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On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den Juden und ihren Lügen) is a treatise written in January 1543 by Martin Luther, the German theologian, in which he advocated harsh persecution of the Jewish people, including that their synagogues be burned, and their houses razed and destroyed. Four centuries later, the Nazis used quotations from this pamphlet, which was cited by the publisher of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer during the Nuremberg trials, to justify the Final Solution.
Lutheran pastor Russell Briese has said that "historians are at a loss to find a direct link between the anti-semitism of Luther's time and that of Hitler's campaign." British historian Paul Johnson has called On the Jews and their Lies the "first work of modern anti-Semitism, and a giant step forward on the road to the Holocaust."
For additional information on Martin Luther's writings and views of the Jews go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/Martin_Luther_and_the_Jews
- Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, Vol. 12, p. 318, Avalon Project, Yale Law School, April 19, 1946)
- Briese, Russell. "Martin Luther and the Jews," Lutheran Forum 34 (2000) no. 2:30.
- Johnson, Paul. A History of the Jews, 1987. p.242.