AI Summary
5 min readEnemy, Prologue: Enemies of All Mankind
In March 1941, a Jewish American publisher named Theodore Kaufman published a book called Germany Must Perish. It proposed sterilizing 48 million Germans—a "safe and simple operation" taking no more than ten minutes per person—so that the German nation would gradually disappear within two generations. "Germany must perish forever," Kaufman wrote, "in fact, not in fancy." The book received little attention from the American public, but it was reviewed by Time Magazine and the Washington Post, and it circulated in Roosevelt's State Department. When Joseph Goebbels got hold of it, he recognized its propaganda value immediately: here was proof, from a Jewish author reviewed in Jewish-owned newspapers, that the Allies intended nothing less than the total destruction of the German people. Goebbels printed millions of copies, showed the book to Hitler, and used it to justify requiring Jews to wear the Yellow Star. The American journalist Howard K. Smith wrote that no man had ever done "so irresponsible a disservice to the cause his nation is fighting and suffering."
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:03) **Introduction and Context for "Enemy" Series** - Darrell Cooper introduces the new series *Enemy: The German's War* and addresses the controversy from his Tucker Carlson interview.
- 2 (03:52) **Guiding Principle: Understanding Over Morality** - Cooper rejects the "angels and demons" narrative of WWII and introduces Timothy Snyder's *Bloodlands* as the series' guiding light.
- 3 (08:33) **The Wrong Lessons of WWII** - Cooper argues the main lesson taken from the war—that "bad guys" must be fought immediately—has been used to justify every US war since 1945.
- 4 (16:52) **The Pre-War Peace Debate** - Cooper recounts a 1940 BBC discussion where a friend argued for negotiating with Hitler, saying even a day of peace is a day of peace.
- 5 (22:53) **Theodore Kaufman's "Germany Must Perish"** - Cooper reads extensive excerpts from Kaufman's 1941 book, which advocated for the total sterilization of the German people.
- 6 (36:16) **Goebbels Exploits Kaufman's Book** - Joseph Goebbels recognized the propaganda value of Kaufman's book, printing millions of copies for German soldiers and the public.
- 7 (40:41) **Goebbels' 1943 Article on the "Jewish Question"** - Cooper reads Goebbels' article from *Das Reich*, which framed the war as a racial war started by international Jewry.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
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The Second World War was the greatest catastrophe in human history. Sixty million people dead. Entire nations destroyed. All sides engaged in the wholesale slaughter of enemy civilian populations. And the nuclear demon unleashed upon the world. It was the war in which the United States and our allies conquered the world, and eighty years after Germany's defeat, the story of the war remains our civilization's most important load-bearing myth. Myths are stories told by the winners to legitimize their victory, but in real history the losers have their own story to tell. This series will explore the deep history of the Second World War through the eyes of the Enemy.
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