Julius Streicher (February 12, 1885 – October 16, 1946) was a prominent Nazi prior to and during World War II. He was the publisher of the Nazi Der Stürmer newspaper, which was to become a part of the Nazi propaganda machine. His publishing firm released three anti-Semitic books for children, including the 1938 Der Giftpilz (The Poison Mushroom), one of the most widespread pieces of propaganda, which purported to warn about insidious dangers Jews posed by using the metaphor of an attractive yet deadly mushroom. After the war, he was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed.

National Socialism
Julius Streicher was found guilty of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial and sentenced to death on October 1, 1946. During the trial Streicher declared several times that the jailers had tortured him. All his comments on this issue were erased from the official protocol but on the audiotape of the trial it is still present. His last words, before execution on October 16, 1946, were "Heil Hitler," and, "The Bolsheviks will hang you one day!". Streicher was not a member of the military and was not part of planning the Holocaust, the invasion of Poland, or the Soviet invasion. Yet his role in inciting the extermination of Jews was significant enough, in the prosecutors' judgment, to include him in the indictment. The hanging of Julius Streicher did not proceed as planned. The consensus among eyewitnesses is that he died by slow strangulation rather than by the quick death from spinal severing typical with the type of hanging used at Nuremberg. The executioner had to intervene under the gallows to silence and finish Streicher, who was still groaning and swinging on the rope moments after the release of the trap-door.