Topham's trial is a storybook battle of the brave little guy against goliath. The 68-year-old Topham lives on an isolated farm in BC, and has worked as a carpenter, miner, farmer, and journalist-publisher. The crown's chief witness against him was Len Rudner from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). Prior to this trial, Rudner had attempted to force Topham's internet provider to shut down his web site, and no doubt took satisfaction when a hacker mysteriously wiped out its contents in 2006.
As evidence of hate, Rudner presented Topham's political poster which truthfully (if provocatively) shows the theatrical state of Canadian-Israeli relations today
(thanks Len, for bringing this sizzling graphic to the attention of millions of Canadians).
Then the trial turned to Israel Must Perish!, Topham's parody based on a now forgotten book Germany Must Perish! (1942) by Theodore Kaufman.
One of the most bizarre literary careers in America is that of the now obscure Theodore Kaufman, a pacifist member of the American Federation of Peace, born in 1910, whose first publication was "Life Liberty Pursuit of Happiness - Where? In The Graves of European Battle Fields?" (1938). He, like most Americans at the time who bothered thinking about it, realized the insanity of WWI, and even in 1938 was, again, like most Americans, staunchly against US participation in the coming war. He differed from most American Jews, who by then were pressing the US to join in the battle against Hitler, who was openly persecuting Jews in Germany and had vowed to clear Europe of them.
As the US war began and the evidence against Nazi crimes mounted, Kaufman drew inspiration, and wrote his startling book Germany Must Perish!, advocating the sterilization of all German males. A few hausfrau s could be left to breed, but preferably with non-Germans, so a defanged German identity could be left extant.
Whew! What a hot potato that seems these days. But hardly warranting a prison sentence for the author. And in any case eugenics and sterilization were not taboo in the 1930s. The British Eugenics Education Society (1907) and the American Eugenics Society (1921) promoted eugenics. Patients with mental illness were sterilized not only in Nazi Germany but in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Japan, and Sweden. At its peak of popularity, supporters of eugenics included Winston Churchill, HG Wells, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and George Bernard Shaw. Granted, sterilizing all Germans sounds a bit over-the-top.
Just before his epiphany and the publication of Germany Must Perish!, pacifist Kaufman went so far as to advocate sterilizing all American troops: "A possible plea to Congress. ... Have Us All Sterilized! ... If You Plan On Sending Us To A Foreign War ... Spare Us Any Possibility Of Ever Bringing Children Into This World -- Into This Country Of Ours!" Kaufman's book was ignored in the US. 1941 was not a good year for civil rights advocates, especially of German rights. Americans of German descent were being herded into prison camps along with Japanese Americans and communists.
Kaufman's greatest fan
Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels read the book and immediately grasped its value, writing in his diary: "This Jew did a real service for the enemy [German] side. Had he written this book for us, he could not have made it any better." Under Goebbels' direction, Germany Must Perish! became a staple of German radio and press, convincing wavering Germans that killing Jews was necessary and justified, till the last Jewish death was registered as the Reich collapsed.
What a horrifying legacy for the gentle, militantly pacifist Kaufman, who apparently soon rued his rhetoric. His final publication at his Argyle Press was the March 1942 brochure titled "No More German Wars! Being an outline for their permanent cessation", advocating democratic re-education of the German population. But it was read by no one. He tried to atone, dropping his pacifism, and enlisting in the US Army, along with his three brothers. After World War II, Kaufman disappeared entirely from public life and died in 1986, not in Israel but in his 'homeland' in New Jersey, in obscurity. Not feted by Israel as a Zionist icon--with good reason, as he greatly facilitated the murderous deeds of the Nazis through his success in promoting hatred of his own people through his scandalous screed.
Kaufman's surprising legacies
In a bizarre twist, Israeli Zionist hate literature continues the shortlived propaganda life of Kaufman, promoting daily murder and occasional campaigns of mass ethnic cleansing and wholesale slaughter of Palestinians. In yet another bizarre twist--more hopeful--the Zionist version of Kaufman's screed--Palestine Must Perish!--has inspired millions of people--including Jews--to fight Zionism, much like Kaufman's book inspired Germans to fight and to victimize Jews as agents for destroying Germans.
In his defense, Kaufman's plans were not so different from FDR's (Jewish) Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, who advocated dismantling postwar Germany's industrial base, turning it into a harmless (destitute) rural nation. Lucky for the Germans, the US occupational forces did not follow directions for large-scale destruction of mines and industrial plant, giving wide-ranging discretion to the military governor and Morgenthau's opponents at the War Department.
Celebrating Zundel's 30th anniversary
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