Hermann Ahlwardt

Who was Hermann Ahlwardt?

Hermann Ahlwardt was a German antisemitic journalist.

Ahlwardt was originally an elementary school teacher, but was dismissed in 1893 because of his anti-Jewish pamphlets and sentenced to prison. In 1895, as one of the völkisch leaders, Ahlwardt, in a speech before the Reichstag, called Jews "predators" and "cholera bacilli" who should be "exterminated" for the good of the German people. He was a co-founder of the Antisemitic People's Party; his three-volume work Verzweiflungskampf der arischen Völker mit dem Judentum later influenced Nazi antisemitism.