Source 6, “Public Opinion” writen by David Bankier provides even stronger evidence that the Germans could have been wary about the doom of the Jews. Information about the killing in the extermination camps divulged to the already suspicious public in many ways. We are at the outset told, “some of those involved in it or knew about it, publicly divulged information’ These included members of the army. It quotes one SS man as saying “in a suburban train that 2000 Jews had been murdered every week in Auschwitz”. Radio broadcasts made by the Allies are also mentioned which gave “accurate Information on the fate of the Jews.” This source also informs us that at the end of 1942 the B.B.C “launched a massive broadcast campaign on the mass genocide of the Jews” these broadcasts told of the execution and suicide of many Jews and divulged details about gassing methods. Also in this source we are told that allied planes dropped leaflets about the “future consequences of these atrocities”. Additionally the US Air Force is reputed to have dropped 9 million leaflets telling of the murder of Jews. It is stated that people read and conversed over these leaflets again adding to the ‘suspicions’ and ‘rumours’ as previously mentioned In sources 2 and 4
Source 7 is an extract taken from a booklet called “Die Weisse Rose” Produced illegally by
Hans Scholl in 1943, a founding member of a resistance movement called “the White
Rose” and had worked in the East, this leaflet gave details from a German to his own
German people and questioned why no one opposes the crimes being carried out, this again shows that people are likely to have known about these ‘Crimes’.
From the information collected from the sources we can see there are many ways in which the Germans could have found out about the fate of many Jews. These include evidence from those employed in and those living close to camps and the information contained in leaflets and broadcasts.
QUESTION 3
Study sources 7-10.
How reliable are these sources as evidence of what German people might have
Suspected about the fate of the Jews?
ANSWER
Source 7 is taken from ‘ die Weisse Rose” by Fischer Versky. A student, Hans Scholl, who belonged to a resistance movement and therefore had anti-Nazi bias, released this pamphlet. It was issued illegally which questions may introduce the element of unreliability, We are told Hans Scholl was ‘aware of the atrocities carried out against both Jews and Russians’ It does not say he witnessed anything personally. Tough language is used in the source to portray the opinions of the writer, for example, “abominable and inhuman crime”. This source has a strong bias so its content may not be reliable but it is more proof that the public was being made aware of “abominable and inhuman crimes” which were happening in the Reich.
Source 8 comes from ‘The Era of the Second World War’ by Philip Sauvain This extract given is primary evidence from a US serviceman who showed Germans around a local camp after the War. Although he may have bias because he was American his account reads as factual - “when the people saw what the camp was like and were led through the torture chambers and past the ovens, men and women screamed and fainted, Others were led away crying hysterically” I think he was trying to say that it was so terrible that they could not believe it. When he says they ‘swore’ they didn’t know although it was ‘just outside their town.’ provides us with the doubt about them although it is possible that the zone surrounding the camp was subject to very tight security so as to shield it from the suspicious public eye. In my opinion this is a reliable source with little bias, it is clear the people were very shocked and it is unlikely they could have imagined the horrors which had gone on and still reacted as they did.
Source 9 is taken from “In Hitler’s Germany” by B Engleman, This is a secondary source from1988 and therefore the source is already less reliable. This person tells of how their mother was a Nazi follower who ‘dismissed alI the whispers of atrocities as stupid, malicious gossip” Then after she was “forced to tour Dachau she suffered a nervous breakdown”. The source says, ‘It took her a long time to recover.” The author could be trying to suggest that their mother believed in the Nazis and never considered what might he happening I do not think this source is very reliable as the author likely to be exagerating. However this extract is similar to Source 8.
Source 10 is an extract from “Hitler’s Willing Executioners’ by Daniel Goldhagen. The title suggests this source is anti-Nazi as it uses the word Executioners’. The author’s name, Goldhagen sounds Jewish. This would provide bias, reducing the reliability of the source. It is a diary entry so it is primary evidence. He says, “Jews are disappearing” suggesting first hand knowledge of this. The other references are to “Ghastly rumours which suggests he has been told, and accepts these because she is against Nazism. This source is not very reliable because he tried to help Jews and is anti-Nazi.
QUESTION 4
Which of these sources do you consider the least reliable?
ANSWER
I think that source 10 is the least reliable. There is no evidence that the woman has witnessed any evidence which backs up the rumours he has written about.
QUESTION 5
a) In what ways were jews represented in these sources
b) Why were jews represented in these ways in the Nazi period?
Answer
Sources 11-14 are poster type images of what Nazis want to suggest are ‘typical’ Jews. Of the Jewish people in sources 11,12 and 13 Jews are shown as ugly with big noses, unshaven and fat. In source 13 the physically fit Aryan worker is compared to fat, seated Jew with a brief case, There is propaganda - in source 12 it is suggested that only traitors buy from Jews. Source 13 is aimed at children comparing the strong man who can work and fight with the Jew who, the book says, ‘is the greatest scoundrel in the Reich”. Source 14 shows begging children — again always asking like the Jew in Source 11.
Source 11 is a Nazi poster for the ‘Eternal Jew’ exhibition held in 1937. The title ‘Eternal Jew’ suggests this is the way Jews have always been and always will be. The man in this poster has is a Fagin like character with a long beard and a big nose, he has a hunched beck, which suggests he is not in good physical condition. In his left hand there is a map of Germany with a sickle on it this suggested that jews were the root of communism and wished to make Germany a communist state. However it might also be suggesting that Jews steal or take money from the Germans. In his right hand he is holding coins, which reminds Germans that Jews were often rich successful businessmen who made money from the German people when they were vulnerable The whip in his left hand, which suggests the force which will be needed to deal with the jews, preparation for the final solution. It is making out Jews to be a threat.
Source 12, the beer mat, is strong propaganda which ties in with Krystalnacht in 1939 when Jewish shops and synagogues were attacked and 2000 Jews arrested. Again the Jewish man’s features are shown from the Nazi point of view with his big nose, his unshaven and unattractive appearance. Germans, are being told that supporting Jews is unpatriotic and seen as the action of a traitor. It may also be suggested that putting wet beer glasses on such beer mats would offend jews.
Source 13 compares Jews to foxes who are cunning and steal and kills to live. It suggests that Jews are no better than animals who Iive off and even steal from the German people. This shows the Nazi’s hatred is so strong they were trying to get even young children to think the Nazi way about Jewish people when they are young and impressionable. The typically portrayed Jew is unattractive, big nosed, unshaven, wearing glasses and fat He is dressed in a suit and holds a briefcase. The typical Aryan man in this source is shown as having blond hair, work clothes, strong physical condition and prepared for work with a spade, a member of the ‘superior’ Aryan race who is a good and strong worker with his hands. The contrast is between the fit hard working German and the fat, rich Jew who lives off the German people.
The jewish family in a Warsaw ghetto in source 14 who are begging for a crust of bread suggests jews living off the German people by begging even for a crust of bread. The baby to the left of the picture is wrapped in rags to be used for begging for food’. The mother figure has no shoes and looks miserable. They all look cold. They do not look to be a good health or well fed, It seems odd that the boy on the right is smiling making the picture look as though they were told to pose for it.
b)
Hitler believed in the pure Aryan race. Jews, were seen as a threat because of Bolshevism. They led the Russian revolution and in Germany they were rich and successful businessmen despite economic problems after World War I. Europe had a Iot of prejudice against the Jews. Of the 8 million living in Europe in 1939,6 million had been murdered by 1945.
Sources 11-14 present the Jews in such as to isolate them. The Germans were told they were dirty, ugly unhealthy people who wanted to steal to get something they wanted rather than pay for it. They were shown to have money and it was suggested they were taking it from Germans. Stronger messages were given directly such as the beer mat in source 12. Hitler blamed the Jews for all Germany’s problems. From the Nazi Party came to power in 1933 harsher measures were taken against the Jews. In the 1930s they were encouraged to migrate. In 1933 there was a boycott of Jewish shops and burning of Jewish books. The Nuremberg Laws were introduced in 1915 which allowed all those of German blood to be German citizens and forbade marriage or sexual relations between Jews and German citizen, in 1938 the SS started a week of terror destroying Jewish shops and synagogues when a Jew murdered an SS man
20.000 Jews were arrested. During the War the German army controlled the Jews. Later they were forced into Ghettos. Source 14 shows this. Germany murdered over a million Jews and when they invaded Russia In 1942 the ‘Final Solution’ was planned.
Source 11-14 show the increase in propaganda from Source 11 suggesting that the Jewish race is stealing the German money (concerning coins in his right hand to Source 12’s message to avoid Jewish businesses, and not to give them the opportunity to succeed. Then Source 13 tells children the Aryan race is superior to the ‘inferior’ Jews businessmen giving young children the impression that Jews are inferior in all aspects of life thus leading them to accept the Final Solution. Lastly in Source 4 Jews are seen as beggars. it gives the message that Jews are poor and unhealthy and are unwanted on the street of Germany Again preparation for the Final Solution
QUESTION 6
Explain whether you agree or disagree with the extract from Daniel Goldhagen’s
book ‘Hitler’s Willing Executioners’
ANSWER
Daniel Goldhagen’s view in the extract is that the German people knew about the atrocities concerning the Jews and that they accepted it and some of them took part in it because they had come to accept Hider’s ideas about Jews. This is Goldhagen’s own opinion. It may be biased as, judging by his name he is probably a Jew, therefore It is likely to be biased. It uses strong language such as ‘a dire fate awaited the Jewish men and women”. To describe the German people as “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” shows a biased opinion.
Source 2 suggests that Jews were mostly taken to Poland to be killed. This suggests that many people in Germany may not have known about the “Final Solution’. Sources 4,5,9 and 10 tell of the existence of rumours of what was happening to the Jews. Rumours pick up bias and prejudice as they are repeated and sit unreliable. None of the sources show us for certain that the atrocities were actually going on. Source 9 describes the rumour, as “malicious gossip”. If this was the view of many, the rumours would have been ignored as no one would believe them. Source 6 tells us that allied countries made sure that the Germans knew exactly what was happening by radio broadcasts and leaflets. Nazi followers may have believed this ‘Nazi propaganda to try to turn them against the Nazis.
Goldhagan suggests also that many Germans did not care what was happening to the Jews. This may be true. Sources 11-14 suggest that Nazis were increasingly preparing the German people for the ‘Final Solution’ Each source is portraying the Jews to be inferior and a problem. This suggests people did not know but would be told about the Final Solution. Sources 3, 4 and 5 show that some Germans should have known about the camps like the ones who lived near them and the people who knew workers would have heard what was happening in the camps. Some might also have known that Hitler would have treated anyone who opposed this as a traitor and maybe killed them as was common in a dictatorship.
The sources mainly describe information as being given by rumours and stories which were second hand an not likely to be accurate.
This extract is very biased. I would agree that there was likely to have been “Willing Executioners who committed terrible acts against Jews.I do not agree that all Germans supported the killing of the Jews or took part in the atrocities, By 1942 Germany is afraid of communism and had become firmly under the control of Hitler. Germans had been given a lot of propaganda against Jews. However, many Germans must have known Jews and had friends who were Jews like the lady in source 10. Anne Franks’ Diary tells of the fear Jews had in Europe at this time. I do not think that ordinary people would have believed that what did happen was happening. They may have been too afraid themselves to question it, During this time there is a lot of fear and confusion. The Germans would have been mainly concerned for themselves. I do not think they would have had much concern about where the Jews had gone.
