Editing Julius Streicher (section)

==Trial and execution==<!-- This section is linked from [[Der Stürmer]] -->

[[File:1946-10-08 21 Nazi Chiefs Guilty.ogv|thumb|right|8 October 1946 newsreel of [[Nuremberg Trials]] sentencing]]
During his trial, Streicher claimed that he had been mistreated by Allied soldiers after his capture.{{sfn|Bytwerk|2001|p=42}} He was examined by Chief Medical Officer [[Rene Juchli|Lt. Col. Rene Juchli]] who reported that Streicher had partial paralysis of his left leg as a result of an old skiing injury.{{sfn|''Los Angeles Times'', October 1945}} When the German version of the [[Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale|Wechsler-Bellevue]] [[IQ test]] was administered by [[Gustave Gilbert]], Streicher had an above average IQ (106), yet still the lowest among the defendants.{{sfn|Weitz|1992|p=332}} Streicher was not a member of the military and did not take part in planning the Holocaust, or the invasion of other nations. Yet his actions during the war were significant enough, in the prosecutors' judgment, to include him in the trial of Major War Criminals before the [[Nuremberg Trials|International Military Tribunal]] – which sat in Nuremberg, where Streicher had once been an unchallenged authority. He complained throughout the process that all his judges were Jews.{{sfn|Snyder|1989|pp=54–56}}

Most of the evidence against Streicher came from his numerous speeches and articles over the years.{{sfn|Snyder|1989|pp=56–57}} In essence, prosecutors contended that Streicher's articles and speeches were so incendiary that he was an [[accessory (legal term)|accessory]] to murder, and therefore as culpable as those who actually ordered the mass extermination of Jews. They further argued that he kept up his antisemitic propaganda even after he was aware that Jews were being slaughtered.{{sfn|Snyder|1989|p=57}}

Streicher was acquitted of [[crime against peace|crimes against peace]], but found guilty of [[crimes against humanity]], and [[capital punishment|sentenced to death]] on 1 October 1946. The judgment against him read, in part:

{{quote|For his 25 years of speaking, writing and preaching hatred of the Jews, Streicher was widely known as "Jew-Baiter Number One." In his speeches and articles, week after week, month after month, he infected the German mind with the [[virus]] of anti-Semitism, and incited the German people to active persecution. [...] Streicher's incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with war crimes, as defined by the Charter, and constitutes a crime against humanity.{{sfn|Avalon Project, ''Judgement: Streicher''}}}}

He, along with [[Hans Fritzsche]], were the first persons to be indicted for what would later be classified as [[incitement to genocide]],{{sfn|Timmermann|2006|pp=827–828}} though Fritzsche was acquitted at trial.

[[File:Dead Julius Streicher.jpg|thumb|left|The body of Julius Streicher after being hanged, 16 October 1946]]

During his trial, Streicher displayed for the last time the flair for courtroom theatrics that had made him famous in the 1920s. He answered questions from his own defense attorney with diatribes against Jews, the Allies, and the court itself, and was frequently silenced by the court officers. He cited the works of [[Theodore_N._Kaufman|Theodore Kaufman]], [[Germany Must Perish!|who called for the genocide of Germans by mass sterilization]], as justification for his claims about the Jewry's aggression against Germany.{{sfn|Lombardo|2010|pp=228, 236}} He also peppered his testimony with references to passages of Jewish texts that he also cited in the pages of ''[[Der Stürmer]]''.{{sfn|Conot|2000|pp=381–389}}

Streicher was [[hanging|hanged]] at Nuremberg Prison in the early hours of 16 October 1946, along with the nine other condemned defendants from the first Nuremberg trial. Göring, Streicher's nemesis, had committed [[suicide]] only hours earlier. Streicher's was the most melodramatic of the hangings carried out that night. At the bottom of the scaffold he cried out "[[Heil Hitler]]!". When he mounted the platform, he delivered his last sneering reference to Jewish scripture, snapping "''[[Purim|Purimfest]]''!"{{sfn|Wistrich|1995|p=252}} Streicher's final declaration before the hood went over his head was, "The [[Bolsheviks]] will hang you one day!"{{sfn|Conot|2000|p=506}} Joseph Kingsbury-Smith, a journalist for the [[International News Service]] who covered the executions,{{Efn|See the ''LA Times'' article commemorating Kingsbury-Smith at: [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-06-me-5431-story.html J. Kingsbury-Smith; Honored Journalist]}} said in his filed report that after the hood descended over Streicher's head, he said "Adele, meine liebe Frau!" ("Adele, my dear wife!").{{sfn|Radlmeier|2001|pp=345–346}}

The consensus among eyewitnesses was that Streicher did not receive a quick death from [[Spinal cord|spinal]] severing. As with at least several others, the bungled hanging was caused by the willful sabotage of the hangman, [[Master Sergeant]] [[John C. Woods]].{{sfn|Duff|1999|p=130}} 

Streicher's body, along with those of the other nine executed men and the corpse of Hermann Göring, was cremated at [[Ostfriedhof (Munich)]] and the ashes were scattered in the Isar River.{{sfn|Manvell|Fraenkel|2011|p=393}}{{clear left}}