8 Historical Figures You Didn’t Know Were Antisemitic

Some of history’s most accomplished men and women revealed their repugnant antisemitic nature.

Will that knowledge about their character change how you think of them? Should we excuse them because antisemitic sentiment was so prevalent in their time? Will you still be able to admire and appreciate their creations when you’re aware of this poisonous part of their souls?

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel

Coco Chanel has long been admired as a fashion and feminist icon. For her reputation as an antisemite—less so. Despite having used Jewish investors to fund her fashion empire before World War II, she had a notorious affair with a Nazi officer. At one point, she fled to Switzerland to avoid criminal charges for her collaboration as a Nazi spy.

Chanel was “often given to antisemitic outbursts” about the "greedy" and "aggressive" nature of Jewish people. The French editor-in-chief of Marie Claire observed after a conversation with Chanel, “Chanel’s antisemitism was not only verbal; but passionate and often embarrassing.” But she did popularize the Chanel tweed suit and the little black dress, so there’s that.

Martin Luther

No, not the Black leader Martin Luther King who shares part of his name but thankfully not his prejudices. This is the Martin Luther, the Father of the Protestant Reformation. In terms of his antisemitism, let’s just say that subtlety and humanity weren’t Luther’s strong points. In his 1543 treatise, "On the Jews and Their Lies," Luther called for synagogues to be burned, Jewish homes to be destroyed, and Jewish people to be expelled from their communities.

There is something uncannily adaptive about antisemitism: the way it can hide, unsuspected, in the most progressive minds. Author James Lasdun

So, while he gets points for establishing the Lutheran Church, we’ll have to deduct points for his referring to Jews as "venomous beasts" and "rejected and condemned by God." Apparently, as Luther saw it, spreading love and peace is not all-encompassing.

Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound was a distinguished poet and writer, but pound for pound, he was also a malignant antisemite. He believed Jews to be responsible for a multitude of the world’s problems and embraced stereotypical conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the media and banking industries.

Pound was an ardent supporter of Hitler and Mussolini, going so far as to give radio broadcasts for the Italian Fascist government during World War II. He described the U.S. president as “Franklin D. Frankfurter Jewsfeld,” and the Chinese leader as “Chiang Kike Chek.”

He had an impressive “ear” for words, a faultless sense of cadence, and appealed through the sheer beauty of language “to people who would rather talk about poets than read them.” And yet this was the same man who said things like, “The Jew alone can retain his detestable qualities, despite climatic conditions.”

T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic, editor – and antisemite. One of the most acclaimed poets of the 20th century, T.S. Eliot, actually incorporated his antisemitism into his poetry. In his poem "Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar," Eliot wrote, "The rats are underneath the piles, the Jew is underneath the lot. Money and furs."

In his private letters, Elliot referred to Jews as "unpleasant people" and "a race that has no sense of proportion." As Joseph Black observes, “Few published works displayed the consistency of association that one finds in Eliot’s early poetry between what is Jewish and what is squalid and distasteful.” And during a 1934 lecture in Virginia, Eliot stressed the importance of social “unity of religious background…. Reasons of race and religion combine to make any large number of free-thinking Jews undesirable.” Apparently, we can rule out “Torah study” for what the T.S. in his name stood for.

Charles Lindbergh

Charles Lindbergh was one of the greatest American heroes. He was an aviator who made the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He was also a Nazi sympathizer and unapologetic antisemite. In a speech in 1941, Lindbergh claimed that Jewish people were trying to drag the United States into World War II for their own benefit. He even gave speeches in which he warned of a Jewish "stranglehold" on America and praised Nazi Germany's treatment of Jews.

As late as April 1939‍—‌after Germany overtook Czechoslovakia‍—‌Lindbergh was willing to make excuses for Adolf Hitler. In a 1941 speech, Lindbergh said of the Jews, “Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government." Perhaps the thin air and lack of oxygen while doing all that flying, affected his brain and reason. But you didn’t hear it from me.

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. He also openly articulated his antisemitic views in a number of publications. Wagner wrote that the German people were repelled by Jews due to their 'alien' appearance and behavior. The favorite composer of Adolf Hitler, Wagner often found a scapegoat—such as the Jewish population—to account for his personal and musical misfortunes.

Victims of Hitler have associated Wagner and his music with Nazism to such an extent that in Israel a ban on public performance of that music is upheld to this day. Perhaps karma kicked in, however, as payback for his views: Until his final years, Wagner's life was characterized by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty, and repeated flight from his creditors. What a life he might have had if there were no Jews!

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was an English writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognized him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. His works, however clearly have their antisemitic aspects.

For example, along with Shakespeare’s Shylock, Dickens’s Fagin is probably the best-known Jewish character in English literature — and perhaps also the most repellent. He is described in Oliver Twist as “a very old shriveled Jew whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted old hair.” In the book, in case you didn’t get the message of the character, Dickens refers to the odious, criminal Fagin as “the Jew” more than 250 times in its first 38 chapters.

In other works, Dickens describes the dirty ways, thieving tendencies, and lisping accents of Jews, along with Jewish “mammas” who are obese and averse to using soap and water. Dickens even refers to a situation in which he wanted to borrow money and was offered a loan at an outrageous interest rate of 120 percent by a Jew of “decidedly Israelite caste of countenance.” To paraphrase Dickens’ opening of A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the most prejudiced of times.”

Roald Dahl

Much beloved author Roald Dahl is celebrated for his whimsical children’s books, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda. He is understandably less known for his darker side, illustrated by a number of antisemitic comments he’s on record for making throughout his life. He referred, for example, to Jews as, “a filthy, dirty, noxious, and repellent race” and “the hardest people to teach a lesson to.”

Dahl said, “There’s a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews.” Sounds like a guy who might go so far as defending Hitler? You betcha. Said Dahl, “I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.” Well, firstly, I believe that what Hitler did went lightyears beyond “picking on them.” And secondly, apparently, the Holocaust was our own fault.

These diverse historical figures are all dead. Sadly, antisemitism did not die with them.