Based on a tradition of European art, it is my estimation that Krampus serves not only the role of anti-St. Nicholas, but also serves as an anti-Christmas and antisemitic representation of Jews and their relationship to the devil. I will pull art that depicts Krampus and children as well as images of Jews and children to compare their physiognomic features. Krampus serves as a phenomenological “other” to the beloved St. Nicholas figure, donning common antisemitic and anti-Jewish features. Krampus agitated European antisemitism during times of Jewish hatred, strife, and Christian malevolence towards their Abrahamic sibling.
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The physiognomic and stereotypically Jewish markings in art allow us to distinguish those who are Jewish from those who are not. Over time, these crude stereotypes morphed into hostility; a hostility that emerged most evidently in the mid to late twelfth century, according to scholar and author Bernard Starr. Stereotypes took the form of clothing with assigned colors, Jews with bags of money, or more crudely, Jews analogous to frogs, swollen with greed. However, one of the more peculiar and malicious forms of stereotypical imagery depicts the Jew or Jews worshipping the devil. The affiliation with the devil often places the Jew in hell, alongside the devil or smaller demons, and sometimes with horns, a goatee, or goat-like features. Our Krampus Creature is no exception.
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Krampus is accepted, much like today’s Santa Claus, to be mythic. Then why do the artistic themes still take center stage? Why does a Krampus illustrated in 2018 look like the Krampus on an Austrian postcard? The caricature of the Jew consistently has been drawn, painted, or illustrated with a hooked nose, malicious features, or even horns. Krampus has similarly and consistently been the horned, devilish, child-snatching, malicious figure—the imagined non-human counterpart to the Christian holy man St. Nicholas. Krampus as Jewish, or as the anti-Christian, not only creates consistency between artistic depictions over time, but he fits the mold of how the Jew was imagined, who the Jew was understood to be against, and what the Jew supposedly looked like, in opposition to his Christian, Abrahamic brothers and sisters.
https://sacredmattersmagazine.com/the-devils-in-the-details-the-krampus-conundrum/
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