Germany Must Perish!

In 1941, amid the global upheaval of World War II, American author Theodore Kaufman released a deeply controversial book titled Germany Must Perish!. In it, Kaufman proposed a radical and horrifying solution to what he saw as the root cause of global conflict: the German people themselves. He argued that Germany’s repeated aggression in modern history was not incidental but intrinsic—woven into the national character. To prevent future wars, Kaufman advocated for the complete sterilization of the German population and the dissolution of the German state. His plan included redistributing German territory to neighboring countries and erasing German culture and identity. He believed that only by eliminating the possibility of future generations of Germans could the world achieve lasting peace. Though Kaufman was a private citizen with no governmental authority, his book was seized upon by the National Socialists as a powerful propaganda tool. They used it to claim that Jews in America were plotting the extermination of the German people, despite the book’s lack of influence or official support. In National Socialist rhetoric, Germany Must Perish! became a symbol of alleged Jewish hostility, helping to justify their own genocidal policies. Today, the book is remembered not for its influence—since it had little—but as a disturbing example of wartime extremism. It stands as a cautionary tale about how even fringe ideas, when weaponized by authoritarian regimes, can be used to inflame hatred and justify atrocities.