The Jews were targeted and suffered more from negative propaganda than any other group being persecuted by the regime. They were demonised and stereotyped through various posters and also films such as ‘The Eternal Jew’. This film, which was highly biased and racist, presented Jews as the cause of the problems facing Germany at the time, with the Jew being the accumulation of all that was wrong within German society. Not only were Jews persecuted more openly than any other group, the nature of the ‘Jewish threat’ was also seen as being much more sinister and sincere than the threats posed by others, due in part to its association with Bolshevism. The Nazis cultivated the idea that the measures taken against the Jews were part of a greater plan of ‘good versus evil’. They escalated their ‘crusade’ against the Jews by using such rhetoric as “the Aryan race led by the German people was destined to save mankind from the horrors of the ‘Jewish-Bolshevik’ yoke, as exemplified by Russian Communism”.
One of the single biggest examples of violence and intimidation used in the persecution of the Jews was the events of ‘Crystal Night’ on November the 9th 1938. Crystal Night serves as a useful example in illustrating the difference in the way that Jews were treated compared to other groups, due to the subversive way in which this seemingly ‘random’ act of violence was carried out. In that one night there were 91 murders, 191 synagogues were destroyed, almost all Jewish cemeteries were desecrated and material damage amounting to 30,000 marks, including the cost of ransacking 7,500 Jewish businesses.
Regarded by many as a premeditated response to the murder of Councillor Vom Rath at the German embassy in Paris by a Jew, Crystal Night was dismissed by the Nazi government as the nation’s response to the murder of the German official. However, it was not the public but off duty SA and SS officers who carried out the attacks on the Jewish community and their businesses. On the evening of Vom Rath’s death, Hitler was told of the murder and that it was committed by a Jew and is reported to have said to Goebbels “The SA should be allowed to have a fling”. These events were unique to the Jewish experience of persecution by the Nazi regime, with no policies as strict or as racist as those employed against the Jewish community. Ultimately, no other group suffered the same number of deaths as the Jews as by the end of The Holocaust it is estimated that between 160,000 and 200,000 German Jews were killed, amounting to a huge total of 83% of the entire German Jewish population. By the end of the Second World War there was an estimated 5,721,000 Jews killed, some 68% of the entire European Jewish population.
However, the experiences of other groups within Nazi society were also fraught with persecution and injustice. One such example was the ‘Gypsies’ or Roma and Sinti.
The persecution of Gypsies was taking place long before the Nazis came to power, largely due to their reluctance to live within the social norms of society. Their foreign appearance, strange customs and language, their nomadic way of life and their lack of regular employment all added to them being treated as social outcasts. Throughout the 1920s Gypsies had been treated as criminals (despite their lack of any crimes) with police in Bavaria and Prussia establishing special offices to keep them under constant surveillance, taking their photographs and fingerprints. When the Nazis assumed power the Gypsy threat acquired a new dimension, namely the poisoning of Aryan blood through mixed Gypsy-Aryan relationships. Although there were only 30,000 Gypsies in Germany at the time, eradication of this group became central to Nazi ideology in order to cure Germany of any non-Aryan components in society. In December 1938 Himmler issue a ‘Decree for the struggle against the Gypsy Plague’ which introduced a tightening of the registration of Gypsies based on the recommendations of ‘racial experts’. In response to the problem the Gypsies posed to the purity and ‘honour’ of the Aryan race, there were mass sterilizations of Gypsy men and women and in May 1940 2,800 Gypsies were sent to Poland along with Jewish transports, following Germany’s victory over Poland. Between February 26th and March 25th 1943 a further 11,400 gypsies were sent from Germany and elsewhere to Auschwitz.
The persecution of the Gypsies differed from that of the Jews due to the way in which the threat to racial purity was presented. ‘Pure Jews’ (those whose parents were both Jews) were seen as the most dangerous permutation of Jews and suffered the most persecution from the regime. However, pure Gypsies were ‘admired’ by many Nazi racial experts, due to the way which they had managed to keep their identity and way of life separate over the centuries, an achievement attributed to their strong sense of race. Instead it was those who were part Gypsy, the Gypsy Mischlinge, who had began to integrate into German society that were considered as being the greatest threat to the Nazi idea of Aryan purity.
Another difference between the treatment of Jews and Gypsies was their treatment in the concentration camps. Unlike other prisoners, Gypsy families were allowed to live together, whereas Jewish men and women were put into separate camps. However, some have suggested that the only reason Gypsies were allowed to live with their families was to facilitate the medical experiments in a medical centre established in their camp by the infamous Dr Mengele. Of the 20,000 Gypsies sent to Auschwitz, 11,000 were murdered, while the rest were transferred elsewhere. Of the 30,000 Gypsies who lived in Germany before 1939, only 5,000 survived the war. It is estimated that half a million European Gypsies were killed by the Nazis throughout the second world war, largely due to the fact that the were considered both non-Aryan and asocial due to their unwillingness to abide to societies norms and through their perceived ‘unproductiveness’. The Jews were not persecuted for being asocial or for their unwillingness to work; instead they were persecuted on account of their race and the threat they were believed to pose through their supposed ties to Bolshevism. Furthermore, the success of the Jews antagonised the Germans, which made them consider the Jews as more of a threat, whereas the Gypsies were seen as much less dangerous; being a racial anomaly and a mild nuisance.
Along with both the Jews and the Gypsies, another group that was persecuted by the Nazi regime were the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Unlike both of these other groups, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted solely as a consequence of their faith and were unusual in that by renouncing their faith, they could end their persecution at any time. Neither the Jews nor the Gypsies had this luxury as both these groups were born with the inherited genes the Nazis sought to destroy. However, despite the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses could end their persecution by renouncing their faith, few chose to. Therefore, unlike like the other groups, they chose to be incarcerated on account of their religious beliefs.
In 1933 there were approximately 25,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses living in Germany, thus the smallest of the 3 groups examined, and arguably presented the least threat to the Nazi regime. However, Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted by the Nazis for two main reasons. Firstly they were pacifists and would not take part in the war as conscripts, nor would they aid the war effort in any way. This defiance of the Nazi regime led to many being sent to concentration camps. Once in the concentration camps they were often separated from the rest of the prisoners and with many being placed in solitary confinement for refusing to give the Hitler salute or undergo military service.
The second, reason why Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted was due to the nature of their religion. In this instance it was the emphasis on the Old Testament that the Nazi regime questioned. Because there was a strong focus on the Old Testament in their faith, the Nazis likened it to Judaism and therefore they suffered the consequences. Further, due to the international aspect of their religion, the Nazis were deeply distrustful of Jehovah’s Witnesses as they believed them to have connections with other international networks such as Bolshevism. Like Jews, Jehovah’s Witness children were excluded from primary school and marriage to a Jehovah’s Witnesses was discouraged.
In 1933 Jehovah’s Witnesses accounted for 40% of the total concentration camp population. However, the way in which Jehovah’s Witnesses were treated was far different to the persecution imposed on both the Jews and the Gypsies. Aside from the fact that the number of those persecuted was much smaller than the other groups, many Jehovah’s Witnesses also held positions of considerable authority compared to their fellow inmates and as a result their survival rate was much higher.
Jehovah’s Witnesses enjoyed much better living standards within the concentration camps of Nazi Germany than other groups, with various reports of Jehovah’s Witnesses being allowed to work outside the camp because they were trusted to come back once they had finished their work. Women Jehovah’s Witnesses were also reported to have been in charge of looking after the houses of SS men and their children. Consequently, as a result of the relaxed attitude towards them it is perhaps unfair to liken the experiences of Jehovah’s Witnesses to that of Jews or Gypsies. In total only 1200 Jehovah’s Witnesses died both in the lead up to and during the Second World War, therefore of all the groups they appear to have suffered the least persecution.
In conclusion the experiences of Jews, Gypsies and Jehovah’s Witnesses were all quite different under the Nazi regime. While it is undeniable that all three groups were persecuted, they were not persecuted in an equal manner. While the Jehovah’s Witnesses suffered through their religion, they ultimately had a choice as to whether or not to renounce their faith and return to a normal life with their families, both the Jews and the Gypsies experiences were much more sinister and inescapable. While it is undeniable that the Gypsies were subjugated to inhuman treatment, through their use in human testing and their sterilization, they seem to have been an afterthought within the Nazi regime. On the other hand the systematic destruction of the Jewish people as a race marks a change in policy much darker again, as the Nazis sought not just to separate them from the Germany, but forcibly erase there existence from world history through a systematic and premeditated system of mass killing. Therefore, while the experiences of the three groups are useful in highlighting the different ways the Nazis tried to eliminate the threat to their regime and their ideology, there are vast gulfs between the levels of pain and suffering experienced by each of the three component groups.
Bibliography
Bartov, Omer, The Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath. Routledge, 2000.
Bessel, Richard, Life In The Third Reich. Oxford University Press, 1987.
Cecil, Robert, The Myth Of The Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology. B.T. Batsford Ltd London, 1972.
Kershaw, Ian, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives Of Interpretation. 4th Edition. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Kirk, Tim, Nazi Germany. Longman Group Limited, 1995.
Morgan, Michael L. A Holocaust Reader: Responses to the Nazi Extermination. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Peukert, Detlev, J.K. Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism In Everyday Life. Penguin Books Ltd, 1987.
Rutherford, Ward, Hitler’s Propaganda Machine. Bison Books Limited, 1978.
Thalmann, Rita and Emmanuel Feinermann, Crystal Night: 9-10 November 1938. Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1974.
Richard Bessel, Life In The Third Reich. (Oxford University Press, 1987), p.69.
Tim Kirk, Nazi Germany. (Longman Group Limited, 1995), p.159.
Tim Kirk, Nazi Germany. (Longman Group Limited, 1995), p.168.
Richard Bessel, Life In The Third Reich. (Oxford University Press, 1987), p.70.
Rita Thalmann and Emmanuel Feinermann, Crystal Night: 9-10 November 1938. (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1974), p.7.
Tim Kirk, Nazi Germany. (Longman Group Limited, 1995), p.160.
Ward Rutherford, Hitler’s Propaganda Machine. (Bison Books Limited, 1978), p.36.
Richard Bessel, Life In The Third Reich. (Oxford University Press, 1987), p.70.
Tim Kirk, Nazi Germany. (Longman Group Limited, 1995), p.161.
Rita Thalmann and Emmanuel Feinermann, Crystal Night: 9-10 November 1938. (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1974), p.58.
Tim Kirk, Nazi Germany. (Longman Group Limited, 1995), p.172.
Richard Bessel, Life In The Third Reich. (Oxford University Press, 1987), p.89.
Richard Bessel, Life In The Third Reich. (Oxford University Press, 1987), p.90-91.
Robert Cecil, The Myth Of The Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology. (B.T. Batsford Ltd London, 1972), p.84.
Rita Thalmann and Emmanuel Feinermann, Crystal Night: 9-10 November 1938. (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1974), p.123.