Nazi newspaper once denounced Superman, ridiculed Jewish creators

In mid-July 2025, as James Gunn's "Superman" premiered in theaters, claims about a 1940 Nazi newspaper attack on the superhero resurfaced on social media.

For example, a July 11 Bluesky post (archived) said the newspaper "took umbrage at the comic book hero." The post, which had received more than 9,200 likes and 4,000 reposts as of this writing, read: 

The right-wing backlash against #Superman this week got me thinking: Has this happened before? That led to the discovery of these headlines — from April 1940, when the official newspaper of the SS took umbrage at the comic book hero and ridiculed its creators. My how times change…

(Bluesky)

The post included images of two purported archival newspaper clippings showing headlines about the Nazi response to Superman. One read "Superman Poisoning American Children, Irate Nazis Claim" with a byline from Berlin, Germany, dated April 24 while the other was headlined "Superman Arouses Teutonic Anger" with similar dating.

Similar claims about Nazi criticism of Superman have circulated online for years, including discussions on Reddit (archived) and Tumblr (archived) referencing the historical incident.

We found this claim to be true.

The archival newspaper clippings in the Bluesky post appeared to show the same story by a news wire service. Vanity Fair shared (archived) a screenshot of the full article, identifying it as a United Press story from the April 24, 1940, edition of The Springfield (Missouri) Leader and Press, confirming that the Nazi attack on Superman received media attention at the time.

One user shared (archived) a scanned image of the original Nazi newspaper page on the CGC comic book forum, providing visual evidence of the article's existence. 

(archiefan/CGC)

The Calvin University German Propaganda Archive preserved and translated the complete text of the article, confirming (archived) that in April 1940, Das Schwarze Korps, the weekly newspaper of the Schutzstaffel (SS) — a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party —  published a full-page article attacking Superman and his Jewish creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

The Nazi article was a response to a February 27, 1940, Look magazine feature (archived) titled "How Superman Would End the War," which showed Superman capturing Hitler and Josef Stalin and bringing them before the League of Nations.

According to the translation, the SS newspaper's attack was antisemitic, describing Siegel as "an intellectually and physically circumcised chap" and concluding that Superman was spreading "hate, suspicion, evil, laziness, and criminality" among American youth.

Siegel and Shuster were the sons of Jewish immigrants. Siegel later explained (archived) his motivation for creating the superhero: "What led me into creating Superman in the early thirties? Hearing and reading of the oppression and slaughter of helpless, oppressed Jews in Nazi Germany."