Explain why the Nazis persecuted the Jews and other minorities and then, considering one minority, show how such persecution developed.
3. Explain why the Nazis persecuted the Jews and other minorities and then, considering one minority, show how such persecution developed. By Mahmoud Elsherif
The Second World War is, possibly, most notorious because of the enormous figure of deaths throughout the holocaust, and the terrible persecution of minorities in Nazi Germany. Hitler's vision of an Aryan Race extensive far enough for him to ultimately desire to eliminate any other races that did not meet his principle; atrocious though it was, most of the German nation began to accept it. The Nazis believed that the Aryan race was the best built and the top; consequently, all other race were inferior.
The Nazi notes about Semitic inadequacy were not new; in Russia, Pogroms, or persecution had been held for years. The Jews were scapegoats for practically every dilemma known to man, and especially the hyperinflation and economic disruption in Germany, and even the whole of World War One. Though these accusations were ludicrous to the extreme, the German nation needed to abuse someone, and blame is simply placed when people are distressed. 'Asocials' and homosexuals were also persecuted by the Nazis, who were social Darwinists, believing that the Aryan Race was advanced to any other, and the asocial behaviour, (such as tramps, the homeless, prostitutes and alcoholics) and homosexuality, was the consequence of some kind of genetic defect, nothing to do with human being choice, or the outcome of the surroundings. Homosexuals were mainly looked down upon because they were totally out of custody with the Aryan information of maleness. Therefore, if this group of people was sterilised, or even entirely eradicated, civilization would profit, and the Aryan race could succeed and make an improved German nation. In November 1933, the 'Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals' authorised compulsory castration for certain types of criminal; in 1937 this also began to take in the castration of young offenders. When in 1936 there was a labour shortage, 'offenders' were sent off to concentration camps to be experimented upon. That was popular with the German people, and local councils welcomed it.
Gypsies were persecuted cruelly, although they had been stared down ahead for years because of their vernacular, way of life, society and looks. They were the opposite of the ideal Aryan race- dark features, instead of blond, and the fact that they were not frequently working meant that people had no admiration for them. The Nazis labelled them as thieves. Vagrants and layabouts, and they too were incorporated in the law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour on 15th September 1935, which banned intermarriage between Aryans and non-Aryans, and was designed to separate 'pure' blood from 'impure' blood.
In 1938, a Decree for the Struggle against the Gypsy plague was issued by Himmler, many experiments had been carried out, and they now separated Gypsies into classes, responsibility on their being half-blood or full-blood, or only part Gypsy and they were then rounded up and sent to Labour camps with 'Asocials'. Gypsies were dealt less harshly at the opening of Hitler's rule, because they were measured as a very small and insignificant racial group; the Jews were considered to be a main concern. Even though Himmler accepted the pure gypsies, and desired to make them into a ...
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In 1938, a Decree for the Struggle against the Gypsy plague was issued by Himmler, many experiments had been carried out, and they now separated Gypsies into classes, responsibility on their being half-blood or full-blood, or only part Gypsy and they were then rounded up and sent to Labour camps with 'Asocials'. Gypsies were dealt less harshly at the opening of Hitler's rule, because they were measured as a very small and insignificant racial group; the Jews were considered to be a main concern. Even though Himmler accepted the pure gypsies, and desired to make them into a kind of attraction, to be looked at as another species, Hitler did not agree with him, and started to send the Gypsies to Auschwitz in 1942; they also endured a great deal at the hands of the Russians. Slav minorities and part-Africans were also persecuted because of 'impure' racial background; at first Hitler wanted to expel them to other countries, for example the continent of Africa; however, he knew that in doing this, world opinion would be against him before he had really started, and also that there was nowhere really big enough to deport everyone who didn't get into his ideas of the perfect Aryan race.
The word 'Anti-Semitism' mean anti-Jews first appeared in the 1870's; at this point, although religious bias had decreased. Discrimination against the Jews as a race- against their racial characteristics- increased. They were seen as very rich, and so were resented by the working class of Germany (a large percentage of the population, as it is in any country). Hitler's hatred, or irrational fear of the Jews, was 'deeper and more consistent than his racism'. He repeatedly said that the 'Jewish problem' must be "solved" not by emotional but by "cool", "rational", "scientific" means. 'He also said that the Jews were bacilli, viruses, parasitic pests on the bodies of living nations.' His last words warned the German nation not to let the Jews return, whatever happened, though in 1945 he boasted.
that he had 'lanced the Jewish abscess'. This indicated a cold hearted and deep rooted hatred.
The Nazis believed the Jews to be the major motive for Communism, or Bolshevism, in Germany and in the rest of Europe; Communism was a huge threat to Hitler's power, and he made a point of exterminating Communism totally before he came to power, in the form of other communist political parties. To eradicate the Jews would be an additional pace up for him, and though there were only 500,000 of them in 1933, they formed 'a propaganda stereotype, a collection of negative attributes representing the antithesis of the qualities of a true German'. There are two main ideas about Hitler and his intentions towards the Jews from 1933 onwards; the intentionalists believe that the holocausts and the massacre of the Jews was planned by Hitler even though sometimes he have had to remove slightly due to unforeseen events, and world opinion. The structuralists believe that the holocaust was due to competitions among Nazi political leaders, seeking to find more and more awful ways of punishing the Jews.
It may be true about Hitler's father being half Jewish, or that he may think that his own father was half Jewish except, we don't have definite evidence of this at all and only a slight suggestion. Marlis Steinert said that 'Everything he hates in himself, the Fuhrer projects on the Jews; everything that causes his and Germany suffering is the fault of the Jews'. It is possible that early hatred or shame that Hitler felt for his father as a child could later be planned, because he had no way of releasing his feelings at the time; however, this is a simple rumour. Hitler did have one other straight link with a Jew: his mother's doctor was Jewish, and treated her during her last illness. Hitler later admitted on several occasions that this man was 'noble'; the only Jew he ever, in fact, Hitler had any respect for the doctor.
Hitler persecution started straightaway, in April 1933, as soon as he was elected into power, and had approved the Enabling Law. The Boycott of Jewish shops started on the 1st April: people were actually physically banned from entering and procured goods from Jewish stores. That year, Jews were also proscribed from jobs in the professions of teaching, doctoring, reporting, and the civil service. Though the Boycott had to be annulled after a short period, because it was reasoning trouble to a national economy, and Hitler refused to reintroduce it in 1935, he instead passed the Numberang laws. This said that a inhabitant of the Reich had to be of German blood, and, more importantly, that no marriages could take place between non-Jews and Jews. They were also forbidden from public places and facilities, such as parks, cinemas, swimming pools, and restaurant in the same year. Hitler was bit by bit and strategically, it appears, declining their right as citizens. And now that Jews no longer owned citizenship, it meant that they had no defence from the law. During 1935-1937, no further steps were taken against the Jews; politicians gave speeches saying different things- Hitler wished banishment to be cancelled, and that he most definitely wanted it to carry on. However, Hitler never said anything himself, though he was 'quoted' by many.
In 1938, Goring was made leader of the Four Year Plan, and desired for the Jews to be shifted from the country as quickly as possible. Many Jews started to depart the country in terror, and about half of the German-Jewish population left in 1930s, the other half eager that the situation would get better, or were merely powerless to leave for other reasons. regrettably, it did not: in 1938, a Jewish student, Ernst Von Rath, shot a German diplomat in the Parisian embassy, and he died. Goebbels commanded that Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues should be assaulted, and this night was called Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). More than one hundred Jews lost their lives, and thousands more were sent to concentration camps. The Jewish community also had to pay one and a quarter billion marks for the murder, and Jewish businesses were forbidden, as were Jewish children from school. This was another modify in his policies: from this event and afterwards, he recognized that if there was going to be war, the Jews were fully to blame, and so would have to pay for it. Now his purposes included not only Jews in Germany, but Jews all through Europe. Hitler made a speech announcing this significant change and the responsibility of the Jews for the war, scheduled the 30th January 1939; however, later he mentioned to having said this on the 1st September 1939, the day the Second World War started. This shows the unavoidable association he made between the Jewish society and the warfare.
Emigration and deportment of the 214,000 remaining Jews continuing for about two years, during which time Hitler actually told Goring that 'the Jewish question be once and for all co-ordinated and solved one way or another'. Throughout the summer of 1941, Russia was invaded. This huge landmass, the largest continent in the world, established another problem: here were many more Jews. Hitler had been manufacturing plans for deportment to Madagascar, but now the opportunity of mass emigration no longer existed in the autumn of 1941, millions of Eastern European Jews were slaughtered. Hitler's Final Solution was sketched at the Wansee Conference on the 20th January 1942 and most of the Jews were murdered in the years of 1942-1944.
Hitler's reluctance to confess or to heed on what really happened in the concentration camps that he placed up, and his denial to refer to their annihilation in unambiguous terms, shows that Hitler wished to be almost as ill-mannered of what was really happening as the rest of the German people.
The Nazi persecution of the Jews developed to such boundaries that even today they are looked upon as indignation. Whether Hitler had foreplanned everything that happened, or whether it was the consequence of Nazi politics and rivalry eventually going out of control, the Jews were treated terribly, as were other minorities: for instance, the Bedouins were practically annihilated during this period.
