Julius Streicher

Julius Streicher (b. 1885) was a prominent Nazi prior to and during World War II. He was the publisher of the Nazi Der Stürmer newspaper, which was to become a part of the Nazi propaganda machine. His publishing firm released three anti-Semitic books for children, including the 1938 Der Giftpilz ("The Poison Mushroom"), one of the most widespread pieces of propaganda, which purported to warn about insidious dangers Jews posed by using the metaphor of an attractive yet deadly mushroom.

Children of the Greater German Reich were raised on Streicher's books. Alicia Gimpel, originally as fond of them as other German children, found the books to be distasteful when she learned she was a Jew.