2010 Chafer Theological Seminary Bible Conference

Some 100 years before the Nazis rose to power, German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) ominously wrote that “we owe the animals not mercy but justice, and the debt often remains unpaid in Europe, the continent that is permeated with Foeter Judaicus … it is obviously high time in Europe that Jewish views on nature were brought to an end … the unconscionable treatment of the animal world must, on account of its immorality, be expelled from Europe.” That such words became prophetic under the umbrella of a secular religion of nature that was Nazi Germany colored by an environmental totalitarian views during the 1930s and 40s, is a historical truth that has been underappreciated for too long a time. Borrowing from Tacitus, Foeter Judaicus means “the odor of the Jews.” For Schopenhauer, this bad odor was Jewish animal cruelty. Furthermore, that Adolf Hitler could quote Schopenhauer verbatim from the top of his head is no coincidence, and neither is the fact that the Jews would find themselves shoved into cattle cars and sent to concentration camps set up like stockyards where they would often be treated like experimental animals. Hitler made sure that the Jews would pay for their animal cruelty by subjecting them to the same punishment that he assumed they were guilty of. ...