title: Edward Low

text: "The Boston News-Letter" of 9 July 1722 published a list of those captured by Low. A number of the fishermen were forced to join Low, including Philip Ashton, who escaped in May 1723 on Roatán Island in the Bay Islands of Honduras, and who wrote a detailed account of life aboard Low's pirate ship. Before Ashton's escape, he had been beaten, whipped, kept in chains, and threatened with death many times - particularly by Low's quartermaster John Russell - as he refused to sign Low's articles and become a pirate.


title: Edward Low

text: Low's tactics consisted primarily of hoisting false colours and approaching an unsuspecting vessel. Off the coast of St John's, Newfoundland, Low mistook a fully armed man-of-war for a fishing boat, and barely escaped. He moved on to Conception Bay, capturing a number of boats around the Grand Banks southeast of Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic to the Azores. There, he captured a French (or Portuguese—sources differ) pink, a narrow-sterned former man of war, which Low rearmed and refitted as his new flagship, naming it the "Rose Pink". He also captured an English vessel with two Portuguese passengers aboard. Low had his crew hoist them up and drop them back down from the yard arm several times, until they died. He moved on to the Canaries, Cape Verde and then back across to the coast of Brazil, where he was driven back by foul weather.


title: Edward Low

text: Low abandoned his plans for plundering the rich shipping trade off the coast of Brazil, and moved on to the Caribbean. George Roberts, a mate on the British ship "King Sagamore", recounted a meeting with Low aboard the "Rose Pink". Roberts' ship was captured by Low's fleet, of which he was now styling himself "Commodore".


title: Edward Low

text: Forty leagues (120 nautical miles or around 220 km) to the east of Surinam, Low and his fleet of two ships (the "Rose Pink" and the "Fancy", captained by a young Charles Harris) dropped anchor to remove growth such as seaweed and barnacles from the outside of the boats, in a process known as careening, necessary because no dry dock was available to pirates.


title: Edward Low

text: Still relatively inexperienced, Low ordered too many men to the outside of the boat to work on the buildup, and the "Rose Pink" tipped over too far. The portholes had been left open, and the vessel took on water and sank, taking two men with her. The "Rose Pink" had been carrying most of the provisions, and Low—by now captaining a captured schooner, the "Squirrel"—and his crew were forced to strictly ration their fresh water to half a pint (around 275 ml) per man, per day.


title: Edward Low

text: Failing to reach their initial destination of Tobago due to light winds and strong currents, Low's depleted fleet made it to Grenada, a French-owned island. Hiding most of his men belowdecks, he was permitted to send men ashore for water. The following day, a French sloop was sent out to investigate, but was captured when Low's men came out from hiding. Low, now commanding the captured sloop (renamed the "Ranger"), gave the schooner "Squirrel" to Spriggs, now his quartermaster, who renamed it the "Delight" before sailing away in the middle of the night with a small crew following a disagreement with Low over the disciplining of one of Spriggs' crew.


title: Edward Low

text: Low's new fleet captured many more sloops, including one Low kept, naming it the "Fortune". During a trial on 10 July 1723 for a number of Low's crew, a sailor on board the "Fortune" named John Welland recalled how Low stripped his boat, including gold to the value of £150, then beat him and cut off his ear with a cutlass.


title: Edward Low

text: Following this, Low's fleet captured a Portuguese ship called the "Nostra Signiora de Victoria" on 25 January 1723. The "Victoria's" captain allowed a bag containing approximately 11,000 gold moidores (worth at the time around £15,000) to fall into the sea rather than see it captured. One of Low's most noted episodes of cruelty followed: in his rage, he slashed off the Portuguese captain's lips with a cutlass, broiled them, and forced the victim to eat them while still hot. He then murdered the remaining crew. Low's own men described him as "a maniac and a brute."


title: Edward Low

text: One story describes Low burning a French cook alive, saying he was a "greasy fellow who would fry well" and another tells he once killed 53 Spanish captives with his cutlass. Some historians, including David Cordingly, believe this was deliberately done to cultivate a ferocious image. Historian Edward Leslie described Low as a psychopath with a history filled with "mutilations, disembowelings, decapitations, and slaughter".


title: Edward Low

text: Low, like other pirates of the time, tried to intimidate his victims into surrendering by threatening to kill or torture them. The crew of the targeted ship would hinder the officers from defending the ship, so afraid were they of reprisals. One failed torture session led to one of Low's crew members accidentally cutting him in the mouth. Botched surgery left Low scarred.


title: Edward Low

text: A snow called the "Unity" was added to the fleet, and used as a tender, but was abandoned during an encounter with a man of war named the "Mermaid". As Low's success increased in the Caribbean, so did his notoriety. Eventually, a bounty was placed on his head, and Low set out for the Azores, again teaming up with Charles Harris. As they terrorised the Azores, the pressure increased from the authorities, who by then had taken special notice of Low, despite the hordes of pirates in operation at the time.


title: Edward Low

text: Low, Harris, and their ships left the Azores for the Carolinas. On 10 June 1723, they suffered a resounding defeat in a battle with , a heavily armed man of war. "Greyhound" had been dispatched under the command of Peter Solgard to hunt down Low and his fleet. Low fled in the "Fancy" with a skeleton crew and £150,000 in gold on board and headed back to the Azores, leaving Harris and the "Ranger" behind.


title: Edward Low

text: Twenty-five of the crew of the "Ranger", including the ship's doctor, were tried between 10 July and 12 July, with Solgard giving evidence and recounting the battle. The men were hanged for felony, piracy, and robbery near Newport, Rhode Island, on 19 July 1723. Harris was sent back to England and hanged at Execution Dock in Wapping. When Solgard returned to New York, he was presented with the freedom of the city and a gold snuffbox for his part in bringing some of Low's crew to justice.


title: Edward Low

text: Low, still captaining the "Fancy", sailed north. He captured a whaling vessel 80 miles (130 km) out at sea, and in a foul mood following the encounter with the "Greyhound" and the loss of Harris, tortured the captain before shooting him through the head. He set the whaler's crew adrift with no provisions intending them to starve to death. They were lucky and reached Nantucket, Massachusetts, after a difficult journey. Remaining off the coast of North America, Low's crew took a fishing boat near Block Island. Low decapitated the ship's master, and sent the crew ashore. When he captured two more fishing boats near Rhode Island, his actions became so savage his crew refused to carry out his orders to torture the fishermen.


title: Edward Low

text: Heading south again, Low captured a 22-gun French ship and a large Virginian merchant vessel, the "Merry Christmas", in late June 1723. Following the defeat by the "Greyhound", Low became "peculiarly cruel" to his English victims. His fleet of three ships rejoined forces with George Lowther in July. In late 1723, Low and Lowther's fleet captured the "Delight" off the coast of Guinea, mounting fourteen guns on her, with command being given to Spriggs. Two days later, Spriggs and Lowther both abandoned Low, leaving him the "Merry Christmas", by now mounted with 34 guns, as his sole ship.


title: Edward Low

text: There are conflicting reports on the circumstances of Low's death. Captain Charles Johnsonconsidered by some to be Daniel Defoe writing under a pseudonym—stated in his "A General History of the Pyrates", at odds with other sources, that Low and the "Fancy" were last sighted near the Canaries and Guinea. However, at the time of his 1724 book, no further reports had surfaced. He noted one rumour that Low was sailing for Brazil and another that Low's ship sank in a storm with the loss of all hands. The National Maritime Museum in London states that he was never caught, ending his days in Brazil.


title: Edward Low

text: "The Pirates Own Book" and Ossian both suggest that Low was set adrift without provisions by the crew of the "Merry Christmas", in a mutiny brought about by Low's murdering of a sleeping subordinate following an argument. His crew elected Captain Shipton to command the "Merry Christmas"; they would go on to sail alongside Spriggs in the Caribbean. Low was subsequently rescued by a French ship; when the French authorities learned of his identity he was brought to trial and was hanged in Martinique in 1724.


title: Edward Low

text: Initially, Low used the same flag as Edward Teach ("Blackbeard"). Later, he used his own flag, a red skeletal figure on a black background, which became notorious. He first flew his own flag in late July 1723. Low also used a green silk flag with a yellow figure of a man blowing a trumpet; this "Green Trumpeter" was hoisted on the mizzen peak to call his fleet's captains to meetings aboard the flagship.


title: Edward Low

text: Low had a set of Articles, a code of conduct and an ironic reference to the Royal Navy's own Articles of War. The Articles listed below are attributed to Low by "The Boston News-Letter". The first eight of these articles are essentially identical to those attributed to Lowther by Charles Johnson.


title: Edward Low

text: It is likely that both reports are correct and that Low and Lowther shared the same articles, with Low's two extra articles being an "ordonnance", or amendment, adopted after the two crews separated.


title: Edward Low

text: Edward Low's acts, along with those of other pirates of the period such as Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts, and William Fly, led to a great increase in the military presence to protect shipping lanes, resulting in the effective end of the Golden Age of Piracy.


title: Edward Low

text: By 1700, the European states had enough troops and ships at their disposal, following the end of a number of wars, to begin better protecting their important colonies in the West Indies and in the Americas, without relying on the aid of privateers. Pirates based in the Caribbean were chased from the seas by a new British squadron based at Port Royal, Jamaica, and a smaller group of Spanish privateers, sailing from the Spanish Main, known as the "Guarda de Costa", or simply the "Guarda".


title: Edward Low

text: Less is recorded of Low than of other equally prolific pirates such as Teach and Stede Bonnet. Howard Pyle, in an 1880 children's book on pirates, said: "No one stood higher in the trade than [Low], and no one mounted to more lofty altitudes of bloodthirsty and unscrupulous wickedness. 'Tis strange that so little has been written and sung of this man of might, for he was as worthy of story and of song as was Blackbeard." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his work "The Green Flag", described Low as "savage and desperate", and a man of "amazing and grotesque brutality". "The New York Times" said "Low and his crew became the terror of the Atlantic, and his depredations were committed on every part of the ocean, from the coast of Brazil to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland".


title: Edward Low

text: Low has featured on stamps and commemorative currency around the Caribbean. A postage stamp featuring Low was commissioned by the Cayman Islands in 1975, and in 1994 the government of Antigua and Barbuda featured Low and his brigantine, "Rebecca", on a legal tender one hundred-dollar bill made of gold leaf.


title: Edward Low

text: "Ned Low" is one of the pirates featured on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at the Disneyland theme park in California. A duplicate of Low's flag was used for the flag of the fictional pirate Sao Feng in Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" films. Ned Low was played by Tadhg Murphy in the Starz TV series "Black Sails".


title: Edward Low

text: Some of Low's haunts, such as the waters around the Isles of Shoals off New Hampshire and Isle Haute in Nova Scotia, attract treasure hunters who seek artifacts in the ships he sank.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: During a speech at the Reichstag on 30 January 1939, Adolf Hitler threatened "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" in the event of war:


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Allusions to "Hitler's prophecy" by Nazi leaders and in Nazi propaganda were common after 30 January 1941, when Hitler mentioned it again in a speech. The prophecy took on new meaning with the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the German declaration of war against the United States that December, both of which facilitated an acceleration of the systematic mass murder of Jews. In late 1941, Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels stated that the prophecy was being fulfilled while justifying the mass deportation of Jews from Germany. On 30 September 1942, Hitler referenced the prophecy in another speech, which was adapted into a November issue of "Parole der Woche" titled "They Will Stop Laughing!!!" Hitler continued to invoke the prophecy as the war went against Germany and referenced it in his last will and testament. Frequently used by Nazi leaders when alluding to their systematic murder of Jews, the prophecy became a leitmotif of the Final Solution and it is perhaps the best-known phrase from Hitler's speeches.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: The historical significance of the prophecy is debated between the schools of functionalism and intentionalism: intentionalists view it as proof of Hitler's previously developed master plan to systematically murder the European Jews, while functionalists argue that "annihilation" was not meant or understood to mean mass murder, at least initially. The prophecy is cited by historians as an example of Nazi belief in an international Jewish conspiracy that supposedly started the war. Additionally, despite its vagueness—not explaining how the annihilation would come about—the prophecy is cited as evidence that Germans were aware that Jews were being exterminated.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: According to historian Ian Kershaw, upon Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler's seizure of power on 30 January 1933, the Nazi mass movement was already "proto-genocidal" and "held together by the utopian vision of national salvation, to be achieved through racial cleansing at the core of which was the 'removal' of the Jews". In April 1933, the one-day Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses was announced and the SA (the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party) was posted around Jewish businesses to enforce the boycott. Between 1933 and 1939, more than 400 anti-Jewish laws and decrees were enacted. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws defined Jews by their ancestry rather than religion, formalized their exclusion from society, and outlawed marriages and sexual relationships between Jews and "German-blooded" people. Other laws banned Jews from owning property or earning a living.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Hitler had associated the Jews and war in several speeches before 1939. In 1931, Hitler said in the event of war, the Jews would be "crushed by the wheels of history"; he also characterized the 1933 anti-Nazi boycott as a Jewish declaration of war against Germany. According to historian Claudia Koonz, between taking power in 1933 and his prophecy speech in January 1939, Hitler only overtly voiced his hatred of Jews on two occasions: in a 1935 speech announcing the introduction of the Nuremberg Laws, and at the Nuremberg Rally in September 1937. Although race was not prominent in his discourse in the 1930s, Hitler found subtle ways to signal antisemitism to his core followers while maintaining a moderate public image. In discussions of the proper solution to the Jewish Question in the 1930s, extermination was often discussed as an option by SS officials, although it was usually discarded.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: In November 1938, the Nazi leadership organized and incited the "Kristallnacht" pogrom against Jews, in part to bleed off excess antisemitic sentiment from party activists that had been suppressed for diplomatic reasons during the Munich crisis. The pogrom involved unprecedented public violence against German Jews, including the burning of synagogues, looting of Jewish-owned stores and residences, and assaults on Jews, which (according to official figures) caused 91 deaths. Hitler personally approved the arrest of 30,000 Jews and their incarceration in concentration camps. Many Germans were disgusted by the violence, although few overtly opposed the government. was also denounced abroad, endangering the German government's efforts to organize and facilitate the emigration of German Jews.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 21 November 1938, Hitler met with the South African defense minister Oswald Pirow and told him that the Jews would be killed if war broke out. The same month, an official of Hitler's chancellery told a British diplomat of German plans "to get rid of [German] Jews, either by emigration or if necessary by starving or killing them" to avoid "having such a hostile minority in the country in the event of war". He also said that Germany "intended to expel or kill off the Jews in Poland, Hungary and the Ukraine" after invading those countries. On 16 January 1939, Hitler met with István Csáky, the foreign minister of Hungary. Csáky recalled that "he was sure of only one thing, the Jews would have to disappear from Germany to the last man".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 21 January, Hitler told František Chvalkovský, the foreign minister of Czechoslovakia: "Our Jews will be annihilated. The Jews did not perpetrate 9 November 1918 for nothing; this day will be avenged." Hitler added that the Jews were also poisoning Czechoslovakia, prompting an antisemitic diatribe from Chvalkovský. In the same meeting, Hitler threatened the "annihilation" of Czechoslovakia if it did not conform to German demands. According to historian Hans Mommsen, Hitler was referring to destroying the influence of the Jews rather than calling for their physical destruction. Historian Peter Longerich interprets "annihilation" to refer to emigration or expulsion of Jews leading to "the end of their collective existence in Germany". Kershaw argues that, while Hitler was not announcing his intentions to Chvalkovský, "the sentiments were not merely rhetoric or propaganda".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Although the Évian Conference in July 1938 had failed to open other countries to Jewish emigrants, the Nazis still attempted to hasten the emigration of Jews from Germany. At the time of the speech, discussions were ongoing between Göring and George Rublee, director of the Intergovernmental Committee for Refugees. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels helped write the speech, which was delivered in the Reichstag on 30 January 1939, the sixth anniversary of Hitler's seizure of power in 1933. The speech lasted two or two-and-a-half hours and dealt with both the foreign and domestic policies of the Nazi government. Hitler expressed his desire for additional "living space" and discussed the Munich crisis, admitting that he had planned a military invasion in the event that Czechoslovakia did not capitulate to his demand to surrender the Sudetenland. He maintained that the Sudetenland had been secured by German willingness to resort to war, rather than by diplomacy.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: In the part of the speech dealing with the Jewish question, Hitler complained that there was enough space in the world for German Jews to go, and contended that Europe could "not become pacified before the Jewish question has been settled". In a long rant against Jews, Hitler first mocked them, then said that it was time to "wrestle the Jewish world enemy to the ground", and that the German government was completely determined "to get rid of these people". He asserted that Jews would have to stop "liv[ing] off the body and productive work of other nations", or else they would "succumb to a crisis of unimaginable severity". He claimed that the Jews were trying to incite "millions among the masses of people into a conflict that is utterly senseless for them and serves only Jewish interests". Hitler then arrived at his main point:


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: The speech was broadcast live on radio and Hitler's prediction about the Jews was reprinted in the party newspaper "Völkischer Beobachter" and in a dedicated pamphlet. According to Goebbels' explicit instructions to Fritz Hippler, the part of the speech that included Hitler's threat against the Jews was recorded simultaneously in audio and video (a difficult technical achievement at the time) and included in the weekly newsreel after Hitler personally approved it. Newsreels typically played down the exclusionary aspect of the people's community; January 1939 was the first time that Nazi policies towards the Jews were directly connected to the party leader on newsreels. Historian Richard J. Evans writes that the threat "could not have been more public".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: At the time of the speech, Jews and non-Jews inside and outside Germany were paying close attention to Hitler's statements because of and the possibility of war. In the following days, the speech attracted significant commentary in Germany. The German-Jewish diarists Luise Solmitz and Victor Klemperer mentioned the speech in their diaries but paid little attention to Hitler's threat. Outside Germany, coverage of the speech focused on the geopolitical implications of Hitler's discussion of foreign policy, while the threat to Jews went unremarked. The New York Yiddish newspaper "Forverts" printed a headline referencing Hitler's threat against the Jews, but the article below it only discussed the threat of war and Hitler's alliances with Italy and Japan. The Warsaw Yiddish newspaper "Haynt" discussed the speech in several issues beginning on 31 January, but did not emphasize the prophecy. On 31 January, it printed the main points of the speech without mentioning the prophecy; in an analysis of the speech published the next day, columnist Moshe Yustman discussed appeasement and other foreign policy issues.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Hitler made over a dozen references to his threat both publicly and privately. At the height of the Holocaust in 1942, Hitler publicly referenced his prophecy on at least four occasions. At the same time, Hitler's rhetoric became much harsher as he changed from speaking of "annihilating" () Jews to "exterminating" () them. He consistently, and probably intentionally, misdated the prophecy to 1 September 1939, when the German invasion of Poland began. By emphasizing the link between the war and the persecution of the Jews, the persecution could be construed as a justified response to an attack on Germany. Hitler always referenced the prophecy when discussing the extermination of the Jews. From late 1941, Nazi propagandists consistently avoided discussion of concrete anti-Jewish actions, such as deportations, instead relying on the prophecy's generality.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Besides Nazi leaders, army propaganda and ordinary soldiers also referred to the prophecy. In a letter dated 5 October 1941, police lieutenant and Holocaust perpetrator Walter Mattner wrote to his wife justifying the murder of Jewish children and referencing Hitler's prophecy. Jews were also aware of the prophecy; Warsaw Ghetto diarist Chaim Kaplan wrote on 1 September 1939 that, since war would break out, Polish Jews might face the fate the Hitler had foretold. On 2 February 1942, Kaplan wrote that Hitler "boasted that his prophecy is beginning to come true: had he not said that if a war would break out in Europe the Jewish people would be annihilated? This process has already begun and will continue until the end is reached." "Hitler's oft-repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe" was referenced in the Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations on 17 December 1942.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Footage of Hitler making the threat was included in the 1940 film "The Eternal Jew". According to historian Bill Niven, the film makes the case to Germans that they were fighting a race war and life-or-death struggle against Jews. The film was a flop and a month after its release was only being shown in one cinema in Berlin. Historian Alon Confino writes that Germans rejected the film because its scenes, shot in German-occupied Poland, were too explicit in showing what "annihilation" might actually entail.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Hitler mentioned the prophecy at a 30 January 1941 speech in the Sportpalast. Kershaw suggests that although Hitler may have had his threat in mind during the intervening years or was reminded of it by a subordinate, it was most likely the clip from "The Eternal Jew" that reminded him.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Hitler then expressed his hope that the Western nations at war with Germany would realize that their greatest enemy was "international Jewish exploitation and the corruption of nations!" In the speech, Hitler implied that his previous threats against German Jews had caused the international Jewish community to influence Western powers into appeasement of Germany, and renewed threats would induce the Jews to convince the British government to make peace. Under the headline "The Jew will be exterminated", the speech was published in German and translated for international media companies. The editors of "The New York Times" (believed by the Nazis to be at the center of the "Jewish press") wrote that Hitler did not have a record of following through on promises or threats.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: At the time of the January 1941 speech, the Nazi leadership was already planning the invasion of the Soviet Union and considering deporting Jews to the conquered territories after a victory. Therefore, Kershaw argues, Hitler's crusade against Jewish Bolshevism "was taking concrete shape in his mind" and by referencing the prophecy, he implied that a reckoning with the Jewish enemy was imminent. Kershaw also wrote that the reference hinted at something like the Madagascar Plan and "a repeat of the blackmail ploy that he held the Jews in his power as hostages".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 22 June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union; by August, the campaign was not proceeding as well as Nazi leaders hoped. Goebbels published the essay "Mimicry" in "Das Reich" on 20 July 1941. It was one of his most influential extended attacks on the Jews, in which he elaborated on Hitler's prophecy. Goebbels argued that the Jews practiced "mimicry" by infiltrating nations and secretly controlling the Allied governments; they were using their power to prolong the war so that Europe would bleed out and be too weak to resist the "Bolshevization" that Jews intended to inflict upon it. He claimed that the Nazis were able to "unmask" them by ignoring historical contingency (the method which historians use to explain events) and threatened a terrible punishment for their alleged guilt.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: In mid-August 1941, Goebbels received a report of a mass shooting of Jews in the Baltics and connected the killing to Hitler's prophecy. According to Goebbels' diary entry on 19 August, Hitler mentioned the prophecy when granting Goebbels' request to force Jews in Germany to wear yellow stars. Hitler said that the Jews were paying the price for the war, and that they "will not have much cause to laugh in [the] future". Hitler indicated his certainty that his prophecy would come true in weeks to months, which historian interprets as evidence that the order for the Final Solution had been issued. According to Longerich, Hitler was willing to authorize harsher measures against Jews in Germany because of the mass shootings of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union that he had ordered. The diary entry indicates that both Hitler and Goebbels drew a causal connection between the war and the extermination of the Jews.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: The Nazi Party printed the prophecy on one of its weekly quotation posters () to be displayed on 7–13 September 1941. These posters were sent to all of the Nazi Party's local branches and displayed prominently throughout Germany. According to Jersak, the true meaning of the posters may not have been obvious to ordinary Germans. In mid-September, Hitler made the decision to deport German Jews to the occupied Soviet Union; historians highlight the temporal proximity to the display of the posters. In the lead article on 15 October from the periodical "Die Judenfrage in Politik, Recht, Kultur und Wirtschaft" titled "The War Guilt of the Jews", a series of quotes from various Jews is joined together in an effort to prove that the Jews declared war against Germany; the prophecy is mentioned at the end of the article.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 25 October, referring to attempts to drown Jewish women in the Pripet marshes, Hitler mentioned his prophecy that asserted the "criminal race", supposedly responsible for German casualties in World War I and "now again hundreds of thousands", would be destroyed. On 8 November 1941, Hitler referred to the prophecy in his annual speech at the Löwenbräukeller in Munich to commemorate the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler said that all measures would be taken so that "November 1918 will never happen again". The speech was reported in the Nazi media, "Völkischer Beobachter" running the story under the headline "The Jewish Enemy" and concluding that "the war against the Jewish international is a life and death struggle that must be ruthlessly fought to the end". According to Longerich, Hitler intended to cement his leadership role: "All bridges had been burnt and the 'people' had no alternative but to entrust themselves to Hitler’s purportedly superhuman leadership qualities and support his conduct of the war until victory had been achieved."


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 16 November 1941, Goebbels wrote an article titled "The Jews are Guilty" in "Das Reich", aiming to justify the ongoing deportation of the Jews. It was one of the most vehemently antisemitic writings that Goebbels published. Kershaw suggests that Goebbels probably discussed the article with Hitler before publication. Goebbels wrote:


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: The article referred explicitly to Hitler's approval for the annihilation and listed actions that Germans should take against Jews ("enemy of the people") and anyone who associated with them, who was to be "regarded and treated as a Jew". Historian Heinrich August Winkler argues that it was primarily intended as a warning to Germans who disagreed with Nazi antisemitism. The article was the first time a Nazi leader had announced that the annihilation of European Jews had gone from threat to reality. According to historian Jeffrey Herf, Goebbels presented the international Jewish conspiracy "on the offensive against an innocent, victimized German object". Goebbels had recycled the article title from a 1932 article he wrote for "Der Angriff". In both cases, Jews were blamed for the failure of the Nazis to achieve their goals, which led to an increase in anti-Jewish aggression. At the time, "Das Reich" had a circulation above one million, and the article was broadcast on the German Home Service. Goebbels ordered the article to be distributed to soldiers on the Eastern Front. According to the public opinion reports prepared by the Security Service (SD), the article "found a strong echo" among Germans, although some churchgoers were critical of it. Historians have argued that the article gave a clear answer as to the fate of the Jews.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Goebbels presented the narrative to German elites in a speech at Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin on 1 December. "We are now experiencing the implementation of this prophecy. . . . [Jewry] is now suffering a gradual process of extermination". The Reich Press Office ordered newspapers to report the speech as a front-page story, and it was widely broadcast on the radio. Goebbels justified the violence towards the Jews as a preemptive strike against the extreme violence that they supposedly planned to unleash upon Germany. Characteristically for Nazi propaganda, the justification of mass killing was combined with absence of information on how it was being carried out. Goebbels used the word extermination () to refer to what the Soviet Union intended to do if it won the war, referring to the murder of the German intelligentsia. A few minutes later, he used the same word to refer to what the Germans were doing to the Jews. Herf suggests that some listeners interpreted "gradual process" to mean death from starvation or exposure, rather than immediate murder by shooting or in death camps.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 11 December 1941, Germany declared war on the United States in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack. The next day, Hitler gave a speech in the Reich Chancellery to Nazi Party leaders. Hitler discussed the Pearl Harbor attack and the Nazi war on the Eastern Front, expressing his expectation of a glorious future after Germany's eventual victory. Then he referenced his prophecy, saying:


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Kershaw writes that Hitler's tone was "more menacing and vengeful than ever". Herf notes that the speech further emphasized the causal connection between the war and the Holocaust. According to Longerich, Hitler intended to indicate that the systematic murder of Jews that was already underway in the Soviet Union, Poland, and Serbia, should be continued and extended. Historian Christian Gerlach writes that Hitler "never before [referred to his prophecy] as clearly, as unambiguously"; Gerlach argues that this meeting was Hitler's announcement of his decision to murder all of the Jews in Europe. According to Evans, the theory that Hitler gave the order at this point has been rejected in favor of the theory that Nazi decision-making evolved gradually over time, and Gerlach subsequently distanced himself from the claim. Browning writes that "Hitler gave no explicit order but made unmistakably clear that his prophecy... had to be taken utterly literally".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 16 December, Nazi official Hans Frank repeated the prophecy in similar words to those Hitler had used five days earlier, adding: "What is to happen to the Jews? Do you believe they’ll be accommodated in village settlements in the Ostland? They said to us in Berlin: why are you giving us all this trouble? ... Liquidate them yourselves!... We must destroy the Jews wherever we find them." According to Frank, the war could not be considered a complete success unless the Jews were exterminated. Without receiving a written order from Hitler, he understood that the Jews were to be exterminated, although the details had not been worked out at that time.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Ten days after the Wannsee Conference at which the Final Solution was discussed, Hitler spoke at the Sportpalast for the ninth anniversary of the Nazi seizure of power. He characterized the war as a "fight for the whole of Europe and, thereby, for the whole of civilized humanity" and a race war between Jews and "Aryans" before referencing the prophecy and added, "The hour will come, when the most evil enemy of the world of all time will have played his last part in Europe for at least a thousand years." The speech was widely covered in the press and, according to Security Service reports, was understood to mean that "the Führer’s fight against the Jews is being fought mercilessly to the end, and that soon the last Jews will have been driven from European soil". The reports also indicate that Germans had a stronger reaction to other issues raised in the speech than the prophecy. Winkler writes that the speech is a paraphrase of Revelation 20 "to convince the Germans of the greatness of their mission in history" in saving Europe from the Jews. According to Longerich, Hitler intended to emphasize that the fate of the Jews would be inextricably connected to the progress of the war.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 24 February, the anniversary of the founding of the Nazi Party, Hitler was not present for the ceremony. He instructed Adolf Wagner to read a statement, in which Hitler implied that even if the war was lost, his prophecy would be fulfilled. A paragraph was quoted in "" the next day, under the heading "The Jew is being exterminated". On 27 February, a related article appeared in "Völkische Beobachter" under the heading "The Jew will be exterminated!" The article opens by referring to Hitler's prophecy, and accuses Jews, the "eternal murderers of world peace", of plotting the destruction of the German people. The speech was quoted in a "Der Stürmer" article of 19 March 1942 titled "The Coming End – the Führer's Prophecy", which explained that the prophecy made clear how the Jewish question would be resolved. The article coincided with the third and fourth waves of deportations of Jews from Germany that occurred very publicly from March to June 1942 and effectively eliminated the Jewish presence in Germany.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: In March 1942, Goebbels wrote in his diary about the gassing of Jews in the Lublin District of occupied Poland. It was the most detail that he ever devoted to the murder of Jews. Goebbels wrote that Jews under German rule were paying for the war effort of the Allied powers:


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: In a closed-door meeting with party leaders in the Reich Chancellery on 23 May, Hitler said (according to Goebbels) "that the Jews are determined under all circumstances to bring this war to victory for them, since they know that defeat also means for them personal liquidation". Kershaw writes that this is a more direct version of the prophecy and Hitler was "unmistakably and explicitly linking [the prophecy]... with the physical liquidation of the Jews".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 30 September, Hitler delivered another speech at the Sportpalast. He reassured his audience that the worst of the war was over. In "the most menacing phrases he had so far used", Hitler stated that the extermination of Jews was revenge for Allied bombing. He added:


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: The audience responded with enthusiasm; Herf contends that Nazi loyalists realized that the speech referred to the systematic murder of Jews. As for Hitler's reference to the Jews not laughing anymore, Herf argues that "[a]ny benign interpretation... strains credulity". Herf stated that the audience may have understood Hitler's addition of "everywhere" to his promise to end Jewish laughter to mean the globalization of the Final Solution. He concludes that "all indicated that he had ordered and was then implementing the destruction of the Jews". The speech was broadcast on the radio, reported to the army, and featured prominently in the press.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Six weeks later, quotes from the speech were reproduced in an article titled "They Will Stop Laughing!!!" in "Parole der Woche", a wall newspaper which frequently printed antisemitic content. The newspaper emphasized a laughing Franklin Roosevelt and his supposed Jewish advisers; "They will stop laughing everywhere!!" was reproduced in large type at the bottom of the page. About 125,000 copies of the newspaper were printed and posted in public places to be viewed by millions of people. Herf acknowledges that there is no reliable evidence as to "how many people had the intellectual curiosity, political acumen, and moral courage to conclude that this wall newspaper was an announcement of mass murder".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 8 November, during Hitler's annual speech for the Nazi Party old guard to commemorate the Beer Hall Putsch, he discussed the war in which Germany had recently suffered reversals (at Stalingrad and in Africa), and stated that there would be no negotiated peace. He referenced his prophecy and said that the result of the war would be "the extermination of Jewry in Europe". Hitler said that the enemy was the same one that Nazis had faced under the Weimar Republic. He argued that Germany lost World War I because it did not understand the great danger posed by internal enemies and the Jews; Nazi Germany would win its war against the "half-Jew Roosevelt" because it had been enlightened. Hitler's rhetoric was out of touch with reality, and had only a superficial effect on listeners according to Security Service reports. Herf argues that what Hitler meant was evident to listeners: "The Jews had intended to 'exterminate'—that is, to kill—the Europeans" and in return the "Nazi regime was in the process of exterminating—that is, killing—the Jews". In Herf's opinion, the most believable interpretation of the Jews no longer laughing was that "something of a catastrophic nature was being done to them". The applause indicated that the audience approved of Hitler's "justified retaliation against Germany’s greatest enemy".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 18 February 1943, Goebbels delivered the total war speech at the Sportpalast. According to Herf, the enthusiastic audience reception to Goebbels' calls for total war against the Jewish–Bolshevik enemy indicated that Nazi loyalists still agreed with the prophecy.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: On 8 May 1943, Goebbels wrote an article titled "The War and the Jews": The article reached thousands of readers and millions of radio listeners. According to Herf, the piece "repeated and elaborated on the essential projection mechanism of Nazi propaganda"—that Jews were plotting the extermination of Germans. Goebbels interwove the actual systematic murder of the Jewish population with a big lie of an international Jewish conspiracy which controlled the Allies and had started the war. Goebbels wrote that he was satisfied with the reception of the article and planned to increase the use of antisemitism as a propaganda tactic, as he found it second only to Bolshevism in effectiveness. On 18 May, the propaganda ministry delivered copies of "Twilight for the Jews All over the World!" to Nazi officials. The article cited Goebbels' repetition of Hitler's prophecy, adding that antisemitism was rising throughout the world because people had begun to understand that "all the suffering, privations, and deprivation of this war are exclusively due to the Jews, that the war itself is the work of "Juda"."


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Hitler continued to refer to his prophecy as the war went against Germany and used it to justify the conflict and its catastrophic consequences. Hitler's comments on the Final Solution also became more explicit; on 3 January 1944, he said that the outcome of the war was unresolved but the end of Jewish life in Europe was "beyond any doubt". On 26 May 1944, after the German invasion of Hungary, he addressed high-ranking army officers at the Berghof and said that if the opponents of Nazism prevailed, "Bolshevism would slaughter millions and millions and millions of our intellectuals. Anyone not dying through a shot in the neck would be deported. The children of the upper classes would be taken away and eliminated. This entire bestiality has been organized by the Jews." He described the bombing of Hamburg and dubbed the Hungarian Jewish community as "a seamless web of agents and spies" that undermined its country. Hitler declared that the Jews would be destroyed, just as he had predicted, and this was received well by the audience.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Hitler mentioned his prophecy in his brief New Year's speech, broadcast on the radio shortly after midnight on 1 January 1945, during a diatribe against the "Jewish international war conspiracy". According to historian Nicholas Stargardt, the speech did not comfort its listeners but stoked their fear that there would not be a negotiated peace. On 13 February, Hitler reportedly said "I have fought openly against the Jews. I gave them a last warning at the outbreak of war. I never left them in uncertainty that if they were to plunge the world into war again they would this time not be spared—that the vermin in Europe would be finally eradicated." In his last will and testament, signed shortly before his suicide, Hitler wrote that the true meaning of his prophecy of 1939 was "to exterminate the vermin throughout Europe".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: The threat to annihilate the Jews is the best-known phrase from Hitler's speeches. Kershaw writes that during the Holocaust (between 1941 and 1945), all Nazi leaders were aware of Hitler's prophecy, which was a "key metaphor for the 'Final Solution'". Confino writes that "There was only one prophecy in wartime German society, and it meant one thing"; the prophecy emerged as "a common, shared, universal idiom among Germans and Jews" for the ongoing genocide. He argues that the prophecy reflected the antisemitism already prevalent in German society. Koonz writes that Hitler's public prediction of the extermination of Jews in January 1939 indicated his belief that the public would acquiesce to draconian methods against the Jews. She argues that his assessment was correct.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: The interpretation of the prophecy is debated between the schools of functionalism and intentionalism, which differ in the degree to which they hold that the Holocaust was planned in advance by Hitler versus emerging from the Nazi bureaucracy. Early historians of Nazi Germany, such as Helmut Krausnick and Gerald Reitlinger, were convinced that Hitler had already plotted the genocide since the 1920s, and it was therefore unnecessary to prove a direct connection between the speech and the killings. In the 1960s, the school of functionalism emerged, which characterized Hitler as a weak dictator and argued that anti-Jewish policy emerged from Nazi functionaries as the war continued. In the 1990s, attention shifted back to Hitler's role, but this time arguing that he made the decision in 1941.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: A key issue is what was meant, or understood, by "annihilation" () in 1939. Historian Sarah Gordon suggests that Hitler chose the word (also translated "the end" or "destruction") for its vagueness, as he wanted to frighten the Jews into emigrating without explicitly calling for murder, which the reaction to indicated that the German public opposed. Confino writes that "no one in Germany knew exactly what the word meant or how this metaphor of 'annihilation' would come to pass". He suggests that it evoked and its burning synagogues, not the gas chambers of Auschwitz or the mass graves at Babi Yar (which did not exist yet). Confino contends that although not even Hitler knew what he meant by "annihilation", the speech demonstrated that Hitler and his listeners already envisioned "a world in which extreme violence was applied to get rid of Jews and eliminate Judaism".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Intentionalists emphasize the importance of the speech and cite it as proof that the genocide had been planned before the war and did not gradually emerge. Lucy Dawidowicz highlighted the speech as Hitler's decision to commence the genocide, and argued that the German people should have understood it as a prior announcement of the Final Solution. Historian Stefan Kley notes that if Hitler had indeed expressed in 1939 a decisive intention to commit genocide, this would confirm intentionalist assumptions about Hitler's decisive role and rebut functionalist arguments.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Herf believes that the prophecy was Hitler's "first unequivocal public threat to exterminate (that is, murder)—not merely to remove, deport, or defeat"—Europe's Jews. Historian Shlomo Aronson described the statement as a public threat to murder the Jews and a declaration of his intention to do so, as he was already planning the war. Historian Gerhard Weinberg argues that "the murder of Jews would be an integral part of the war on which [Hitler] had already decided". Historian Daniel Goldhagen views the speech as a declaration of Hitler's aspiration and his intent, if he had the opportunity but not a defined program that would immediately be operational. Historian Robert Wistrich argues that the prophecy "was an extraordinary outburst from the leader of a great power and can hardly be reduced to a mere 'metaphor' or a piece of Utopian rhetoric... The vehemence with which Hitler delivered this particular section of his speech, and the frenzied applause of the Reichstag delegates, makes it plain that it was a deadly serious threat."


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Functionalist scholars tend to emphasize the tactical implications of the speech in holding the Jews in Germany hostage against the behavior of the United States during the coming war, although they acknowledge that the speech establishes a mental connection between war and annihilation. One indication against this interpretation is that Hitler referred to "European Jews" rather than "German Jews".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: The historian Christopher Browning said in an interview that during the 1939 speech Hitler intended to tell his followers that in the event of war, the Jews would be expelled from Europe. Browning said that the speech has to be considered in light of the anti-Jewish policies of the next two years, rather than with the retrospective knowledge of Auschwitz. Browning also wrote that the anti-Jewish policies pursued by the Nazis from 1939 to early 1941 (before the Final Solution), would have resulted in a great reduction in the Jewish population and argues that this would have been viewed as fulfilling the prophecy. The historian Mark Roseman contends that "there is no evidence that mass extermination was being planned in 1939" and points out that Hitler did not emphasize his prophecy in 1940. He asserts that it is impossible to know what Hitler's intent was in 1939 based on the prophecy. He also argues that it is unclear whether "annihilation" referred to expulsion or mass murder and points out that Hitler repeatedly spoke of the forcible banishment of the Jews from Germany.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Koonz writes that Germans at the time may have thought that the prophecy's "annihilation" was no more than a metaphor, "as in to 'smash' or 'wipe out' a rival". Bytwerk argues that it is neither necessary or reasonable to conclude that Hitler's prophecy, taken in context, referred to literal killings. Mommsen describes the prophecy as no more than "a rhetorical gesture designed to put pressure on the international community" to allow the immigration of German Jews: "At that time it was highly unlikely that either the German or the international public could have interpreted his statement as an ill-concealed declaration of a serious intention to liquidate the Jews under German rule in the event of war."


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Bauer interprets the prophecy as expressing Hitler's determination to get rid of the German Jews. His first choice to resolve the situation was by international agreement that would lead to emigration, then a forcible, violent expulsion. A war, which the Nazi leadership was planning at the time, was another way that Jews might be eliminated. Bauer concludes that "while the Nazi aim was fixed—no Jews in the expanding Reich—the means could be varied" and that although Nazi leaders may have considered physical extermination as a means, there was no concrete plan to that effect in 1939.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Jersak argues that "Hitler planned to expel the Jews from Germany "before" he planned to conquer "Lebensraum"": Hitler issued orders from 1937 to 1939 aimed at speeding Jewish emigration. Jersak argues that if Germany became involved in a world war, Hitler recognized that the Axis would not emerge victorious. Therefore, he considered the systematic killing of Jews a "radical alternative" in case he did not get his way in the war. In this situation, "war would serve as a cover for extermination and the fighting would conceal the real war aim"—the murder of the Jews. Jersak cites Hitler's 1939 statement "Who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?" as evidence that Hitler believed that crimes committed during wartime would be overlooked. Longerich writes that Hitler's prophecy "had several potential layers of meaning", of which the first was Hitler's tactical desire to frighten Jews into emigration.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Longerich views the 1939 speech as part of a long-term strategy to blame the upcoming war on the Jews. In February 1939, Himmler advanced the timing for the upcoming world war, estimating that it would occur soon rather than in the next decade because of the backlash to . In notes for a speech, he wrote, "Radical solution of the Jewish problem is prompting Jewry to fight us, if necessary by unleashing a world war." Longerich sees a clear link to Hitler's speech. Gerlach wrote that the prophecy was self-fulfilling because in Hitler's nationalistic mindset, any opposition to Nazism was viewed as the work of an international Jewish conspiracy. Hitler and Nazi leaders believed that the Jewish conspiracy was real. The prophecy was also believed literally by many Germans. Victor Klemperer was confronted by Germans, even non-Nazis, who told him that Jews had started the war and deserved their fate.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Herf notes that as Hitler plotted war in 1939, "he ordered his propagandists to assert that exactly the opposite was taking place". Herf also writes, "Invisible to those lacking the insight provided by Nazi ideology, this conspiracy was perceived by Hitler and his henchmen as the driving force of modern history... When the major powers opposed Nazi Germany, they were doing so as , or servants of the Jews." This conspiracy theory violates chronology and causality and makes contradictory claims of a master race dominating the world versus the Germans as innocent victims attacked by a powerful Jewish conspiracy. Historian Antony Beevor writes that the prophecy's "breathtaking confusion of cause and effect lay at the heart of Hitler's network of lies and self-deception".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Historian David Reynolds argues that Hitler may well have been thinking partly of Roosevelt when he made the 1939 speech. At the time, the United States president was trying to persuade Americans to abandon isolationism and was promoting the emigration of Jews from Europe. Weinberg contends that, at the time of the prophecy speech, Hitler regretted allowing Neville Chamberlain to avert war in 1938, and was determined to go to war before 1940. According to Weinberg, Hitler already planned to use the war to cause a worldwide demographic revolution, of which the systematic murder of Jews was to be a crucial part. Herf argues that in his speeches referencing the prophecy, Hitler made it clear that he saw a "causal and inherent, not a contingent or accidental, connection with his intent to exterminate the Jews". Kershaw writes that "the 'prophecy' denoted the indelible link in [Hitler's] mind between war and revenge against the Jews". Koonz writes that in his 1939 speech, "Hitler posed as the sole moral arbiter of his Volk [nation] at war on two fronts: racial and geopolitical".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: According to Longerich, Hitler's reference to "international Jewish financiers" envisioned circumstances that the United States and other western powers intervened to prevent German expansionism in Europe, to which Hitler was already committed. If that happened, the "international Jewish financiers" would be blamed for the resulting war and Jews remaining in Germany would be held as hostages threatened with annihilation. If emigration failed and the Western powers prevented Hitler from pursuing irredentism, or joined a continental European war, all options were being kept open for further intensification of the Nazi anti-Jewish policy. Evans cites the Nazi belief in an international Jewish conspiracy to argue that Hitler's aim was to hold the Jews hostage to prevent American entry into the war. If America did so, the Jews throughout Europe would be murdered.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: According to Mommsen, because Nazis believed in an international Jewish conspiracy that supposedly controlled the world's governments, it made sense to threaten the Jews in Germany to obtain the compliance of other countries. Aronson also views the threat as "aimed at the West", where the Jews were held hostage to ensure that Hitler could deal with each of the countries separately. Roseman writes that Hitler hoped that by holding German Jews hostage, their brethren in other countries could be controlled. Kershaw states that the prophecy was in part aimed at preventing United States entry into the war "through the threat of what would then happen to the Jews of Europe". Jersak argues that the speech served as an "early warning to the US not to interfere in Europe. The idea that American Jews in Germany could serve as hostages against another US participation in a possible European war was probably also born at this time." Stargardt writes that the idea of controlling the United States with Jewish hostages was in play as late as September 1941, when the "Wochenspruch" poster was issued. When the United States entered the war, the Jews lost their value as hostages and could be killed with impunity.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Bauer writes "the war that Hitler wanted"—to ally with Poland in an invasion of the Soviet Union—"was not the one he got in September 1939". Even after concluding the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Hitler attempted to avoid a two-front war by keeping the United Kingdom, United States, and possibly France out of the war. At the time, Germans used the phrase "world war" for any major conflict between the European powers.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Goldhagen writes that the invasion of the Soviet Union was an opportunity for Hitler "to make good on his promise" in the prophecy. Bytwerk writes that in wartime "the word 'destruction' takes on a physical connotation missing in peace". By invoking the prophecy during the war, Hitler made it clear "that he was absolutely serious about his threat to destroy the Jews". Jersak argues that "the campaign against the Soviet Union turned into a war against the Jews" at the same time as prospects for German victory dimmed; from September 1941, anti-Jewish actions were not just justified but also motivated by fear of the Jewish conspiracy. Kershaw writes that the war and Hitler's mission to get rid of Jews "reached its fateful point of convergence in the conception of the 'war of annihilation' against the Soviet Union".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Kershaw writes that the prophecy "was evidently never far from [Hitler's] mind" during the winter campaign of 1941–42 and it was "at the forefront of his thoughts in the wake of Pearl Harbor". According to Jersak, around the same time, Hitler decided to murder "the last Jew on European soil", which Nazis believed "would break the 'subversive power' of 'International Jewry'". Browning argues against this explanation, noting that the systematic murder of Jews was already taking place in the Soviet Union and Hitler's prophecy was not "tied to a 'world war' defined by American involvement". Longerich writes that Hitler's speech of 12 December 1941 "appears to contain nothing really new" but, as Germany was now engaged in a world war, the "'prophecy' inevitably came closer to its realization".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: By the winter of 1941–1942, Allied military action, especially strategic bombing, was killing an increasing number of German soldiers and civilians. In Nazi propaganda—and, Herf argues, the opinion of many Germans—the Jews were held responsible for each death and they would be made to pay in kind. Herf argues that "for millions of Germans, the abstract slogan 'The Jews are guilty' assumed direct emotional significance." According to Kershaw, Hitler viewed the genocide of the Jews as "natural revenge for the destruction caused by the Jews – above all in the war which he saw as their work." When the Allies became aware of the systematic murder of Jews and denounced it, Hitler and other Nazi propagandists did not deny the reports. Instead, states Herf, they preferred to "present the Nazi attack on the Jews as a justified act of self-defense, retaliation, and revenge in response to the misfortunes the Jews had inflicted and were at that moment inflicting on Germany."


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Hitler was the primary decision maker in the Holocaust but no written order to that effect has been discovered, and most historians argue that it never existed. Instead, Hitler probably gave verbal authorizations to important decisions regarding the Final Solution.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Kershaw contends that both intentionalist and functionalist interpretations of the prophecy are wrong. Although the Nazi extermination of the Jewish people was not fully realized until years later, he argues that the 1939 speech is crucial for understanding Hitler's role in the Final Solution and the prophecy is "a key both to Hitler’s mentality, and to the ways he provided 'directions for action. He argues that Hitler's actions were mostly confined to the realm of propaganda, especially the prophecy, as it was "neither his style, nor his inclination" to involve himself with day-to-day details. The prophecy served as "the transmission belt between Hitler’s own inner conviction" that the war would result in the genocide of Europe's Jews and the murders carried out by his subordinates. Party insiders understood the invocation of the prophecy as a call to radical action against the Jews without explicit instructions. Kershaw argues that the repetition of the prophecy in mass media helped to "condition the general population against humanitarian sympathy" and signaled the intensification of the mass murder.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Jersak argues that "the hypothesis of an order for the murder of the European Jews unrelated to that prophecy assumes... that Hitler, who repeatedly referred to his prophecy, did not mean what he said". Historian Eberhard Jäckel writes that the repetition of the prophecy is "truly astounding and its motivation is not readily apparent". Jäckel speculates that Hitler's motivation may have been to indicate his approval of the mass murder or to "have the final solution put on the record". According to Roseman, Hitler's rhetoric, including the frequently repeated prophecy, let Holocaust perpetrators know that Hitler approved of their actions.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Historian David Bankier notes that the prophecy "lacked a space or time frame and gave no details on how the Final Solution would be implemented. In his 'prophecy' the Jews would disappear without an agent". Beevor writes that "[d]espite his apocalyptic diatribes against the Jews" and efforts to promote violence, Hitler was "remarkably reluctant to hear details of mass killings". Herf describes Goebbels' article "The Jews are Guilty" as "a paradigm of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda" because "the extremist language went along with a total absence of revealing details about where, when, and how this mass murder was taking place". In other words, it "left enough ambiguity and absence of detail to promote plausible deniability".


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: Kershaw writes that despite the "dark hints that his 'prophecy' was being fulfilled", Hitler tried to conceal his direct involvement in the Holocaust. Kershaw speculates "even at the height of his own power he feared theirs, and the possibility one day of their 'revenge'." Or, perhaps, Hitler believed that "German people were not ready to learn the deadly secret". Kershaw notes that when referring to the mass murder of Jews, Hitler either stated things that were no longer true, or otherwise "alluding to the removal of Jews from Europe (often in the context of his 'prophecy') at some distant point in the future". Kershaw adds that Hitler wanted to "lay claim to his place in 'the glorious secret of our history' while still detaching himself from the sordid and horrific realities of mass killing". Therefore, he never made any statement like Himmler's Posen speeches, even in private with other Nazi leaders. Hitler also wanted to avoid opposition from the bureaucracy or the judicial system, which he encountered after he signed an order for the euthanasia program. Himmler used the same strategy of vagueness when communicating about the fate of the Jews.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: After the war, many Germans claimed ignorance of the Nazi regime's crimes and argued that references to the "annihilation" of Jews had not been understood literally. Historians have disputed these claims. Koonz writes that the prophecy was one reason why "no bystander could deny the intention of the Nazi leadership to eradicate Jews, one way or another". References to the prophecy in mass media spread "an awareness, while avoiding detailed or explicit information, that the destruction of the Jews was inexorably taking place", according to Kershaw. Bankier writes that the prophecy "left no possible doubts that, in one way or another, the fate of the Jews would be physical obliteration". He adds that in openly declaring their aims, the Nazi leadership aimed to test the loyalty of ordinary Germans to the regime. Confino argues that Germans knew in general terms about the extermination of Europe's Jews, even if they did not know the details. Herf argues that when Hitler's prophecy was referenced in German mass media during the war, readers understood that the Jews had been declared "guilty" for the war and that the Nazi regime was carrying out its previously announced threat to exterminate them.


title: Hitler's prophecy

text: At the International Military Tribunal (1945–1946), "Der Stürmer" publisher Julius Streicher was convicted of crimes against humanity based on his "incitement to murder and extermination" of Jews. The judgment against him cited a January 1943 article he wrote praising Hitler for fulfilling his prophecy to extirpate the Jews.


title: How to Talk to Girls at Parties (film)

text: How to Talk to Girls at Parties is a 2017 science fiction romantic comedy film directed by John Cameron Mitchell and written by Philippa Goslett and Cameron Mitchell, based on the 2006 short story of the same name by Neil Gaiman. The film stars Elle Fanning, Alex Sharp, Nicole Kidman, Ruth Wilson and Matt Lucas. Principal photography began on 9 November 2015, in Sheffield.


title: How to Talk to Girls at Parties (film)

text: The film had its world premiere at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival on 21 May 2017. It was released in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2018, by StudioCanal UK, and in the United States on 25 May 2018 by A24.


title: How to Talk to Girls at Parties (film)

text: Young Enn and his best friends stumble upon a bizarre gathering of teenagers who are from another planet, visiting Earth to complete a mysterious rite of passage. That does not stop Enn from falling madly in love with Zan, a beautiful and rebellious alien who becomes fascinated with him. Together, they embark on a delirious adventure through the kinetic, punk rock world of 1970s London, inadvertently setting off a series of events that leads to the ultimate showdown between punks and aliens.


title: How to Talk to Girls at Parties (film)

text: Principal photography on the film began on November 9, 2015, in Sheffield, which would be standing in for London.


title: How to Talk to Girls at Parties (film)

text: In September 2015, A24 acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film. It had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2017. It was released in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2018 and in the United States on 25 May 2018.


title: How to Talk to Girls at Parties (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 48% based on 96 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""How to Talk to Girls at Parties" has energy and ambition, but is ultimately too unfocused to do much with either — or develop its themes into a cohesive whole." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 50 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: How to Talk to Girls at Parties (film)

text: David Rooney of "The Hollywood Reporter" stated that despite the charming characters of Elle Fanning (a curious alien) and Nicole Kidman (a nihilistic low priestess), its attempts to "add political substance feels less than half-cooked" and in effect sacrifices "narrative cohesion" and "overcomplicates" Neil Gaiman's 18-page story.


title: How to Talk to Girls at Parties (film)

text: Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" wrote: "The film enunciates its raw themes — punk means individuality! the aliens are all about conformity! — but never begins to figure out how to embody those themes in a narrative that could lure in the audience."


title: Albacete Balompié

text: Albacete Balompié is a Spanish football team based in Albacete, in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha. Founded on 2 August 1940, it currently plays in Segunda División, the second tier of Spanish football, holding home matches at "Estadio Carlos Belmonte", with a capacity of 17,524.


title: Albacete Balompié

text: This team is from Albacete a city in Castilla-La Mancha. It's been reported in at least three sources that football was first taught in Albacete by John Hulse, an English Engineer of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways Company, establishing the foundation of Locomotoras Albacete, after the same-named steam locomotive factory in the city, owned by the Goicoechea family, owners of Talgo. Thus, like in Swindon, football in Albacete is originally linked to the railway industry. Hulse introduced the Sheffield Rules in Albacete, and some of the first matches to be reported are against recreational clubs from Murcia (1897), Alcázar de San Juan (1899), and Villarrobledo (1899).


title: Albacete Balompié

text: After years of amateur and regional development of football, it would not appear formally until the end of the Spanish Civil War. The club was founded in 1940 under the name Albacete Foot-ball Association, being later changed in an attempt to make it sound "more Spanish". At the second division in 1985–86, repeating the feat five seasons later.


title: Albacete Balompié

text: In 1989, Benito Floro consecutively promoted the club from the third division to La Liga, overachieving for a seventh place in the first season in the top level. Floro would later coach Real Madrid, returning to "Alba" two seasons later as the club was relegated in 1995–96.


title: Albacete Balompié

text: After years in the second division facing serious economic and sporting difficulties, Albacete returned to the top flight in the 2002–03 campaign, led by César Ferrando (later of Atlético Madrid). However, Albacete dropped in 2004–05 after posting just 6 wins from 38 matches, going on to stabilize in the subsequent seasons in the second level.


title: Albacete Balompié

text: The 2010–11 season brought two coaching changes, with both Antonio Calderón and David Vidal (who returned to the club only a few months after leaving) being fired, as Albacete returned to the third division after 21 years. That season the club finished last in Segunda División with only 32 points in 42 matches. On 6 December 2011, Andrés Iniesta – who played for the club in his youth before joining Barcelona – became the club's major shareholder, donating €420,000 to the cash-strapped club. The club managed to reach the round of 16 of the 2011–12 Copa del Rey, notably beating Atlético Madrid 3–1 on aggregate.


title: Albacete Balompié

text: In March 2013, Agustín Lázaro, chief executive officer (CEO) of Andrés Iniesta's winery enterprise, was appointed as Albacete's chairman. In June, Iniesta loaned the club a further €240,000 to cover unpaid wages, thus preventing its administrative relegation to the fourth tier.


title: Albacete Balompié

text: In 2014, Albacete returned to the Segunda División, but was relegated two seasons later after finishing the season in the 21st position. The club again returned to the Segunda División in the 2016–17 season after winning against Valencia Mestalla in the last round of the promotion play-offs. Albacete finished the 2018–19 season in 4th position of the Segunda División, but then lost to RCD Mallorca in the La Liga play-offs and remained in Segunda División for the 2019–20 season. On next season, Albacete finished last in second division and we're relegated to the third division. Thus ending their four-years stay in the second division.


title: Albacete Balompié

text: Albacete promoted to Segunda in the 2021–22 Primera RFEF season playoffs, by defeating Deportivo de La Coruña in their home turf. The team came back from a 1–0 deficit, winning 1–2 with an overtime goal.


title: Albacete Balompié

text: The club plays its home matches at the Estadio Carlos Belmonte, which has an all-seated capacity of 17,524. Originally built in 1960, the stadium underwent two major redevelopments, the last being in 1998.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: The national flag of Ecuador, which consists of horizontal bands of yellow (double width), blue and red, was first adopted by law in 1835 and later on 26 September 1860. The design of the current flag was finalized in 1900 with the addition of the coat of arms in the center of the flag. Before using the yellow, blue and red tricolor, Ecuador used white and blue flags that contained stars for each province of the country. The design of the flag is very similar to those of Colombia and Venezuela, which are also former constituent territories of Gran Colombia. All three are based on a proposal by Venezuelan General Francisco de Miranda, which was adopted by Venezuela in 1811 and later Gran Colombia with some modifications. There is a variant of the flag that does not contain the coat of arms that is used by the merchant marine. This flag matches Colombia's in every aspect, but Colombia uses a different design when her merchant marine ships are at sail. Along with Haiti, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, it is one of only four national flags whose design incorporates a depiction of the flag itself.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: The Ecuadorian National Secretariat of Communication ("Secretaría Nacional de Comunicación") issued regulations describing the applications and proportions of the national flag, coat of arms, and other national symbols in November 2009.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: The national flag has a length of 2.20 meters and a width of 1.47 m, a ratio of 2 to 3. The field is split into three horizontal colored bands, a yellow band of one-half the flag's width, a blue band of one-quarter the width, and a red band of one-quarter the width. All three bands extend the full length of the flag. The flag is charged with the Ecuadorian coat of arms scaled to one-half the width of the flag and centered in the field. The coat of arms itself is constructed in a rectangle with proportions 12:10. The national standard has the same design as the national flag, but is square, with length 0.9 m and width 0.9 m. When used by military units and organizations, lettering can encircle the coat of arms with a diameter of 55 centimeters. The lettering must be 4 cm in height, 3 cm in width, gold-colored Roman font, embroidered with gold thread. The only other regulated size is a table flag (banderola) where the flag is 200 mm wide and 300 mm long. When manufacturing the national flag, sellers to the public must include the name of their company, along with the year of manufacture, by placing a 20 × 10 mm tag on the reverse side of the flag on the sleeve.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: In the background of the oval shield is the mountain Chimborazo, while the river originating from its base represents the Guayas. Chimborazo is also the highest mountain in Ecuador and is part of the Andes Range. The steamboat on the river is named "Guayas" as well. The ship was built in Guayaquil and was the first seaworthy steamship built in both Ecuador and in all of South America. It was first put into service on 9 October 1841. The ship has the features of a Caduceus representing trade and economy. This kind of mast has two wings surrounding a pole with two snakes encircling it. On top a golden sun surrounded by the Zodiac astrological signs for Aries, Taurus, Gemini and Cancer representing the months March to July to symbolize the duration of the March Revolution of 1845 that ousted General Juan José Flores.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: The condor on top of the shield stretches his wings to symbolize power, greatness and strength of Ecuador. The condor also represents the idea that it will always be ready to attack any enemy. The shield is flanked by four national flags. The laurel on the left represents the victories of the republic. The palm leaf on the right side is a symbol of the martyrs of the fight for independence and liberty. The Fasces below the shield represents the republican dignity. The final design of the coat of arms was completed in 1900.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: In the 1989 specifications issued to the Ecuadorian Military, the coat of arms has only eight colors that are used on the flag. The eight colors are yellow, blue, red (all from the national flag), sky blue, green, grey, silver and gold. There is also a nine piece instruction on how to draw the coat of arms, followed by a full color drawing and a black and white drawing of the arms. No size specifications have been laid out for the coat of arms except for when it is used on the national flag.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: Miranda ascribed the colours he chose for his flag to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's theory of primary colours. In a letter written to Count Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov in 1792, Miranda described a late-night conversation which he had with Goethe at a party in Weimar, Germany during the winter of 1785. Fascinated with Miranda's account of his exploits in the American Revolutionary War and his travels throughout the Americas and Europe, Goethe told him that, "Your destiny is to create in your land a place where primary colours are not distorted.” He proceeded to clarify what he meant:


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: The first time the yellow, blue and red flag was flown by Miranda was in 1806 on the ship "Leander" when trying to face the Spanish forces off of the coast of Jacmel, Haiti. The colors of the modern Ecuadorian flag evolved from those of the flag of the nation of Gran Colombia, which encompassed the territories of modern-day Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. The colors have the following meanings:


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: After the territory of Ecuador was conquered by Sebastián de Benalcázar, the emblems of the Spanish Empire flew over the newly founded city of Quito.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: The first calls for independence from the Spanish crown came on 10 August 1809; a plain red flag was flown by the rebels. The independence movement was defeated in November 1812 at the hands of Spanish officer Juan Sámano. On 9 October 1820, a new flag, a blue and white bicolour, with five horizontal alternating stripes, and three white stars in the middle stripe, was raised for the first time. The three stars represent Guayaquil, Portoviejo and Machala. This flag was later adopted by the Guayas Province.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: Gabriel García Moreno, upon assuming power two days after the Battle of Guayaquil in September 1860, the yellow, blue and red triband was returned to use; its reinstatement on 26 September is commemorated as "Día de la Bandera", or National Flag Day in English. Previously, a vertical white, blue and white flag was used. In the middle of the blue stripe, there were white stars placed to signify the number of provinces in Ecuador. The highest star total was seven before this flag was abandoned. In 1900, the flag was made the definitive national standard, and was charged with the coat of arms for official national government use while the plain flag was reserved for the merchant marine.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: Students and military cadets in Ecuador are required to recite a pledge to the flag, known as the "Juramento a la Bandera" or "Pledge to the Flag." This pledge is usually stated during national holiday or important school functions, such as graduations. There is also a patriotic song called the "Himno a la Bandera" ("Hymn to the Flag") that is after the "Juramento a la Bandera" or before flag retirement ceremonies.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: According to " No. 1272", a decree signed into law on 5 December 1900, there are two official designs of the national flag. Article Two established the national banner as the tricolor with the yellow stripe doubling the size of the blue and red stripes. Article Three establishes the national flag charged with the coat of arms and is directed to be used by the military, government offices and diplomatic agents outside of Ecuador. While this law establishes the flag with the coat of arms as the state flag, it did not forbid the civilian population from using the flag. The only restriction is stated in Article Six where the merchant marine is restricted to using the flag without the coat of arms. Because of this, this has been construed to be the civil flag as it was practiced in other South American countries, such as Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. Unlike Ecuador, several of these South American countries forbade the civilian population from using the national flag with the coat of arms or, in the case of Argentina until 1985, the national flag charged with the Sun of May in the middle. Peru and Bolivia still restricts the usage of the state flag to just the government bodies and institutions and reserves the plain flags for national celebrations or as directed by law. However, in practice the flag with the coat of arms is often used in place of the plain flag, especially when it is important to distinguish the latter from the flag of Colombia. In the case when Colombian merchant marine ships are at sea, the Colombian national flag is charged with a red and blue oval with a white star in the center. For city governments, Article 4 in the 1900 decree forbids them from using the national flag with the coat of arms. A special flag was created for the city governments to use; it is a plain national flag charged with white stars that are placed in a circle pattern. The number of white stars will correspond to the number of provinces in Ecuador. However, this flag is identical to Venezuela's flag from 1905 until 1930, and similar to Venezuela's current flag (the stars are now in a semi circle pattern).


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: Palestina Canton uses the national flag on their flag. Placed in the canton, the Ecuador flag is shown with three even stripes, while the rest of the flag is colored olive green. The use of the Ecuador flag was described by the Palestina government as "unity with the motherland" and olive green represents progress. Loja Province adopted a flag in 1963 that copied the design of the national flag. This was done by the creator of the flag to show his "honor and admiration" to the homeland. Another province, Napo, chose their flag that copied the design of the national flag without the coat of arms. The only modification that was performed was to put a white strip between the blue and yellow.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: The flags of Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, can all trace their roots to the flag of the nation of Gran Colombia (1819–1830), the short-lived republic that encompassed the territories of all three. The Gran Colombian flag in turn was inspired by the flag of the First Republic of Venezuela, the first independent government of that nation. The flag of the Venezuelan Republic was modeled on the one created earlier by General Francisco de Miranda during his attempts to gain Venezuelan independence and which first flew over the port of La Vela in Santa Ana de Coro, Venezuela, in 1806.


title: Flag of Ecuador

text: As of 2006, the Ecuadoran flag still shares some similarity with the flags of Colombia and Venezuela. All three flags use the yellow, blue and red tricolor, but that is where the similarities end. In a decree passed in Colombia in 1934, the ratio of the stripes were set at 2:1:1 and the flag ratio was set at 2:3, similar to the present Ecuador flag. However, the coat of arms is only changed in the middle of the flag when it is used by government officials or by military forces. For Venezuela, the basic design was to have all three strips even vertically, unlike those of Colombia and Ecuador. Since 1863, Venezuela decided to change their flag with white stars instead of a coat of arms. A coat of arms was added to the national flag in 1954, then changed again in 2006 to add another star and alter the coat of arms. The position of the coat of arms on the Venezuelan flag also differs from Ecuador and Colombia by placing the arms at the very top hoist (left) side of the flag instead of in the center.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: Mat Fraser (born 1962) is an English rock musician, actor, writer and performance artist. He has thalidomide-induced phocomelia. In 2017, he was cast to play Shakespeare's "Richard III" at the Hull Truck Theatre as part of Hull City of Culture 2017.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: Between 1980 and 1995 Fraser was a drummer with several rock bands including Fear of Sex, The Reasonable Strollers, Joyride, The Grateful Dub, and Living in Texas, who had a number one single in Italy. Fraser played the drums with Graeae Theatre Company's "Reasons to be Cheerful" at the 2012 Paralympics opening ceremony, where he also hosted the pre-televised section, and with Coldplay during the closing ceremony.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: Fraser left drumming to join Graeae Theatre Company, Europe's leading disabled theatre company, after their production of "Ubu" inspired him to change careers. He worked in forum theatre for Graeae for several months, then landed the part of Dr Prentice in Joe Orton's "What the Butler Saw". He is now a patron of Graeae. Subsequent theatre roles in the 1990s included the Group K production of "Marisol" and the title role in "Johnny Sol" at the Croydon Warehouse.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: His first major television role was in the three-part World War II drama series "Unknown Soldier" (ITV, 1998).


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: In 2003 he appeared as the seer Calchas in the television miniseries Helen of Troy based on Homer's Iliad.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: In 2009 he appeared in Channel Four's "Cast Offs", a six-part comedy-drama series satirising reality television . Fraser has been associated with the use of the term "spacking up" to describe when a non-disabled actor plays the part of a disabled person rather than the part going to a disabled actor, as a play on "blacking up", used to describe the controversial practice where non-black actors take on the characters of black people. The term was actually coined by one of the show's writers, in the line "spacking up is the new blacking up".


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: Fraser has appeared on television in a number of other productions including "Metrosexuality" and "Every Time You Look at Me".


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: His film "Kung Fu Flid" was released in 2009, starring Faye Tozer (formerly of pop group Steps), Frank Harper and Terry Stone.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: In 2012 he appeared in Kaite O'Reilly's stage play "In Water I'm Weightless" as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: Fraser was one of the regular cast members in the fourth season of the US TV series "". He also appears as Roger in the TV series "Loudermilk".


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: In May 2017, Fraser was cast as Shakespeare's King Richard III, ‘a disabled guy gets cast as a disabled guy’, a role he discussed with Emma Tracey, presenter for BBC Radio's service for disabled people, "Ouch".


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: In 2019, Fraser played Raymond Van Geritt in the BBC One adaptation of Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials. In 2020, Fraser would write and curate the BBC Four disability series "Criptales".


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: Fraser was one of the original co-hosts of the BBC's "Ouch! Podcast". He presented the short-lived Channel 4 series "Freak Out". He presented the 2004 Channel 4 documentary "Happy Birthday Thalidomide", documenting how the drug was being used in Brazil to treat leprosy, but that its use in a country with low levels of literacy and a black market in drugs was leading to new thalidomide births.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: Fraser played the lead character, Sparky, in BBC Radio Four's Saturday Playhouse production, "Inmates" (1997), by Allan Sutherland and Stuart Morris.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: His 2001 play 'Sealboy: Freak' draws on the life history of Stanislaus Berent, a sideshow performer with naturally occurring phocomelia who worked under the stage name Sealo.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: Fraser's 2002 television documentary, Born Freak, looked at this historical tradition and its relevance to modern disabled performers. This work has become the subject of academic analysis in the field of disability studies.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: As part of the documentary, Fraser performed in a Coney Island freak show. He was invited to return to work there professionally and has since worked several summer seasons there.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: Fraser's 2011 show, From Freak to Clique, charted the history of portrayals of disability, including freak show performers.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: In 2014, Fraser went on to have a role as Paul the Illustrated Seal in "". He played Jessica Lange's love interest in several episodes.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: Fraser was commissioned by the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries at the University of Leicester to create a new artistic work, shaped out of a collaborative engagement with museum collections, research and expertise in medical history, museums and disability. The resulting performance, "Cabinet of Curiosities: How disability was kept in a box" was performed at the Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds; the Silk Mill Museum, Derby; and Manchester Museum. It won the "Observer" Ethical Awards, Arts and Culture 2014.


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: "The Guardian"'s Lyn Gardner stated that, "by making a spectacle of himself, Fraser is not only raising the spectre of the Victorian freak show but also subverting it by questioning what is exhibited and what isn't, and making us confront what we are shown and what we are not shown, both in art and in life".


title: Mat Fraser (actor)

text: On 6 December 2017 Fraser and his wife Julie Atlas Muz presented "Jack and the Beanstalk", the first large-scale pantomime to be presented in New York for over a century, at the Playhouse Theater of the Henry Street Settlement. Adapted from the fairy tale of the same title by Fraser and directed by Muz, the production also starred Dirty Martini, Matt Roper, David Ilku and a cast of other downtown performers. Awarded the NYT Critic's Pick, the production closed on 23 December 2017 and enjoyed a revival the following year at the same theatre, running for three weeks during the 2018 holiday season. On 4 December 2021 a follow-up, "Dick Rivington and The Cat", adapted from the traditional pantomime story of "Dick Whittington", was presented by the pair.


title: John Terry (actor)

text: John Terry (born January 25, 1950) is an American film, television, and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as Christian Shephard in the TV series "Lost" and Larry McCoy in the TV series "Las Vegas". He is also the father of football player Hanna Terry of KIF Örebro DFF in the Swedish women's football league Damallsvenskan.


title: John Terry (actor)

text: Terry was born in Vero Beach, Florida, where he attended Vero Beach High School. He was also educated at the prestigious Loomis Chaffee prep school in Windsor, Connecticut, and began a career building original custom log homes in North Carolina. He played roles in local theater before moving to Alaska where he founded a river rafting company. But his interest in acting did not diminish. At age 30 he moved to New York City and became a full-time actor.


title: John Terry (actor)

text: Terry's debut role was as the title character in the 1980 fantasy film "Hawk the Slayer", followed by roles in films such as "There Goes the Bride" (1980), "Tuxedo Warrior" (1982) and the action sequel "Wild Geese II" (1985), as Barbara Carrera's brother. His career then took a major upswing as he was assigned the roles of Lieutenant Lockhart in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" (1987) and Felix Leiter in the James Bond film "The Living Daylights" (1987). Nothing as prominent followed immediately, though he received good notices for his role as a traumatized Vietnam veteran in Norman Jewison's "In Country" (1989). Terry subsequently played the lead in a well-regarded but short-lived TV series "Against the Grain". Terry played Slim in the 1992 film adaptation of "Of Mice and Men" and also appeared in "The Resurrected" (1992), an adaption of the H. P. Lovecraft novella "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward".


title: John Terry (actor)

text: He found new success on television. He appeared in the first episodes of "ER" playing Dr. Div Cvetic, the love interest of Dr. Lewis, who disappeared after a nervous breakdown. He later played a recurring role in season two of Fox's real-time thriller "24", as Bob Warner, the father of both the love interest of hero Jack Bauer and of another daughter whose fiancé is suspected of being a terrorist.


title: John Terry (actor)

text: After a brief stint on NBC's "Las Vegas", he was cast as Christian Shephard, the father of Jack Shephard and Claire Littleton on ABC's "Lost". Terry reprised his role as Shephard on several occasions in flashbacks before appearing frequently in real time on the island as an incarnation of "the man in black". He had a guest role in a 2006 episode of "Law & Order", as well as the part of older Jacob Wheeler in Steven Spielberg's "Into the West" mini series, which was nominated for 16 Emmy Awards in 2006. He also appeared in David Fincher's "Zodiac", Matthew McConaughey's "Surfer, Dude", and the horror thriller "Nine Dead".


title: Buddhism and Jainism

text: Buddhism and Jainism are two Indian religions that developed in Magadha (Bihar) and continue to thrive in the modern age. Gautama Buddha and Mahavira are generally accepted as contemporaries. Jainism and Buddhism share many features, terminology and ethical principles, but emphasize them differently. Both are śramaṇa ascetic traditions that believe it is possible to attain liberation from the cycle of rebirths and deaths (samsara) through spiritual and ethical disciplines. They differ in some core doctrines such as those on asceticism, Middle Way versus "Anekantavada", and self versus not-self ("jiva", "atta, anatta").


title: Buddhism and Jainism

text: Jainism is an ancient religion and eternal with 24 Tirthankaras. Of the 24, the last two tirthankaras – are generally accepted as historical persons, with the 23rd Tirthankara pre-dating the Buddha and the Mahavira by probably some 250 years. Buddhists believe Gautama Buddha, the historical buddha, rediscovered the long forgotten dharma around the 5th century BCE, and began to teach it again. In Buddhism there were previous buddhas, too, 27 in total as described in the "Buddhavamsa", the 14th book of the "Khuddaka Nikāya". Buddhists also believe that Gautama Buddha had many previous rebirths as described in the Jataka Tales.


title: Buddhism and Jainism

text: Buddhist scriptures record that during Prince Siddhartha's ascetic life (before attaining enlightenment) he undertook many fasts, penances and austerities, the descriptions of which are elsewhere found only in the Jain tradition. In the "Majjhima Nikaya", the Buddha shares his experience:


title: Buddhism and Jainism

text: The Jain text of Kalpasutra confirms Mahavira's asceticism, whose life is a source of guidance on many of the ascetic practices in Jainism. Such asceticism has been a hallmark of mendicant life in Jainism. The Buddha tried it, but abandoned what he called the "extreme ascetic methods", teaching the Middle Way instead.


title: Buddhism and Jainism

text: The Pāli Canon does not record that Mahavira and Gautama Buddha ever met, though instances of Mahavira's disciples questioning Gautama Buddha are to be found in various sutras. For instance, in the "Majjhima Nikāya" (MN 56), Upāli —one of Gautama Buddha's foremost disciples— is said to have been a disciple of the Mahavira who became a disciple of the Buddha after losing a debate with him.


title: Buddhism and Jainism

text: The Buddhists have always maintained that by the time the Buddha and Mahavira were alive, Jainism was already an entrenched faith and culture in the region. According to the Pāli Canon, Gautama was aware of Mahavira's existence as well as the communities of Jain monastics


title: Buddhism and Jainism

text: Buddhist texts refer to the Mahavira as "Nigaṇṭha Jñātaputta". Nigaṇṭha means "without knot, tie, or string" and Jñātaputta (son of "Natas"), referred to his clan of origin "Jñāta" or "Naya" (Prakrit).


title: Buddhism and Jainism

text: The five vows (non-violence, truth, non-attachment, non-thieving, celibacy/chastity) propounded by the 23rd Jain Tirthankara, Pārśva (877-777 BCE), may have been the template for the Five Precepts of Buddhism. Additionally, the Buddhist "Aṅguttaranikāya" scripture quotes the independent philosopher Purana Kassapa, a sixth-century BCE founder of a now-extinct order, as listing the "Nirgranthas" as one of the six major classifications of humanity.


title: Buddhism and Jainism

text: Buddhist writings reflect that Jains had followers by the time the Buddha lived. Suggesting close correlations between the teachings of the Jains and the Buddha, the "Majjhima Nikaya" relates dialogues between the Buddha and several members of the "Nirgrantha community".