Culture: Juden Raus! The Nasty Nazi-Era Board Game

Juden Raus! The Nasty Nazi-Era Board Game

The world will never forget the horrendous legacy of the Nazis rise to power in Germany, the demonising of the Jewish people, the spread of anti-Semitism and ultimately the Holocaust. What many may not be aware of is the propaganda drenched board games that appeared, as part of the culture of Germany of this period. There were some that you would expect, that equivalents of wouldn't have looked out of places in the parlour of British family house, or the family room of an American home. For example Bomber über England (Bombers over England), was a bagatelle (early pinball) style game in which players had to get there balls into targets on a map of the UK. Or Jagd auf Kohlenklau (Hunting for the Coal Thief), which encouraged energy conservation as part of the war effort. But the one game you wouldn't have seen was one referred to as "History's most infamous board game", Juden Raus! (Jews Out!).

The game is a version of the well known "cross and circle" race style of board game, and was likely copied from the well known Germany board game Fang der Hut (Trap the Cap), publisher by the famous game manufacturer Ravensberger in 1927. Like the game Trap the Cap, players move around the board "capturing" caps and ultimate congregate their "captured" caps in spaces outside of the main circle. The differences are where in insidious nature of Jews Out!, start to become obvious, apart from the utterly racist title of the game of course. The areas where you "cap" your player pieces are Jewish homes and shops, the caps themselves look like dunce caps and carry grotesque cartoon caricatures of Jewish faces. The player pieces themselves are painted in such as way that they look similar to the German Police uniform of the time. The circle around the board is a medieval town wall, possibly representative of the German state as a whole.

The aim of the game is collect the "caps" and deposit them outside of the town walls. Or in other words, the police must go to Jewish homes and businesses and chase them out of town. The winner is the player who manages to get six "caps" outside of the town walls. The board carried instructive statements of encouragement to the players, which said "
Show skill in this dice game, so that you gather up all the Jews!" and "If you succeed in chasing six Jews out, you’re the winner, without a doubt!" At the bottom of the board was a caricatured Jewish family, with statement below that read "Off to Palestine!"

The origins of the game a somewhat murky, as the makers on the box are claimed to be Günther & Co. of Dresden. It's believed that the game was likely first released in 1938, though there are some claims that it was first published in 1936. There is a textile company called Günther & Co., who first appeared in records in 1940, but whose address was the same as that printed on the game, Dresden A16. The game was distributed by someone called Rudolf Fabricius, but little else is known about who he was, apart from a flyer with his name on advertising the game a a 33% discount.

A protest outside a New York department store in 1938, against toys from Germany.

Evidence says that the game wasn't at all popular with the Nazis. It wasn't an official game as part of the Nazi Party's propaganda. It carried no Nazi insignia or symbolism. The Nazi newspaper Das Schwarze Korps of December 29th 1938, carried a review of the game. The review was very damning of the game and of its makers. In that the writer thought that the game trivialised and ridiculed the Nazi Party's policies on Jews. And that the manufacturer was cynically attempting to cash in on the Nazi slogan "Juden Raus!" to promote the game and make a profit. There's little or no evidence of the game selling many copies, and to date there are only two known copies in existence.

This wasn't the only propaganda laden game to come out of Nazi Germany, before the start of WWII. Games and toys were a big export from Germany, but as the world moved towards war, and people became aware of the treatment of minority groups, especially that of the Jews by the Nazis, there was a rise in raising awareness and protests against German products.

Punching Hitler: WWII Era Comic Book Covers - Comic books were in their infancy when WWII broke out, and it wasn't long before the industry joined the war effort in defeating the enemy.

Walt Disney's World War II Propaganda Films - During World War II the United States government turned to Walt Disney, to help boost the morale of the people.