Editing Stab-in-the-back myth (section)

==Antisemitic aspects==
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1969-067-10, Alfred Rosenberg.jpg |thumb|upright=0.8|left|Nazi theorist [[Alfred Rosenberg]] was one of many on the far-right who spread the stab-in-the-back myth.]]
The antisemitic instincts of the German Army were revealed well before the stab-in-the-back myth became the military's excuse for losing the war. In October 1916, in the middle of the war, the army ordered a [[Judenzählung|Jewish census]] of the troops, with the intent to show that Jews were under-represented in the ''Heer'' (army), and that they were over-represented in non-fighting positions. Instead, the census showed just the opposite, that Jews were over-represented both in the army as a whole and in fighting positions at the front. The Imperial German Army then suppressed the results of the census.{{sfn|Evans|2003|page=150}}

Charges of a Jewish conspiratorial element in Germany's defeat drew heavily upon figures such as [[Kurt Eisner]], a Berlin-born German Jew who lived in Munich. He had written about the illegal nature of the war from 1916 onward, and he also had a large hand in the [[People's State of Bavaria|Munich revolution]] until he was assassinated in February 1919. The Weimar Republic under Friedrich Ebert violently suppressed workers' uprisings with the help of [[Gustav Noske]] and ''Reichswehr'' general Wilhelm Groener, and tolerated the [[paramilitary]] ''[[Freikorps]]'' forming all across Germany. In spite of such tolerance, the Republic's legitimacy was constantly attacked with claims such as the stab-in-the-back. Many of its representatives such as Matthias Erzberger and [[Walther Rathenau]] were assassinated, and the leaders were branded as "criminals" and Jews by the right-wing press dominated by [[Alfred Hugenberg]].

Anti-Jewish sentiment was intensified by the [[Bavarian Soviet Republic]] (6 April – 3 May 1919), a [[Communist state|communist government]] which briefly ruled the city of Munich before being crushed by the ''Freikorps''. Many of the Bavarian Soviet Republic's leaders were Jewish, allowing antisemitic propagandists to connect Jews with communism, and thus treason.{{fact|date=December 2024}}

[[File:Stab-in-the-back cartoon 1924.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|1924 right-wing German political cartoon showing [[Philipp Scheidemann]], the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|German Social Democratic]] politician who proclaimed the Weimar Republic and was its second chancellor, and [[Matthias Erzberger]], an anti-war politician from the [[Centre Party (Germany)|Centre Party]], who ended World War I by signing the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918|armistice]] with the Allied Powers, as stabbing the German Army in the back]]In 1919, ''[[Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund|Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund]]'' (German Nationalist Protection and Defiance Federation) leader [[Alfred Roth (politician)|Alfred Roth]], writing under the pseudonym "Otto Arnim", published the book ''The Jew in the Army'' which he said was based on evidence gathered during his participation on the ''Judenzählung'', a military census which had in fact shown that German Jews had served in the front lines proportionately to their numbers. Roth's work claimed that most Jews involved in the war were only taking part as profiteers and spies, while he also blamed Jewish officers for fostering a defeatist mentality which impacted negatively on their soldiers. As such, the book offered one of the earliest published versions of the stab-in-the-back legend.<ref name="Levy2005">{{cite book|last=Levy|first=Richard S.|title=Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution|url=https://archive.org/details/antisemitismhist00levy_141|url-access=limited|year=2005|location=Santa Barbara|publisher=ABC-CLIO|pages=623–624|isbn=1851094393}}</ref>

[[File:1920 poster 12000 Jewish soldiers KIA for the fatherland.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|''"12,000 Jewish soldiers died on the field of honor for the fatherland."'' A leaflet published in 1920 by German Jewish veterans in response to accusations of the lack of patriotism]]
A version of the stab-in-the-back myth was publicised in 1922 by the anti-Semitic Nazi theorist [[Alfred Rosenberg]] in his primary [[racial policy of Nazi Germany|contribution to Nazi theory]] on [[Zionism]], ''Der Staatsfeindliche Zionismus'' (Zionism, the Enemy of the State). Rosenberg accused German Zionists of working for a German defeat and supporting Britain and the implementation of the [[Balfour Declaration]].{{efn|This is described similarly by [[William Helmreich]] and Francis Nicosia. Helmreich noted that: "''Der staatsfeindliche Zionismus'', published in 1922, was Rosenberg's major contribution to the National Socialist position on Zionism. It represented in part an elaboration on ideas already expressed in articles in the ''Volkischer Beobachter'' and in other published works, notably ''Die Spur''. The title provides the gist of a thesis that Rosenberg sought to convey to his readers: 'The Zionist organization in Germany is nothing more than an organization that pursues a legalized undermining of the German state.' He accused German Zionists of having betrayed Germany during the war by supporting Britain's Balfour Declaration and pro-Zionist policies and charged that they had actively worked for a German defeat and the Versailles settlement to obtain a Jewish National Home in Palestine. He went on to assert that the interests of Zionism were first and foremost those of world Jewry, and by implication the international Jewish conspiracy."{{sfn|Helmreich|1985|p=24}} Nicosia: "Rosenberg argues that the Jews had planned the Great War in order to secure a state in Palestine. In other words, he suggested that they generated violence and war among the gentiles in order to secure their own, exclusively Jewish, interests. In fact, the title of one of those works, ''Der Staatsfeindliche Zionismus'' ("Zionism, the Enemy of the State"), published in 1922, conveys the gist of Rosenberg's approach to the question, an approach that Hitler had been taking in some of his speeches since 1920. Rosenberg writes: 'The Zionist Organization in Germany is nothing more than an Organization that perpetrates the legal subversion of the German state.' He further accuses the Zionists of betraying Germany during World War I by supporting Great Britain and its Balfour Declaration, working for a German defeat and the implementation of the Balfour Declaration, supporting the Versailles settlement, and embracing the Jewish National Home in postwar, British-controlled Palestine."{{sfn|Nicosia|2008|p=67}}}}