Der Untermensch – “Subhuman” – Antisemitic figurine from a display held in one of the NPEA boarding high schools attended by members of the Hitler Youth. Nazi Germany, 1930s.
A bearded Jew wearing a tall hat, a long coat, and hands in his pockets. On the base appears the inscription Der Untermensch – “Subhuman, ” a term used to denote the inferior Jewish race according to Nazi racial theory. The term “subhuman” first appeared in a book by Ku Klux Klan member Lothrop Stoddard, published in 1922 under the title The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-man. The Nazis adopted this term, generally in reference to Jews, from the German edition of the book, Der Kulturumsturz: Die Drohung des Untermenschen, published in 1925. The expression appeared again in 1930 in a book by Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg. Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels frequently used this term in their speeches to define Jews, and inferior races in general according to their doctrine. For the Nazis, subhumans were divided into two races: the Slavic race, which could be exploited as slaves for the German people, and beneath them, the Jew, who was to be exterminated – considered biologically, morally, and culturally inferior to the Aryan Übermensch. The use of the term was intended to ideologically justify policies of conquest, oppression, and mass extermination, portraying these peoples as a “threat” to German and European civilization. Nazi propaganda disseminated posters, figurines, booklets, and films depicting the “subhuman” as a primitive, dirty, and worthless creature, thereby preparing the psychological ground for measures of exclusion, forced labor, and systematic murder within the framework of the “Final Solution.”
The figurine was displayed in one of the rooms of the National Political Educational Institutes (NPEA, also Napola – Nationalpolitische Lehranstalt) in Nazi Germany. These were secondary boarding schools established as “community educational institutions” after the Nazi rise to power in 1933. The Adolf Hitler Schools (AHS), founded slightly later in 1937 but separate in organizational terms, followed a similar concept. Studies at the NPEA began at age 10 and led to a university entrance certificate, generally concluding at age 18. The common goal of these elite schools was the training of future National Socialist leaders. The NPEA’s primary mission was defined as “educating National Socialists, physically and mentally capable of serving the people and the state.” The students were intended to form the future leadership cadre of Germany. Physical education played a special role in this, becoming a core subject. The curriculum in these institutions had a distinctly racist and antisemitic character, with Nazi racial theory occupying a permanent place in the daily lessons.
Provenance: Exhibited in the 1990s at Beit Lazarus in Jerusalem. Donated to the exhibition by Mrs. Louis Anna (who provided the details regarding the figurine’s attribution to the NPEA).
Height: 17 cm. Good condition.
