Seife aus Judenfett: Zur Wirkungsgeschichte einer zeitgenössischen Sage

Abstract

Although long ago refuted by the historical profession, the stories told during World War II about the Germans/the Nazis who made soap from their Jewish victims still flourish all over the world, as hundreds of websites show – from Patagonia to Manitoba, from California to Siberia. The paper looks into the origins and the reception history of the ‘soap legend’, trying to explain its attractiveness by considering archetypal ideas of ‘the Jew’ in Christian societies.