He was aware in general terms of the Nazi regime's programme of extermination of the Jews of Europe. Ley encouraged it through the virulent anti-Semitism of his publications and speeches. In February 1941 he was present at a meeting along with Speer, Bormann and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel at which Hitler had set out his views on the "Jewish question" at some length, making it clear that he intended the "disappearance" of the Jews one way or another. According to American historian Jeffrey Herf, Ley issued some of the most overt propaganda accusing Jews of plotting the extermination of Germans and threatening to do the reverse. In December 1939, he said that in the event of a British victory: