"Infectious Germs." Under the microscope are symbols for Jews, communists, and homosexuals (triangles), alongside the British pound and the American dollar. The poem at the bottom reads: "With his poison, the Jew destroys / The sluggish blood of weaker peoples / So that a diagnosis arises, / Of swift degeneration / With us, however, the case is different / The blood is pure; we are healthy!" / From Der Stürmer, April 15, 1943, p. 1. "Adolf Hitler, Doctor of the German People." From Die Volksgesundheitwacht, Ostermond 1935, p. 3.

Metaphors within political rhetoric define and reveal the cognitive structure of an ideology. Metaphors do not come out of nowhere, nor are they abstract, intellectual concepts. They originate from a deeper place. Metaphors convey the fantasy contained within an ideology.

The metaphor of Jews as a “disease within the body politic" captures the essence of Nazi Germany. This term expresses and contains the fantasies and desires that Nazi ideology sought to express.

Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, and many others--were possessed by this fantasy of the Jew as the source of a disease within Germany. Nazism constructed reality based upon this fantasy, which was conveyed through images and metaphors that appear in writings, speeches and pictorial images. 

Hitler's ideology expressed who he was. The metaphors in his writings and speeches contain his felt experience. His ideas convey fantasies that possessed him—that he wished to share with others.

The photos to the right capture the essence of Nazi culture. The first shows a microscope—with Jews, communists and homosexuals depicted as “infectious germs.” Jews and other groups are imagined as pathogenic organisms, the source of Germany’s illness and suffering. 

The second photo captioned “Adolf Hitler, Doctor of the German people”—expresses the idea of Hitler as a leader capable of rescuing the German people from death. By destroying pathogenic microorganisms, he would cure the disease from which Germany was suffering.