His main target was the Jews. Most of the ‘Jews’ were perfectly normal, every – day proud German citizens who thought themselves as German as everyone else. They didn’t even have to be practicing Judaism; Hitler’s guideline on determining whether or whether not they were a Jew was if one of their grandparents were Jews; anything more than ¼ of Jewish blood. Hitler had an obsession with the Jews, and blood. He had long blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat in the First World War, as well as the hyperinflation that had taken place afterwards. He wanted all of Germany to be cleansed; Jews were weakening German society with their impure blood and therefore had to be stopped.
Initially, the persecution of the Jews started on a relatively small scale; in 1933, Hitler ordered a boycott of all Jewish shops and businesses throughout Germany. It then began to escalate, as Jews began to be dismissed from heir jobs, and segregation was put into action between the Jews and the gentiles. Then in 1935, the Nuremberg laws were passed, which dictated that Jews were no longer German citizens and therefore did not have any access to civil rights or protection from the law. Marriages and sexual relations were also banned between Jews and gentiles; any pure German married to a Jew was encouraged to divorce them.
Instances of public humiliation and harassment of the Jews ensued, noticeably the day after Kristallnacht. There were several outbreaks of hostility between the Jews in gentiles, which resulted in the death of several Jews. In March 1939, Hitler ordered a mass arrest of Jews, and within weeks, approximately 30,000 Jews were sent to labour camps, most of which then transformed into concentration camps.
It was not just the Jews that did not benefit from Hitler’s Nazi regime. Hitler also targeted minority groups such as homosexuals, gypsies, black people, homeless, the mentally or physically handicapped and various other groups for persecution, either because he believed they were inferior or simply not socially useful. He was trying to breed a perfect, strong, pure blood Aryan German race, and they were interfering with his plans. Many were killed as a result of the 1939 Euthanasia program, and more prevented from having children when the 1933 Sterilisation Law was passed.
Some pure blood Germans suffered as well as the result of being Jew – sympathisers, disloyal to Hitler or opponents of the Nazi party. All other parties in Nazi Germany other than the ruling one were banned and anyone found to be promoting or trying to oppose Hitler politically was soon sent to jail or murdered, and in a lot of cases, both. Those who attempted to hide or assist their Jewish friends in escaping were treated similarly, and anyone found to or suspected of insulting or disagreeing with the Nazi party was soon picked up by the Gestapo - the Nazi notorious secret police force. As a result, many Germans lived in constant fear of being arrested, tortured and murdered, and could not speak freely in their homes because a member of their own family reported them.
Nazi schools were nationalised for both genders, and girls and boys were educated in what Hitler deemed as necessary knowledge for their future roles in life i.e. girls learnt about cooking and biology, boys about army and war amongst other things. Hitler was adamant about physical fitness and so the children had to endure long hours of physical activities everyday to build up their physical strength and endurance.
As mentioned before, however, some aspects of German life certainly did improve. Hitler created thousands of jobs by building the equivalent of dual carriageways all over Germany and by starting to rebuild Germany’s military force. The hundreds of thousands unemployed soon found they had jobs, which although were not always to their liking and skill ability, were jobs nonetheless, and so they could start rebuilding their homes and lives with financial aid. Many Germans focussed only on this aspect of Hitler’s regime, claiming that their Fuhrer had given them the opportunity to start again, and so pushed aside the nastiness and unpleasantness that was occurring.
In conclusion, some Germans definitely benefited from the Nazi regime, and some definitely did not. Hitler radically reduced unemployment figures, though his success was partially to do with the exclusion of Jews from the official numbers, and many Germans ‘got back on their feet’ financially and the German economy started to rise again. However the Jews and other minorities suffered terrible persecution and abuse and certainly did not gain anything from the Nazi regime, which destroyed so many of their lives.