“Whenever you encounter a real Jew, you may in good faith make the
sign of the cross and openly and fearlessly pronounce the words `This is a
veritable devil'”. “Therefore,” the Reformer told his followers, “do not
doubt and never forget, beloved Christians, that apart from Satan himself,
you possess no more deadly poisonous, and dreadful enemy than a real Jew.
I know that. They poison wells, kidnap and maltreat children.”

“Even with no further evidence than the Old Testament, I would maintain,
and no person on earth could alter my opinion, that the Jews as they are
today are veritably a mixture of all the depraved and malevolent knaves
of the whole world over, who have been dispersed in all countries, similarly
to the Tartars and gypsies and such folk, to afflict the different nations
with their usury, to spy upon others and to betray, to poison wells, to
deceive and kidnap children, in short to practice all kinds of dishonesty
and injury.”

There was, according to Luther, no good or human quality
about the Jews. “What is good in us Christians, they ignore; what is
wrong in us Christians the Jews take advantage of.” “The breath of the
Jews reeks.” “Their rabbis teach them that theft and robbery is no sin”
(W53, 489).

“The Jews professing to be surgeons or doctors deprive
the Christians who make use of their medicaments of health and prosperity
for such Jewish doctors believe they find especial favour with their God
if they torment and furtively kill Christians. And we, fools that we are,
even turn for succour to our enemies and their evil ways in the times when
our lives are in danger, which is indeed sorely trying God's patience.”

I do not believe that even the notorious “Der Sturmer” of Dr.
Streicher surpassed the sayings of Brother Martin. “It is impossible to
teach or re-educate the Jews”. “A more bloodthirsty and vindictive race
has never seen the light of day.” So the Reformer goes on and on.

As so often before, Luther's worst utterances are not fit for quotation
or reproduction. “Many of the obscenities occurring in his sermons
and writings on the Jews are suggested by proverbs which themselves reek
too much of the stable, but which he sometimes still further embellishes”
(Grisar). “In his books (on Jews) Luther's peculiar talent for indelicate
language reached its climax. He wrote with unchecked ferocity, and indulged
freely in his quaint practice of befouling the objects of his hate with
imaginary animal excreta” (Lipsky).

“Were God to promise me no other
Messiah than him for whom the Jews hope, I would much rather be a pig than
a man,” is one of his mildest sayings. “Were a rabbi to ease himself into
a vessel under your nose, both thick and thin, and say `Here you have a
delicious conserve', you would have to say you had never tasted a better
dish in your life. Risk your neck and say differently! For if a man has
the power to say like the rabbis that right is left and left is right,
regardless of God and all His creatures, he can just as well say that his
anus is his mouth, that his belly is a pudding-dish, and that a
pudding-dish is his belly"”(E32, 285).

“Whenever you see or think
of a Jew, say to yourself `Look, that mouth that I see before me has every
Saturday cursed, execrated, and spat upon my dear Lord Jesus Christ Who
redeemed me with His precious blood, and has also invoked maledictions on
my wife and child and all Christians that they might be murdered and
perish miserably. He himself would gladly do it if he could, if only in
order to get hold of our goods; maybe he has already today many times spat
on the ground, as it is their custom to do when the name of Jesus is
mentioned, so that his venomous spittle still hangs about his mouth and
beard and leaves scarcely room to spit again. Were I to eat, drink, or
speak with such a devilish mouth, I might as well eat and drink out of a
can or vessel brimful with devils, and thus become partaker with the
devils who dwell in the Jews and spit at the Precious Blood of Christ.
From which God may preserve us” (E32, 141).

So the Reformer continues
throughout his writings. “The Jews are malignant snakes and imps”.
“Whoever would like to cherish such adders and puny devils—who are the
worst enemies of Christ and us all—to befriend them and to do them honour
simply in order to be cheated, plundered, robbed, disgraced, and forced to
howl and curse and suffer every kind of evil, to him I would commend the
Jews. And if this be not enough, let him tell the Jews to use his mouth as
a privy, or else crawl into the Jew's hind parts, and there worship the
holy thing, so as afterwards to be able to boast of having been merciful,
and of having helped the Devil and his progeny to blaspheme our dear
Lord.”

These few samples taken at random must be sufficient to give you
a true idea of what the Reformer saw in the Jews. I could continue for
many pages to cite much worse passages. I think, however, that I have
already spent too much space on the subject, but I thought it necessary to
let the Reformer speak again for himself, and to prove that I have not
chosen some isolated cases, but that, as far as the Jews are concerned, he
stuck to his views for the greater part of his life. To comment on such
exclamations and sayings is really not necessary. It seems to me a much
more impressive method if I leave the reader to draw his own conclusions.

Of course, Luther proposed in detail how his followers should treat the
“damned Jews.” “Never ought a Christian to eat or drink with a Jew”.
“On being asked whether it would be right to box the ears of a Jew, Luther
replied `Certainly. I for one would smack him on the jaw. Were I able, I
would knock him down and stab him in my anger. It is lawful, according to
both the human and the divine law, to kill a robber; then it is even more
permissible to slay a blasphemer.'” Not a very Christian attitude; but
worse is still to come. If I had to baptise a Jew, I would take him to the
bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone round his neck and push him over with the
words `I baptise thee in the name of Abraham'” (Detailed references given
in Grisar, “Luther”, vol. v, p. 413)

“We ought to take revenge on the
Jews and kill them” is his charitable advice. At other times he is in
favour of “forcing them to work and treating them with every severity as
Moses did in the desert when he slew 3,000 of them."

Occasionally,
he feels that he oversteps the limit, and then he reaches the climax of
his hypocrisy. “Oh my Lord,” he whines, “my beloved Creator and Father. Do
Thou graciously take into account my unwillingness to have to speak so
shamefully of Thine accursed enemies. Thou knowest I do so out of the
ardour of my faith and to the glory of Thy Divine Majesty.”

After
such solemn prayers, he returns to his foul and abusive language. “It is
our own fault that we have not avenged the sacred blood of our Saviour and
the innocent blood of countless Christians and children, spoiled since the
demolition of Jerusalem until now; it is our own fault that we have not
annihilated the Jews but placidly let them stay where they are in spite of
all their murders, their curses, blasphemies, lies, violations, and that
we even protect their schools, their dwellings, their persons and
property.” Nowhere in the history of civilised mankind have the masses
been so incited to persecution and murder as by this “Christian Reformer.”

Indeed, four centuries before the world ever heard of the inhuman
“Nuremberg Laws” Brother Martin compiled an anti-Jewish cod of his own.
Luther's antisemitic laws consist of seven paragraphs only. Here they are:

Set fire to their synagogues and schools; and what will not
burn, heap earth over it so that no man may see a stone or relic of them
forever.

Pull down and destroy their houses since they perpetrate the
same nefarious things in them as in their schools. Pack them all under one
roof or stable, like the gypsies, that they may know that they are not
lords and masters in our land as they boast.

Deprive them of all
their prayer-books.

Forbid their rabbis henceforth to teach.

Deprive them of the right to move about the country.

Forbid them
the business of usury, and take from them all their belongings.

Hand the strong young Jews of both sexes flail, axe, mattock, spade,
distaff, and spindle; and make them work for their bread in the sweat of
their brow, like all the children of Adam. Confiscate their property and
drive them out of the country. (W53, 525 abridged).