German Nazi: The Wannsee Protocol Essay

The Totalitarian Aspects of Nazi Germany The government of Nazi Germany was a fascist, totalitarian state. They ruled in Germany ever since Hitler became chancellor in 1933, to 1945. Totalitarianism was a form of government in which the state involves itself in all facts of society, including the daily life of its citizens. It penetrates and controls all aspects of public and private life, through the state's use of propaganda, terror and technology.

The obliterate event of the holocaust in 1933. The Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million. Most of the Jews lived in the countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence in World War 2. By 1945, Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as the ‘Final Solution’ the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe (Introduction to the Holocaust). The cause and effect of the holocaust was due to racism, prejudice and stereotyping since, Jews were isolated in their communities that caused distrusted and discrimination against the Jews in Europe.(Cause and Effect of Holocaust ). In the boy in the striped book, when Gretel and her brother Bruno looked out the window to figure out what the hut were in the distance at the time Gretel said ‘’ it’s a countryside. This is our holiday home’’. Then Bruno said’’ i don’t think so’’. After this Gretel discriminates against Bruno saying’’ your only nine years old, how would you know ( The Boy in the Striped Pajamas pg.34 John Boyne). Adolf Hitler and the Nazi operation on the anti-semitic racist beliefs that germans are superior people with the ideology, using World War 2 as their primary to achieve their goal. The Nazis targeted the Jews as main enemy, killing six million Jewish men,

From 1941 to 1945, Jews were systematically murdered in one of the deadliest genocides in history, which was part of a broader aggregate of acts of oppression and killings of various ethnic and political groups in Europe by the Nazi regime. Every arm of Germany 's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics and the carrying out of the genocide. Other victims of Nazi crimes included Romanians, Ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet POWs, communists, homosexuals, Jehovah 's Witnesses and the mentally and physically disabled. A network of about 42,500 facilities in Germany and German-occupied territories were used to concentrate victims for slave labor, mass murder, and other human rights abuses. Over 200,000 people are estimated to have been Holocaust perpetrators. Beginning in 1941, Jews from all over the continent, as well as hundreds of thousands of European Gypsies, were transported to the Polish ghettoes. Every person designated as a Jew in German territory was marked with a yellow star making them open targets. Thousands were soon being deported to the Polish ghettoes and German-occupied cities in the USSR. Since June 1941, experiments with mass killing methods had been ongoing at the concentration camp of Auschwitz and many more. That August, 500 officials gassed 500 Soviet POWs to death with the pesticide Zyklon-B. The SS soon placed a huge order for the gas with a German pest-control firm, an ominous indicator of the coming Holocaust. Beginning in late 1941, the Germans

Within Germany, a country torn between the rise of a totalitarian party that determined a superior race, Nazism, and the survival of the oppressed, young Germans face a test between a sense of self and society. Individuality would be suppressed within this new type of society, and being different would be the deadliest obstruction to life. The violations of the rights to life, religion, and speech are relived through the stories of the German youth that lived through this haunting time, whose name would be tarnished in their struggle to survive. In their fight, their morals would be challenged and influenced until the Nazi regime ended, and the violation of human dignity would leave them wondering if life was worth living after all. The Nazi Party grew under its leader, Adolf Hitler, which struggled not to use violence against those that disagreed with their views, starting with armed groups known as the Strum Abteilung, who pledged to be ready to sacrifice their life in the aims of the Nazi Party and absolute loyalty to their leader. Their cruel intolerance began by their strong nationalism and their hatred of democracy and communism, and they gained power through the economic depressions around the world, controlling the media by instilling fear and propaganda that influenced a strong belief in their leaders. This belief in the leaders would soon seem to override Church influence when the official body of the Church failed to do anything significant

At the “Wannsee Conference”, which took place in Berlin, on January 20, 1942 the German regime with its main protagonists Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler planned the ‘final solution of the Jewish question. Even if massacres of about one million Jews occurred before the plans of the Final Solution, with the decision to eradicate the entire Jewish population, extermination camps were built and industrialized mass slaughter of Jews began in earnest. The scene where a train of Schindler’s workers was wrongly sent to Auschwitz shows such an extermination camp were the Nazis systematically gassed thousands of Jews. Another example for the organized genocide is the mass cremation after the mass execution during the eviction of the ghetto in Krakow.

Women and children were beat and men were murdered and rounded up to go to concentration camps. These attacks came after Herschel Grynszpan shot a member of the German Embassy. In two days, over 250 synagogues we burned, 7,000 Jewish businesses were looted and dozens of Jewish people were killed.

The Change of the Treatment of the Nazis from 1939-1945 On January 20th 1942 an important meeting took place where fifteen high-ranking Nazi party and governmental leaders gathered for an important meeting that lasted around 90 minutes. The meeting was known as the wannsee conference and the purpose was to discuss "the final solution". This involved many different strategies to help get rid of the Jews in Europe. After the conference the number of killings in the streets increased, deportation and mass murders escalated within a month of the conference taking place, all centers were ready for murder.

Eleven million individuals were victimized by the Holocaust. Six million of those victims were Jewish, while the other five million were groups targeted by the Nazi’s because they didn’t fit their discriminative criteria. Inhumane practices were used in attempts to purify and unify the German state (Novick, 225). When the Holocaust is discussed, the Jewish victims are usually the main focal point of the massive “genocide.”

There are many important dates throughout the history of the Holocaust, spanning the time line of January 30,1933 through May 8,1945.This report covers some of the tragic events, from the beginning

1) Germany before the Fuhrer. Germany’s defeat at the end of World War I left the nation socially, politically, and economically shattered. The reparation agreements inflicted upon Germany without its’ consent at the end of the war meant that the nation was in complete financial ruin. In the wake of Germany’s defeat, public decent climaxed on the 9th November 1918 during the revolution that took place on Berlin’s Postdamer Platz. This revolution transpired as a result of the public’s culminating discontent towards the imperial monarchy, and lasted up until August 1919, which saw the establishment of the Weimar Republic. In attempts to guide Germany out of economic

All through the spring and summer of 1940, the German armed force extended Hitler's realm in Europe, winning (by drive) Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Starting in 1941, Jews from everywhere throughout the mainland, and additionally a huge number of (identified with Europe) Rovers, were taken to the Clean ghettoes. The German (sudden, undesirable passage into a place) of the Soviet Union in June 1941 denoted another level of creature like savagery in war battling. Versatile slaughtering units called Einsatzgruppen would kill more than 500,000 Soviet Jews and others (more often than not by shooting) through the span of the German occupation.

The persecution rate of Jews increased in 1938 that involved humiliation, beatings, and vandalism. The first action committed by the Nazis towards Jews was limitations on places for Jews the next was Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass. Kristallnacht was created in vengeance of a Polish Jew Herschel Grynszpan who shot Ernst Vom Rath. Rath was a German embassy official that was stationed in Paris when a 17 year old short him. Days before the shooting Jews were stripped of their polish citizenship living in Germany. Kristallnacht was then taken out of retaliation against Jews. This occurred on November 9-10, 1938, and was planned by the German government against Jews. The government organized mobs that would torch Jewish stores. This did not only occur in Germany it happened in Austria and some areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, occupied by German troops. During those two days Jews were afraid of being attacked by Nazis. Nazis would torch down synagogues, jewish homes, businesses, and schools. Some Jews were so afraid they did not want to take the risk of leaving their homes and getting attacked. Twenty six thousand men were arrested during Kristallnacht and sent to Concentration camps. Such as Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. In those two days alone at least 91 Jews were killed. 7,500 shops were looted from and 191 synagogues were destroyed. Apart from stealing items from stores mobs would smash the windows that would create disturbances to the neighbors. To torment the Jews even more the damage committed during Kristallnacht had to be payed by Jews. Even though this did not eliminate the Jews if showed them that they were not welcomed and that was just the beginning

Anti-semitism in Germany led by Adolf Hitler would back up a plan called the final solution, to exterminate all of the Jews in Europe. Out of the 100 million Jews aimed for extermination, 6 million of them were killed. On his path to German greatness, Jews became victim to inconceivable actions. First the Nuremberg Laws were passed which stripped Jews of their german citizenship, eliminating their opportunity to flee to other countries. After Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, Hitler forcefully deported Jewish people into fenced confinements called ghettos. More Jews died here than in any extermination camp due to the harsh conditions and labor. Most people living in ghettos had no access to running water or a sewage system and overcrowding

Conspiracy is a historical reenactment of the Wannsee Conference that convened outside Berlin in January of 1942. Fifteen of Hitler’s top officials from the SS and Nazi party held a clandestine meeting to lay the groundwork for what was referred to as the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”. Among those present were: Reinhard Heydrich - Heinrich Himmler’s right hand man in the SS, Heinrich Muller – Chief of the Gestapo, Martin Luther – Foreign Ministry’s liaison to the SS, Gerhard Klopfer – lawyer from the Nazi Party Chancellery, Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinge - Deputy head of the Reich Chancellery, Wilhem Stuckart – lawyer representing the Interior Ministry and the co-author of the Anti-Semitic Nuremburg laws.

Two days after Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany, on the 3rd of September 1939, President Roosevelt issued a proclamation of neutrality and ordered the suspension of munitions sales to all “belligerents” (nations involved in war.) This included its “allies” the British and the French, as they were counted as “belligerent” nations.