The state, their leader Hitler told them that Jews are criminals and are bad race. Germans are the greatest race and that all other under German races should be out of the way. So Hitler made a persecution of Jews and German people did what he said. The Goebel’s propagandas also helped a lot to develop Germans mind about Jews and for children, their teachers teach them that all what Hitler’s doing is good for Germans and for Germany’s future.
- Why the Nazis were able to proceed with their ‘final solution’.
At that time, the war was everywhere and German people didn’t have enough food, security and jobs. The residents were worrying about their own health, home and future, so they didn’t actually notice about this decision as nobody told them and even if any of them knew about it, they were very afraid to do anything as well, they were afraid to die or they didn’t have enough strength to care about it or some people even didn’t really care about it at that time as they were caring about their own life. Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich made that decision secretly without telling people, because they were also afraid that people wouldn’t agree and it can lead to some serious problems (probably revolution) and that Hitler didn’t want, because at that time he wanted to concentrate in the war, not the their own-country’s problems.
The dangers of totalitarianism
In my opinion totalitarianism is very dangerous in some case and good for people in another case. From the examples above, such as the persecution of Jews we can see that the totalitarianism means ‘full of power’ for state and ‘no power’ for people. The German people had to do what they were told, they had no choice. There’s no one who’d say ‘Would you like to kill Jews? Would you like to accept our final solution for Jews? Would you like to…’. All what you can do, is to listen to what the government says and to do what you suppose to do and without arguments! You have NO freedom, NO power, NO choice and all what you have or you should do, is to LISTEN and to keep your OWN life. So the totalitarianism for people who the state doesn’t like, mean DIE and for people who listens means ALIVE. Which do you prefer? Of course most of people would choose alive, therefore the people who are disliked by Hitler will have to suffer and this is the main danger of totalitarianism. But I also think that totalitarianism is also good for people in Germany. There were large unemployment rate, no food and security, decline of industry and economy and so on, who can reverse all of them at once? Nobody except Hitler, but why? It’s because his state is totalitarianism, so everybody had to listen to his voice, everybody had to do what he says and that’s why he could show his ideas, do his plan and make Germany as a very powerful country again in a short time and I’m sure all the Germans are very thankful of this.
- At the trials for war crimes after the war many former guards at concentration camps said in their defense that they were simply obeying orders. Explain how you would respond to this defense of their actions.
It’s very hard to say. Firstly in the trials for war crimes, in any courts, all the court people are at the side of Hitler’s, so even if I think it’s not true, it’s not fair or that Hitler was just blaming Germans, my end would be very simple – die. And even if the courts are good people, it would be for nothing as well, because I’ll say something and the courts would admit and they would like to tell people what I said, but how? They couldn’t put my speech on a newspaper or radio or television or other things, because everything was controlled by Goebel and he would never allow any propagandas against Hitler to be published publicly. And normally I wouldn’t say anything against Hitler in the Streets as well, because I would be watched by Gestapo and my life would be shortened just by my words. But as the time has changed, if any body would ask me what do I think about the trials for war crimes after the war now, I would say, I 100% disagree! Hitler blames Jews for forcing the surrender of the German army and I don’t think they would. As Hitler already said himself that Jews are highly educated and are clever. They have many businesses in Germany, so why should they doing things against Germany, if they want to stay in German and earn a lot of money. They have their properties all in Germany, they wouldn’t like to emigrate, and they want to live in peace and to have a good life. Hitler also blames other races or people who are against him and are all put into concentration camp. He’s doing that, because those people were standing on his way towards greatness and power. He’s really mean and selfish in this point, but which leader wouldn’t do that? Every leader in the history don’t like to have any stone under their feet to block their way, so is Hitler, he’s not wrong, but he shouldn’t kill all the Jews in his ‘final solution’ with Jews. He’s also blaming the people who signed the Treaty of Versailles as ‘the November Chriminals’, but I think he shouldn’t, because German had no choice.
- Does the Holocaust prove that in Germany Hitler had successfully created a totalitarian state? Explain your answer with reference to Sources 53 and 54.
The Source 53 is the speech of a leader of Nazi at the Nuremberg War Trials. Already from this point we know that this source would be certainly pro-Nazi. The things in his speech are the truth, but he mentioned only good things. He said that Hitler’s dictatorship differed in one fundamental pint from all its predecessors in history and that it made complete use of all technical means for the domination of its own country. I can’t admit that it’s not true, I think this is the one majority of a totalitarian state. It makes the state much more powerful than before and people can feel more security in their life and therefore people can support the state more than ever they did, but there were also many problems. He said “Through technical devices like the radio and loud-speaker, eighty million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to be will of one man.” Yes, I agree with him again, but he didn’t say what people feel about it. Do people really like it? Do they really care if it is a great will of that man? No. What they care most is their life, their future. What he just said means people had no freedom, no speech, they even couldn’t choose which program to see and to listen. People’s motions were totally controlled under Hitler’s will, but their mind are not! They are free to think! And if people can think, then they can create a great motion as well. People don’t have strength towards the state, but they create one and fight with the state! But even though I can’t say that Hitler didn’t success in creating a totalitarian state, because he did actually control the motion of people, but not totally. Therefore I can say that Hitler succeeded only half in creating a totalitarian state from this source.
The source 54 is a speech of a former member of the Hitler Youth after the war. He’s very pro-Hitler. In his speech there were nothing against Hitler. He said that he didn’t know what were Nazi’s ideals, but he obyed his orders, because he believed that Hitler can make German powerful and Germany’s honour and greatness were mentioned. He as all other German children was trained in German school – school for Hitler. In the school they were taught about how great is Hitler, that Hitler’s ideas are all correct and that Hitler’s going to bring them happiness and powers to Germany. Even all the subjects were taught about the politics and the ideas of the great leader Hitler. After the school, all children loved him. Whenever there’s a speech of Hitler’s, all of them thought that Hitler was looking that them and they were proud to be Hitler’s ‘children’. They didn’t even listen to their parents, as their ideas were very different. So I say, from this source, this site of looking at Hitler’s totalitarian state, he was very successful, because he gained the young generation’s heart and it can help him to control the state later very easily!
