Herf maintains that Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi Party have themselves made use of the big lie they theorized about to turn long-standing antisemitism in Europe into mass murder. He further argues that the big lie was a narrative of an innocent, besieged Germany striking back at an "international Jewry", which it said started World WarI. The propaganda repeated over and over the claim that Jews held power behind the scenes in Britain, Russia and the United States. It went on to say the Jews had begun a "war of extermination" against Germany, and so Germany had a duty and a right to "annihilate" the Jews in self-defense.