The Jews 1880 to the Present Day Why did the status and position of Jews in Germany worsen in the years 1933 to 1939?

The Jews 1880 to the Present Day

Why did the status and position of Jews in Germany worsen in the years 1933 to 1939?

Elizabeth Cranney 11H

The status and position of Jews in Germany grew worse in the years 1933

to 1939 because Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party came to power.

Hitler’s ideas were not his own and certainly not new. When Hitler was a

young failed art student he may have read Anti- Semitic books by Wilhelm Marr and Theodor Fritsch, later Fritsch was honoured as an elder statesman by the Nazis. They both suggested Jews were a separate race, ‘...powerless against this foreign power.’

In 1933 the Nazis had practically the same Anti-Semitic views. They believed Jews as an inferior race to the ideal person, an Aryan (Northern European, tall, blond hair and blue eyes). Hitler believed the Germans were of Aryan descent and had been polluted by inferior races Jews, black people and Roma (gypsies).

When Hitler came to power he started to apply his beliefs to the way he dictated. The Nazis started a selective breeding programme of the Aryan race, small race farms were opened in Germany and women approved by the authorities were brought and were to breed with SS officers. This was just a small operation that was supposed to increase in the future. The indoctrination of the German people also began. In schools Jews were segregated from ‘Germans’. The subjects included in a German pupil’s timetable were race study and eugenics, the science of improving the German population by controlled breeding of Aryans. They even tried to change religion by saying the Old Testament had a Jewish strand and an Aryan one. He did this to get the German people on his side, so he could later get rid of the Jews. ‘..the final objective must be the complete removal of the Jews.’ Hitler, 1919.

There were different stages of persecution by the Nazis. They encouraged the German people to avoid Jews. This started in 1933 with the boycott of Jewish shops, SS officers stood in Jewish doorways and intimidated people to stay out. Jews were banned from such places of leisure such as, theatres, cinemas and museums. Villages started to hang signs saying ‘Jews not welcome’. Hitler could not immediately start violence against Jews, as he would become unpopular. He started off slowly and his aim was to make the Jews leave Germany. He also wanted the German people to use their ...

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Hitler built up discrimination from 1933 by making laws to forbid the Jews from; practising medicine, serving in forces, performing kosher slaughter, going to university, and inheriting land. The Nuremberg Laws in September 1935 forbade Jews from marrying German blood and the Laws also stated in November 1935 that a Jew could not be a German citizen. At first it seems Hitler is doing this to make the Jews to leave, however he then makes it impossible for them to leave. The 18th October Decree stated that from January 1939 Jews could not be tradesmen of any kind. Many had already lost their jobs and could not leave the country without money. Also, from 5th October 1938 Jewish passports were declared invalid. This shows the start of something very sinister.

There were violent physical attacks against Jews by the Nazis such as terror attacks by SS and SA on Jews and synagogues in 1935. By 1938, Hitler was a lot more confidant and did not care what the rest of Europe thought. He had expanded his boundaries, having militarised the Rhineland and taken Austria. His aim at this time was to prepare for war, which he had been planning for a long time. Then the persecution stepped up a gear when in 1938 plain clothed SA and SS officers caused riots in towns all over Germany this was called ‘kristallnacht’ meaning ‘night of the broken glass.’ It was supposed to appear spontaneous, but had been carefully planned by the Nazis.

These three elements are linked together, it is hard to separate what is avoidance, discrimination and physical attack. They are very closely connected, for instance forbidding Jewish people to go to leisure facilities is avoidance, but it is also discrimination. However, we know that they are all part of the persecution of Jews by the Nazis.

The Nazis approach to the persecution was systematic with elements, which could be described as sporadic. Hitler planned for the persecution to start off slowly, ‘encouraging’ Jews to leave. Then to discrimination, denying them right to vote, then physical attacks, and deportation. Hitler must have had control over the prejudice, as in 1936 he halted Anti- Semitic outbreaks for the Berlin Olympics. He wanted Germany to have a good image to the rest of the world. He had also planned the ‘kristallnacht’. The sporadic things that happened were what ordinary Anti-Semitic Germans did including, beating Jews without the ‘help’ of the SS. The villages that stopped Jews from entering obviously show the feeling of the majority of people living there.

The status and position of German Jews worsened in 1933 to 1939 because; the Nazi’s with their racial theories gained sole control over the government.