Such lies went back 400 years to Reformation leader Martin Luther. His book, On the Jews and their Lies (1543), told Germans to murder Jews, steal their possessions and burn their homes, schools and synagogues. A Nazi pamphlet, "Aryan Law" (1934), cited Luther: "They [the Jews] hold we Christians captive in our own land .... by their cursed usury."1

This common theme appeared in a Nazi pamphlet for youth on "The German National Catechism" (1939). It asked "How has the Jew subjugated the peoples?" and then replied: "With money. He lent them money and made them pay interest." Readers were then told that the "November Revolution of 1918 ... was the work of the Jew" who "incited people... and seduced them into treason."2

When blaming Jews for Germany’s failed 1918 revolution, Hitler used the same language of subjugation and slavery by saying that:

Julius Streicher, a Nazi propagandist executed at Nuremberg, used similar tropes to describe "revolutions incited by the Jews" and "the Jewish drive for world domination ... when Germany was betrayed and enslaved." Jews, he said, desired the "final enslavement" of all Nazi and "Fascist-led peoples ... under the yoke of the world criminal Pan-Jewry."4 The idea that Jews were trying to enslave all nations was shown on the cover of Streicher’s magazine. Its vile cartoon of a fanged Jewish monster with a hammer and sickle, was captioned: "Far be it from the Jews to enslave a single people. Their goal is to devour the entire world."5

Hitler too promoted this Big Lie. He equated "plutocracy and Bolshevism" with "the common ambition of all Jews to exploit nations and make them the slaves of their international guild of criminals."6 The "plan," he said, of "Jewish-eastern Bolshevism" and "Jewish-western capitalism .... is to enslave all free nations."7 The Nazis used this "enslaved nations" motif to explain the need for WWII:

Shackled to this fascist idea that "Jewish World Domination would mean Tyranny and Slavery," was the Nazi hate for Soviets. As a Nazi booklet for soldiers and Hitler Youth noted: "[T]he Jews have their greatest hope in Russia" because it was "the springboard to reach [their] goals."9 The Jews, claimed Hitler, had taken over Russia and imposed "the most miserable type of slavery ... that the world has ever seen." Ruling this captive Soviet nation, said Hitler, was "the regime of commissars, ninety percent of whom are of Jewish descent, who control this whole slave state."10

Read more about how this vile ideology was embraced by:        • Nazi Germany        • Mackenzie King        • Yaroslav Stetsko

In September 1943 when the Red Army was forcing the Nazi military to retreat after the Battle of Stalingrad, Hitler warned that Germany might become a captive nation:

Two months later, on November 21-22, 1943, with Nazi-Germany's support, Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists build an alliance of fascist East European armies. These collaborators, calling themselves the Committee of Subjugated Nations, were later rebranded the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. As a driving force of the "Captive Nations" movement, it aided many far-right Cold War propaganda campaigns, including the "Black Ribbon Day" crusade.