The claim that there was a Jewish war against Nazi Germany is an antisemitic conspiracy theory promoted in Nazi propaganda which asserts that the Jews, framed within the theory as a single historical actor, started World War II and sought the destruction of Germany. Alleging that war was declared in 1939 by Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, Nazis used this false notion to justify the persecution of Jews under German control on the grounds that the Holocaust was justified self-defense. Since the end of World War II, the conspiracy theory has been popular among neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers.[1][2][3]
The idea that the war was fought for Jewish vengeance, interests or as a 'Jewish war' became a staple in the lexicon of Holocaust denial during the war, in its immediate aftermath, and in contemporary negationism and revisionism. This notion proposed that the war was created and brought about by Jews to stop Hitler because of his persecution of the Jews in Germany, and as an epic clash between two races: the Aryan race and the Jewish race. This idea became a stock trope of Holocaust deniers.