Hitler was now the dictator of Germany and so began a new era for the German people especially the Jews. The Nazis celebrated their victory with violent attacks on the Jews. Just a week after the Enabling Act made Hitler dictator of Germany; a national boycott of Jewish shops and department stores was organized by the Nazis under the propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. This marked the beginning of a downward spiral for the Jews; society stood by and allowed it happen. Most of the German public were bystanders in Hitler’s regime against the Jews.
Anti-Semitism existed in Germany and other European countries for many hundreds of years. The racist books and ideas which were made in the nineteenth century added new momentum to the hatred of the Jews. In many countries, anti-Semitism was used as an instrument of political propaganda to gain the support of the people. However, it was only in the 1930’s, with the growth of the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany that racial Anti-Semitism was adopted as a policy by a major political party. Darwin’s theory was used to explain why the Aryan race was at the top of the race ladder and the Jews at the bottom. The problem was also blamed on the Jews, the Jews who were originally from Germany were not orthodox and saw themselves as Germen first and Jewish second, but an influx of Russian Jews who dressed in a more orthodox way and lived together in ghettos lead to Jews being easier to spot and thus more easier to blame when things went wrong.
A few days after the boycott of Jewish shops, the laws for the Reestablishment of the Civil Service barred Jews from holding civil service, university, and state positions on April 7th. A month later in May, there were public burnings of books written by Jews and others not approved by the state. The next month, Hitler made yet another law excluding East European Jewish immigrants of German citizenship.
These laws were all made in few months of Hitler’s dictatorship but he was just getting started. Hitler believed that to establish the “Thousand Year Reich” he would need the support of the young people in Germany. Therefore Hitler began a programme of indoctrinating young people, getting them to believe in the Nazi ideas. Teachers were instructed and trained to put across Nazi ideas; if they refused they were dismissed. School subjects were controlled in order to brainwash the young e.g. biology as used to explain Nazi ideas that German were the master race and others (mainly the Jews) were inferior. After 1933 young people were encouraged to join the Hitler Youth Movement, this was a movement organised and ran by members of the SS, its aim was to indoctrinate young people into accepting Nazi ideas, all other youth organisations were shut down and by 1935 it was compulsory to join it. By making sure Hitler’s racist views were a part of the school curriculum, he made sure that his views were everyone else’s view as well.
During 1935 the well known ‘temporary’ Nuremburg laws were passed, which stripped Jews of their rights as German citizens. Jews were no longer considered German and they prevented from marrying Aryans, nor could they fly the German flag. These laws set the frame for the process of Aryanization. These laws were the first anti-racial laws to be enacted. Whether you were a Jew or not was now determined by race and nor religion.
From 1936 to 1938 there was an onslaught of laws and actions to make things worse for the Jews. Jewish doctors were barred from practicing medicine in German institutions. In 1937 the Buchenwald concentration camp opened, the first of many. From 1938 it was mandatory for Jews to register all property they held. All Jews had to transfer retail businesses to Aryan hands and all Jewish pupils were expelled from German schools. On November 9th the infamous Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) took place. There were anti-Jewish attacks (Pogroms) all over Germany, 200
Synagogues were destroyed, 7,500 Jewish shops looted and 30,000 Jews sent to concentration camps. These attacks were blamed on the Jews and a 1 billion mark fine was charged for the destruction of property against the Jews.
To make matters worse, many countries had now imposed immigration quotas for the Jews because of the influx of Jews from Germany. 150,000 Jews had already left Germany by 1938. The Evian conference was called to address the refugee problem. Many countries expressed sympathy for the Jews, but most countries, including the US and Britain, offered excuses fir nit letting more Jews in. This showed Hitler no one was prepared to stop him from persecuting the Jews.
By 1939 war was inevitable and it broke out. Immediately Hitler accelerated his persecution of the Jews. In the first few weeks of war at least 5,000 Jews were killed. Hitler could now freely persecute as the war was a smokescreen from the rest of the world. People were more worried about the breakout of war rather than the plight of the Jews, The Jews were now being rounded up in ghettos; they were made to wear an armband or yellow star for identification. For the next few years Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, this was all done to implement the ‘final solution’ – the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people. Attacks and riots were common against the Jews now and extermination squads were killing hundreds and thousands of Jews in concentration camp and ghettos. By 1944 Germany were losing the war, but the extermination of the Jews did not stop till a month before the suicide of Hitler.
In conclusion, the status and position of the Jews slowly deteriorated from 1933 to 1945. It began with a simple boycott and would end year’s later in one of the greatest tragedies in all of human history.
