The Influential Ideas Behind Hitler’s Actions.

Amina Qureshi

World Studies II-per. 2

May 4th, 2003

The Influential Ideas Behind Hitler’s Actions

Adolf Hitler, the man who posed the century’s greatest threat to democracy by starting World War II. He left a mark on the latter two thirds of the century and is still influencing people today, in both good and bad ways. Reasons for this choice of essay are both simple and straightforward. It has always been dumbfounding that such an insignificant man could possibly have gained so much influential power. In 1933, Hitler became the dictator of Germany and ordered the extermination of 6 million Jews, an atrocity known as “The Final Solution.” However, this figure is probably an understatement, as it is reasonable to assume that plenty more Jews were killed because there was no real census to count the Jews pre-World War II. To best understand the reasons for Hitler’s actions, one must read “Mein Kampf,” since it is the most accurate and precise evidence, since it was written by Adolf Hitler himself. Hitler gained support from the Germans for his deadly ventures and had many reasons of his own, both substantial and trivial for wanting to exterminate the whole Jewish race.

To understand why Hitler wanted to rid Germany, and furthermore, the world of Jews, one must understand the social and political climate of Germany before and during Hitler’s rise to power. Hitler was a man of great ambitions. He wanted more land for Germany, especially in the east and wanted to expand Germany according to lebensraum, or in English, “living space.” He firmly believed that he had the right to occupy lands in which German was spoken in. His wish was to create a purely German race. Therefore, after Hitler came into power, anyone who could not produce baptismal certificate for three generations back was automatically classified as a Jew and consequently considered as a great threat to Hitler. Hitler became powerful in Germany and later in most Europe for a variety of reasons. One was because he had an exceptional gift of oratory. He found that he had the power to sway crowds, while making speeches on his thoughts for the future of Germany. In 1916, Germany was in a terrible state because of The Treaty of Versailles. Hitler proposed whatever ideas he had to improve Germany socially, politically, and economically and the Germans listened because they were desperate. Before Hitler’s idea of “The Final Solution,” he has proved to the Germans that he was worth listening to. He had brought Germany out of the turmoil it was once in and was on his way to making Germany a world power.

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One of Hitler’s major reasons for wanting to get rid of the Jewish race was the importance of the Jewish populations economically in Europe and especially Germany. There were exceedingly rich Jews in most of Europe, who had several accounts in Swiss banks. Hitler believed that the Jews held a tyrannical type of power over large businesses and money markets in the countries that didn’t belong to them. Hitler was greatly influenced to a certain extent, by earlier roots of anti-Semitism in Europe, such as the Crusades, Inquisitions, and common law, which had all made Jews, gypsies and other minorities, social outcasts. Jews often got jobs as bankers, tax collectors, and money lenders. These jobs were all considered to be very “un-Christian” occupations. However, contrary to this, in an essay by William Markiewicz, entitled “The Jews That Hitler Killed,” he quotes, “I do not believe that the present revelations of Jewish accounts in big banks are accurate, considering that the majority of the Jews were too poor to have accounts in Swiss banks. The majority of the European population was poor, and the Jews were no exception. Ancient Polish literature (Orzeszkowa and others) abounds in description of Jewish misery.” On a personal standpoint, it is acknowledged that the Jews were no different than the rest of the races living in Europe when it came to poverty. However, out of the few Jews that did become rich and were money lenders and bank owners, Hitler resented.

Hitler was a fervent supporter of the Imperial form of government. So when Hitler was in the hospital and heard the news of Germany’s defeat in World War I and its change of government from a monarchy to a republic, he became angry and his hatred for Jews was fortified. He felt that the Jews had influenced The Treaty of Versailles, which basically stated that Germany caused World War I to start with initially. Hitler reassured the Germans by telling them that they did not really lose the war, but it was just the Jews who had sabotaged the Germans at home by stealing their jobs and creating oppressing money markets, thus, providing a scapegoat for Hitler’s ideas and actions. According to Hitler, every aspect of The Treaty of Versailles was substandard. He alleged the Jews of being the reason for Germany’s problems concerning oil, gold, and other valuables, which were stripped away from them after World War I. He loathed John D. Rockefeller, who was of Jewish background and also had a monopoly over oil at the time. However, oil being a reason behind Hitler’s hatred towards Jews is only an idea and opinion and not an actual fact, as there is no proof that it was ever written or spoken by Hitler.

As well as having several major reasons for resenting Jews, Hitler was influenced by little reasons to hate Jews from as early as childhood. It was the handful of minor reasons that were the foundation for Hitler’s hatred for Jews. Firstly, Hitler never got along with Jews, as they always seemed to be the rich ones, and Hitler the one just barely surviving. To sum it up in one easy word, he was simply jealous of them. While he was on the streets of Vienna after failing to advance to a college after high school, he saw the Jewish race flourishing in front of his eyes, as he was wretchedly unsuccessful. More than anything, Hitler wanted to become an art student. However, he was unsuccessful at that also. Instead, he paid attention to the many art students in Munich, who mostly all happened to be Jews. In Mein Kampf, he wrote “My hatred was intensified when I found out about the possibility of having a Jewish grandfather.” However, in another source, it stated that it was definite that he had a Jewish grandfather. This would make sense, as in his own book, which was used as propaganda it would not make sense for Hitler to admit that he was definitely related to a Jew in any way, as it would weaken the reasons for his argument. Hitler also took quite a liking towards the press, as he believed it was a good way for sharing thoughts and spreading ideas. However, when he found out that from the publisher down, they were all Jews, he completely opposed the press and vowed to break down the press and instead, put his own people in charge of the spreading of ideas and propaganda inside Germany. In his eyes, Jews were practically useless and solely existed to undermine the German populations. Hitler realized that they could not be used as manpower, as it would be too expensive. And so, the first ideas of “the Final Question” first formed in his head and were later carried out by thousands of henchmen.

The social and political state that Germany was in pre-World War I was an extremely poor one and the masses were desperate. Hitler took advantage of the situation and used propaganda, such as his book, “Mein Kampf” to sway the crowds into accepting that his beliefs were the right ones. By exterminating the Jews and other minorities, or even simply anyone that was not of pure German blood, Hitler had the ridiculous idea of creating his “Aryan race.” Starting from little things, such as seeing successful Jewish art students in Munich, to greater things such as realizing the importance of Jews from an economic viewpoint, Hitler formed ideas about the Jewish race being “sub-human social outcasts.” It is absolutely irrelevant how many reasons Hitler had to justify his ideas and actions. No reason can justify the performance of genocide, or the extermination of an entire racial group, for any amount of reasons, as Hitler clearly failed to recognize and thus perhaps even lead Germany to lose World War II.

Word Count: 1238