Editing H. L. Mencken (section)

====Jews====
[[Chaz Bufe]], an admirer of Mencken, wrote that Mencken's various anti-Semitic statements should be understood in the context that Mencken made bombastic and over-the-top denunciations of almost any national, religious, and ethnic group. One of his autobiographers noted:

{{cquote|Thus, rhetorically at least, he lived life more dramatically than most other mortals, attempted more, risked more, said more, and said it more colorfully on a wider range of subjects than perhaps any other writer of his generation. The result, depending on what he came out with at any given time, was that he appeared to be both the best friend and the worst enemy of Jews, blacks, and numerous other segments of the population.
The truth is that a hundred statements could be chosen to “prove” Mencken anti-Semitic and a hundred to “prove” he was not.
| source = Fred Hobson<ref>Mencken: A Life (1994), Chapter 17, Germany (p. 412) </ref>|||
}}

That said, Bufe still wrote that some of Mencken's statements were "odious", such as his claim in his 1918 introduction to Nietzsche's [[The Antichrist (book)|''The Anti-Christ'']] that "The case against the Jews is long and damning; it would justify ten thousand times as many [[pogrom]]s as now go on in the world".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19322/19322-h/19322-h.htm |title=The Anti-Christ |date=1999 |publisher=See Sharp Press |isbn=1-884365-20-5 |location=Tucson, Arizona |author-link=Friedrich Nietzsche |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210621153355/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19322/19322-h/19322-h.htm |archive-date=June 21, 2021 |url-status=live}} Note: URL goes to Gutenberg version of just Mencken's text, but does not include Chaz Bufe's introduction or slight changes.</ref> Mencken was also an Axis sympathizer who berated the Allied war effort as late as 1944.<ref>{{Cite web |last=By |date=1989-12-17 |title=MENCKEN’S DIARY REVEALS ANTI-SEMITISM, BIGOTRY |url=https://www.sun-sentinel.com/1989/12/17/menckens-diary-reveals-anti-semitism-bigotry/ |access-date=2025-02-25 |website=Sun Sentinel |language=en-US}}</ref>