Stürmer Verlag in Nuremberg in 1936, Elvira Bauer's picture book is among the most notorious surviving artefacts of Nazi propaganda aimed at children. Its forty-four pages — ten rhymed sections illustrated by Philipp Rupprecht ("Fips"), chief caricaturist of Der Stürmer — systematise the antisemitic stereotypes the regime sought to plant in the youngest readers. Approximately 110,000 copies were issued across eight editions and distributed through schools; the book was later entered into evidence at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg as a primary document of the indoctrination of German youth.
The present example is a copy of the second edition (26th–40th thousand, 1936), bound in the original illustrated publisher's boards with text set in Sütterlin script. Its provenance is institutional: an ex-library copy from a boys' school (Knabenschule) in Türkheim, Bavaria, bearing library stamps on the front endpaper and on the title page. The boards are lightly rubbed and edge-worn; the interior carries mild finger-soiling consistent with classroom use; all pages are complete and the block remains tight. As a documented school copy, it illustrates not only the text itself but the concrete administrative pathway by which such material reached children during the Third Reich.
Bibliographic Record
- Title
- Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud bei seinem Eid. Ein Bilderbuch für Groß und Klein (Trust No Fox on His Green Heath and No Jew on His Oath. A Picture Book for Young and Old)
- Author
- Elvira Bauer (b. 1915)
- Illustrator
- Philipp Rupprecht ("Fips", 1900–1975), chief caricaturist of Der Stürmer
- Publisher
- Stürmer Verlag (Verlag Der Stürmer), Nuremberg
- Year
- 1936
- Edition
- 2nd edition (26.–40. Tausend / 26th–40th thousand)
- Language
- German, set in Sütterlin script
- Collation
- 44 pages with 31 colour illustrations by Philipp Rupprecht ("Fips")
- Binding
- Original illustrated hardcover (publisher's boards)
- Dimensions
- Approx. 7¾ × 9¾ in. (ca. 197 × 248 mm), quarto format
- Weight
- Approx. 1 lb. (ca. 450 g)
- Condition
- Very good exterior, good interior. Boards lightly rubbed and edge-worn. Mild finger-soiling throughout from classroom use. Library stamps of a boys' school in Türkheim on the front endpaper and title page. All pages complete; block tight in binding.
- Provenance
- Ex-library copy, Knabenschule (boys' school), Türkheim, Bavaria — institutional school provenance, documented by stamps.
Selected Views
Research Context
Bauer's book belongs to the small corpus of children's titles produced under the direct supervision of Julius Streicher and his publishing house. It is one of three such works — alongside Der Giftpilz (1938) and Der Pudelmopsdackelpinscher (1940) — that translated the visual grammar of Der Stürmer into a register addressed to primary-school readers. Roughly 110,000 copies circulated across eight printings, with schools, Hitler-Jugend libraries, and Party distribution networks acting as the principal conduits into classrooms and homes.
Scholars of Holocaust education have repeatedly cited the volume as evidence that the dehumanisation of Jewish citizens was not an improvised wartime measure, but a programme deliberately advanced through the classroom from the mid-1930s onward.
The book's inclusion in the Nuremberg Trials record — where it was submitted to demonstrate the systematic indoctrination of German youth — cemented its status as a canonical primary source for twentieth-century propaganda studies, antisemitism research, and the history of education under dictatorship. Holdings today are concentrated in Holocaust museums, university special collections, and research libraries; copies with documented institutional school provenance, such as the present example, are of particular evidentiary value.
Appropriate Use
This copy is offered strictly as a primary source, intended for:
- scholarly research on Nazi propaganda, antisemitism, and children's literature under dictatorship;
- university teaching on the history of education, mass persuasion, and the Holocaust;
- museum and archival collection-building in Holocaust-, antisemitism-, and propaganda-studies institutions;
- documentary and journalistic work with appropriate historical contextualisation;
- independent historians and private researchers working in these fields.
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.