Martin Luther - “If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone around his neck and push him over with the words, ‘I baptize thee in the name of Abraham.’”
- “They are real liars and bloodhounds who. . . continually perverted and falsified all of Scripture. . .”
- “The sun has never shone on a more bloodthirsty and vengeful people. . .”
- “The worse a Jew is, the more arrogant he is, solely because he is a Jew.”
- “Be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils. . . Where you see or hear a Jew teaching, remember that you are hearing nothing but a venomous basilisk who poisons and kills people merrily by fasten. . .”
-“The devil with all his angels has taken possession of this people. . .”
“Whenever you see a genuine Jew, you may with a good conscience cross yourself and bluntly say, ‘There goes a devil incarnate.’”
-“In their synagogues and in their prayers they wish us every misfortune. They rob us of our money and goods through their usury, and they play on us every wicked trick they can. . . no one acts thus, except the devil himself, or whomever he possesses, as he has possessed the Jews.”
-“They are a heavy burden, a plague, a pestilence, a sheer misfortune for our country.”
-“Set fire to their synagogues or schools and . . . bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing or blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians.”
-“. . . Eject them forever from the country. . . gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but a little. Therefore, in any case, away with them!”
-“But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews’ synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to utter God’s name? They will still keep doing it in secret. . . They must be driven from our country.”
-“I wish and I ask that our rulers who have Jewish subjects. . . act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did in the wilderness, slaying three thousand lest the whole people perish.”
