Hitler and the Jews
Hitler was one of very many Germans who were traumatized by Germany’s defeat in WW1 (1914-18). He made the Jews scapegoats for Germany’s failure to win the war, but also for the worldwide financial crash in the 30s. However there were many extreme right-wing nationalists around at this time, of which the Nazis were only one.
Hitler on the other hand, was extremely racist; even by the far right’s standard. It was not just the typical prejudice Germans had for Jews. He was obsessed with the idea of “racial contamination” by the Jews of the “pure blooded Aryan master race.”
Anti-Semitism was common in Germany, however there was little support for the extreme Anti-Semitism of the likes of Hitler; in the general elections of 1928 the Nazis returned just 2.5% of the vote.
Hitler expressed violent Anti-Semitism throughout his political career. At the very least, he wanted them to be “eliminated”’ from German society. However the exact means by which he meant to d this was not clear. When Hitler came to power in 1933, anti-Jewish measures were to be expected, however, there was a “twisted road to Auschwitz, not a direct route”. The holocaust was a possibility when Hitler came to power, but it was not inevitable. The process of the final solution evolved in stages, the pressure of the events of the Second World War. A great number of obstacles had to be overcome before Hitler could virtually exterminate the Jewish population of Europe.
Hitler’s solution to the Jewish problem when he came to power on the 30th January 1933 was to encourage the Jews to leave Germany. This culminated in a series of measures against the Jews. On the 1st April 1933, a 1-day boycott of Jewish owned businesses was organized by the S.A. However with this Hitler had to be careful – most people in Germany did not agree wit this. Also on the 1st April, the first law against the Jews was passed. 300 more would follow.
Nuremburg Laws
In 1933, there were 525,000 Jews in Germany, but because of emigration the number had dwindled to 118,000 in 1938 and another 30,000 left Germany when war was declared. On the 1st April 1933, the first of 400 Nazi racial laws was introduced. Jews were described as being “non-Aryans” and therefore excluded from the media, farming and public sector jobs.
On the same day, a government sponsored boycott of Jewish businesses took place. It was intended to be forever, but it was ended after one day due to pressure from other countries and the effect it would have had on the German economy.
On the 15th September 1935, the Nuremburg laws were introduced, largely as a result of pressure from below in the Nazi Party. These laws defined a Jew; however they were muddled and illogical. A Jew was defined as someone who had one or more Jewish parents, two or more Jewish grandparents, or who engaged in Jewish religious practices. It was also possible to be classed as a Jew through marriage to a Jew or to someone with 3 or more Jewish grandparents. However, this was eventually dropped due to public pressure.
The first Nuremburg Law defined Reich citizenship as being only able to be held by a “national of German or kindred blood”, a definition the Jews were excluded from. Jews no longer held the right to vote or a fair trial. The second major Nuremburg Law, “For the Protection of German Blood and German Honour”, banned marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Germans. There was no clear definition of a Jew either in genetic or religious terms, but Jews were officially made second class citizens by these laws in Nazi Germany.
The Growth of Radical Anti-Semitism
Open persecution of the Jews began to become more widespread in Nazi Germany between 1937 and 1939, as Jews were driven out of certain towns, which then declared themselves to be Judenfrei “Jew free” or Judenrein “Jew Pure”.
The Jews were banned from public swimming pools, restaurants, sports grounds, cafés and theatres. However the ostracizing of Jews from German society did not provoke public anger or even disapproval. Jews were subjected to isolated incidents of physical and verbal assaults, including the forcible cutting of the beards and dreadlocks of orthodox Jews; still most of these attacks were carried out by Nazi activists acting individually at a local level.
In 1938 there was more anti-Semitic legislation, which banned Jewish doctors, salesmen, lawyers, vets and dentists – essentially excluding them from German economic life. This government-sponsored persecution led to the more openly violent act perpetrated against Jews, the “Night of the Broken Glass”, kristallnacht. This was organized by minister of propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, on the 9-10 November 1938 as a means to impress Hitler, who fully supported it. 7,500 Jewish shops were destroyed, 400 synagogues were burnt down and over 90 Jews were killed. It was carried out by the SA, the Storm Troopers, who had been itching to start an open campaign of anti-Jewish violence for years.
As the years went on from 1933 to 1939 the anti Semitism of the Nazi party became more radical, moving from legal discrimination to open threats and intimidation, violence and deprivation of economic power.
By 1939, Jews had been excluded from the social, economic, legal, political and cultural life of Germany. Still, the major aim of Nazi policy at this time was to deport the Jews, not exterminate them.
Poland
On the 1st September 1939 the German army invaded Poland. As a result of this, 2 million more Jews came under Nazi control. This created an even bigger “Jewish Problem”. Polish Jews were more Orthodox in dress and mannerisms and were alien to Nazi eyes. The Nazis’ racial policy in Poland was taken charge of by Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, and his deputy Reinhard Heydrich. As a “temporary solution” they forced the Jews into ghettoes, in order to control and isolate them, and as a stage towards a more final solution. The Nazis at this point still had no plant to murder all the Jews. However, the high population of Jews in one area created problems in relation to food and sanitation. Eventually, the food rations for Jews were cut to starvation levels, and many Jews died of disease and malnutrition. Throughout 1940 and the first part of 1941, there was till no decision taken by Hitler to murder all the Jews, but by this stage there were already tens of thousands of Jews dying in the ghettoes, and pressure was growing for a more “permanent” solution to the Jewish Problem.
Options
One of Hitler’s favourite ideas was to relocate the Jews to Madagascar, or possibly to use them as hostages for further negotiation - the Jews had and still have a lot of power and influence in the USA. Hitler did not finally abandon that idea until early 1942. Another, more feasible option was to use the Jews as slave labour. As the war went on and more men were needed for the army Germany needed more workers. They were fighting both the USSR and the USA and needed a lot of equipment. Most senior Nazis felt that this was the most suitable solution in the short term. But this left a question: what would happen to the Jews who couldn’t work? Both Himmler and Heydrich favoured the murder of al the Jews. In May 1941, Himmler ordered the commandant of Auschwitz to setup gas chambers to kill those Jews who could not work. However, there is debate among historians about when exactly Hitler decided on the “final solution.” Daniel Goldhagen, in Hitler’s Willing Executioners argues that Hitler always planned to kill all the Jews. Ian Kershaw, who has written a major biography of Hitler, is one of the historians who disagree. He argues that there is no evidence that senior Nazis had decided on the “final solution” until 1941.
Russia
The USSR was invaded by Germany in June 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa. The number of Jews under Nazi control rose to 9 million. This created a bigger problem for Hitler. As the German army fought on the front line, 4 SS Einsatzgruppen came behind them and killed people likely to be agitators – communists, and Jews.
Within five months, 500,000 Jews had been killed. 1.2 million Jews were killed altogether, usually by shooting.
In August 1941 Himmler organized a mass execution of Jews at Minsk and, after fainting while watching 300 Jews executed by shooting, sought a more “humane” way of murdering them – that is, more humane for those carrying out these executions, not the Jews themselves.
Final Solution
Sometime during 1941 the decision seems to have been taken to kill all the Jews who could not work, and use the able-bodied Jews as slave labour until they died.
At the Wansee Conference in January 1942, chaired by Himmler’s deputy, Heydrich, the Nazis worked out the details of the final solution. This included the setting up of Death Camps such as Auschwitz in Poland, where to obtain poison gas, Zyklon B, the building of gas chambers and transport by train into Poland.
Conclusion
The Final Solution, genocide of the European Jewry, was the last in a series of stages; encouraging emigration, ghettoes, shooting and finally the gas chambers. This was meant to be permanent. At first Hitler and the Nazis had been content with forcing Jews to leave Germany. They had not yet conceived the idea of murdering all the Jews. By 1939, 80% of the Jews had emigrated. On the outbreak of war on the 1st September 1939 and the capture of Poland, 2 million more Jews came under Nazi control. the possibilities for solving this “problem” considered were numerous. One of Hitler’s ideas was to deport the Jews to Madagascar, and to use them as slave labour, before the Nazis decided on genocide. By the summer of 1941 a decision had been taken at Auschwitz to kill the Jews who could not work and to work the ones who could until they died. During Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the Einzattgruppen came behind the front lines and murdered Jews by shooting them. Finally the final solution was systematically organized at the Wansee Conference in 1942. So the purpose of the final solution was solve what the Nazis termed the “Jewish Problem” by genocide of the Jews – killing those who could not work straight away and then working the others to death as slaves. The end result was that by the end of the Second World War 6 million Jews had been killed.
