From the seventh century, the Jewish position was improving and the medieval massacres had nearly faded to the back of Jewish mind by the 19th century. In 1833, the German Jew was emancipated into society. The German Jews had become deeply rooted in the German language and culture and made great efforts to prove their loyalty and patriotism. Out of half a million Jews living in Germany, 100,000 served in the army and 12,000 died, and many Jews like them served the countries they lived in, likewise in war.
Jews were highly educated and were a prominent part of society; they worked mainly in parliament, banking, law, medicine, theatre and other high positions of society. These included Albert Einstein (who founded relativity theory of physics) and Sigmund Freud (who established psychoanalysis); these are only a few of some renowned Jews that lived during that era. One third of noble prizewinners were German Jews. But under society, Jews were still classed the inferior race and under Hitler’s regime, to be effacingly cleansed from the earth. Why turn on the valuable?
Germany was defeated in the First World War and anti Semitism had an all time rise as the shocked Germans looked for someone to blame. They latched on to the idea that their country and army had been betrayed and destroyed from within, from the Jews. Seeing as the people to sign the surrender at the treaty of Versailles, were Jews such as Walther Rathenau. The signing of the treaty embarrassed the people and money became worthless in the depression, unemployment increased wildly. Germany at the time was in a bad situation; there were attempted communist takeovers and revolts, all led by Jews. The Jews were described as taking advantage of a country whilst it was weak, as thousands of Jews pilled into the city. This gave the opportunity for the German National Socialist Party (Nazi Party) to oppose the republic, the socialists and communist parties, and above all oppose the Jews. Hitler had the people’s answer and their solution: the hatred for the Jews.
Jews were only 0.75% of the population yet they were over represented in key positions of society, when the depression came after the war, many of the poorer Jews flooded into society, where the Germans were caught in the middle. The Germans felt that they were slowly being trapped under Jewish conspiracy. The Germans used this and exploited the, “Protocols of Elders of Zion,” a manufactured script that planned the Jewish domination of the world. Jews in power were slowly removed or assassinated such as Walther Rathenau, the signer of the treaty.
Hitler could trace back all misfortunes and anything in general that was not good, and explain it in his anti-Semitic views. He said that the main enemies were American capitalists and the Bolshevik government of the Soviet Union. Both of which according to him were Jewish. Hence if the Germans were to be strong again they must defeat this threat inside and outside Germany. This would lead to the hunting down of the Jew and their own near extermination. The party rose to power quickly and introduced hatred of the Jews to the rest of Europe.
When Hitler in 1919 defined the Jewry as a race, not a religion, he was able to launch a systematic campaign to remove the Jew. Hitler took the theory of Darwin, and said that the German Aryans were engaged in a struggle for the survival against the subhuman, but scheming, Jewish race. The mythological image of the devil worshiping Jew, the Jew who had the key ambition to rule the world and the Jew whose key existence was to undermine society itself.
When he became chancellor in 1933, the government openly admitted to have a dedication to the persecution of the Jews. The position of the Jew was not looking good. He initially endorsed violent boycotts of Jewish shops and businesses and eventually anti-Jewish legislation, restricted citizen rights. Jews were humiliated by Hitler and were eventually removed from public view and were placed in ghettos, and than to death camps where they would await their fate.
In France, the Jewish situation was worse as their population was more prominent and it had been harder to settle into society. The Rothschild family were amongst the most prominent Jews; they owned a massive financial banking empire and were accused of trying to control the worlds financial system. The French discriminated against the Jews and copied many of Hitler’s Anti-Semitic policies. Following Hitler’s policies they happily sent the Jews to Hitler’s death camps or worked them as slaves.
Italy like Britain, did not have a tradition of hatred for the Jews as the population was relatively small, only 60,000. Mussolini, who was leader of Italy, was not particularly Anti-Semitic. However under influence from Italy’s allies, Hitler, Italy introduced a number of anti-Jewish measures. These never enjoyed much support. Many Italians protected Jews until the direct rule under Germany.
For Jews, the worst anti-Semitism took place in Russia. Here the Jews were hated by all, in all classes. For centuries they had been kept in ghettos, forbidden to travel freely and barred from jobs. The Government regularly relieved pressure from the people by allowing, “ Pogroms,” extremely violent attacks on the Jews, resulting in loss of life and destruction of property. Ukrainian nationalists and others massacred 60,000 Jews in this way in 1919. Many Jews fled due to this, approximately 2 million Jews immigrated to the USA alone.
The soviet Government did try to set up a Jewish homeland in Birobidjan in the Far East, but it was extremely remote, so the experiment failed
The remainder of Europe was barely better for the Jew. Their status and position like most other countries, was one of hatred, discrimination and persecution, where anti Semitic views ran unopposed.
