Nazi Policies Towards Jews Were Brutal but Erratic
In the years after the Machtergreifung in 1933, German Jews were subject to fluctuation levels of violence and intimidation at the hands of the Nazi Party and its supporters. The variations in intensity were the result of a number of factors including the occasion of the Berlin Olympics, and internal rivalries in the Nazi party about the best way to proceed with Anti-Semitic policy.
‘Brutal’ is defined in the Oxford dictionary as Cruel, harsh or savage,’ and in consideration of this, Nazi treatment of Jews between 1933 and 1939 was certainly brutal. The earliest example of this brutality comes during the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, when Nazi
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A Jewish man clearing broken glass after Reichkristallnacht
Whilst this physical brutality is certainly horrific, it is on a much smaller scale than other terror regimes of the era, such as Stalin’s Russia, where hundreds of thousands of innocent soviet citizens were sent to work camps and worked to death. Due to this, it could be argued that Nazi policy towards Jews was not remarkably brutal however the brutality of Nazi Germany also took on a much more extreme psychological dimension against Jewish citizens.
These incidents of ‘legal anti-Semitism’ were common in Nazi Germany, an example of which being the 1933 book burning, where, in a state organised affair thousands of Jewish-authored books were burned in public. This was immensely psychologically cruel, as firstly it served to oppress and destroy Jewish culture by burning sacred texts such as the Talmud. The book burning also created an immense atmosphere of fear in the German-Jewish community best surmised by German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine when he said:
"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings."
The Shops boycott, organised by Julius Streicher had a similarly intimidating effect on Jews in Germany, who
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.
Ian Kershaw empathetically states that “The Holocaust was the systematic, extermination of six million Jews by the Nazi government and their allies during World War II.” He further add that it wasn’t until after Adolph Hitler “became Chancellor of the German government, he began targeting the Jews as racially inferior to the German people (Kershaw, 1985).
Germany’s fate was changed on April 20, 1889, the day I, Adolf Hitler was born to German official, Alois and my dear, Klara Hitler. Little did they know of what a miracle that had blessed them that day. My destiny was decided for me every time my father lectured me about the abhor Jews, taking up our German property, and beat me for the childish mistakes I made. I realized my destiny was to punish the faults in our once perfect nation. My father’s strict upper hand was not the only contribution to my great plan. At the age of sixteen, I left my home to pursue my dream of becoming an artist. I enrolled myself into the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts. The vile Jews in charge of the school denied me acceptance into the school. I spent
Horror struck on January 30, 1933, when Germany assigned Adolf Hitler as their chancellor. Once Hitler had finally reached power he set out to complete one goal, create a Greater Germany free from the Jews (“The reasons for the Holocaust,” 2009). This tragedy is known today as, “The Holocaust,” that explains the terrors of our histories past. The face of the Holocaust, master of death, and leader of Germany; Adolf Hitler the most deceitful, powerful, well spoken, and intelligent person that acted as the key to this mass murder. According to a research study at the University of South Florida, nearly eleven million people were targeted and killed. This disaster is a genocide that was meant to ethnically cleanse Germany of the Jews. Although Jewish people were the main target they were not the only ones targeted; gypsies, African Americans, homosexuals, socialists, political enemies, communists, and the mentally disabled were killed (Simpson, 2012, p. 113). The word to describe this hatred for Jewish people is known as antisemitism. It was brought about when German philosophers denounced that “Jewish spirit is alien to Germandom” (“Antisemitism”) which states that a Jew is non-German. Many people notice the horrible things the Germans did, but most don’t truly understand why the Holocaust occurred. To truly understand the Holocaust, you must first know the Nazis motivations. Their motivations fell into two categories including cultural explanations that focused on ideology and
Germans in the beginning of the Nazi era were campaigning to eliminate any signs of Jewish intellectualism or anti-socialist ideas within the public. This is eminent when the author states in the article “Book Burning” that, “German govt was trying to create support for the Nazi cause, by driving in the nazi ideas in social and cultural groups”(Book Burning, Holocaust
This identity as disgusting, impure creatures helped to set them apart from the pure Aryan race in society. This set up the Aryan race as superior and the Jewish race as inferior. This was reinforced physically through structural discrimination such as the Nuremberg laws and the forced wearing of the Star of David. The Germans the then found a false concreteness in this distinction that the Jews were evil and were rats' who conspired against them. This allowed them to find concreteness in their belief that the Holocaust was legitimate. However, it was false considering that the Jews had fought in the German army and proved their loyalty to the German state. The Germans' perception of the Jews' identity allowed them to deny the freedoms of the Jews. They began by denying the Jews' right to be Germans, which opened the door for other denial of freedoms, such as even the right the life. These included the boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933, the Nuremberg
The holocaust was the systematic, state-organized persecution and murder of at least six million jews. 100 days after Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Nazis began having book burnings to get rid of un-German writings proclaiming the death of Jewish intellectualism. This was one of the first acts that foreshadowed the destruction Hitler would have in Germany. Since Hitler and the Nazis felt that all Jewish peoples made Germany impure, their goal was to put an end to the existence of all Jews. Nazis required the elimination of Jews from German life. Their first nationwide action against
The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb is based on a true story of the capturing of an S.S. Officer after World War 2. The book goes through the background of Adolf Eichmann and then which S over to the steps that lead up to his capture. Overall it is a pretty good book that will keep the reader on edge as the try to capture him.
The Change in the Nazis Treatment of the Jews Why did the Nazis treatment of the Jews change from 1939-45?
The Holocaust of 1933-1945, was the systematic killing of millions of European Jews by the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazis) (Webster, 430). This project showed the treacherous treatment towards all Jews of that era. Though many fought against this horrific genocide, the officials had already determined in their minds to exterminate the Jews. Thus, the Holocaust was a malicious movement that broke up many homes, brought immense despair, and congregated great discrimination. The Holocaust was an act of Hell on earth.
People were especially brutal during the Holocaust during ‘The Complete Maus’ showing how the Holocaust brought out the worst in human behaviour. On page 110 Germans are depicted swinging children by the legs against walls and even the fact they were children that did not hesitate to be brutal. The Nazis were shown to be beating defenceless Jews with batons, rounding them up to take them to a camp. The Nazis also hung two Jewish people in the centre of town for a week to set an unpleasant of what could happen if you broke the law (pg 85), This shows how brutal the Nazis were against the Jewish people and the undesirable ways they did this.
The Nazis’s were very brutal with their plan to dehumanize the Jews with their nasty and sick tactics.
Anti-Jewish measures and pogroms have taken place numerous times throughout history, but never to the extent and successfulness attained by the Third Reich. A clear reason for this level of success can
2). Even though this was not a violent treatment of the Jews, it was an attempt to bankrupt and dehumanize them of everything they had worked for their whole lives (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). As a result, Jews became a segregated people. They had to ride on buses and trains only in the seat that were clearly marked for them (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). Jewish children were allowed to be bullied at school in an attempt to keep them from coming to school. Hitler used this to brand the Jews as a lazy people (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). The Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935 gave even more power to the Nazis and took away more dignity of the Jews. The Jews were stripped of their German citizenship and marriages between Jews and non-Jews were not allowed (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). At this point, the Jews who could afford to pay a fine to leave the country were allowed to do so, but the ones who could not afford it had to stay behind and were not allowed to get food or medicine (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). Hitler’s campaign against the Jews escalated in 1938 with “Krystalnacht” – The Night of the Broken Glass (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). After a Nazi diplomat was found shot to death, Hitler began a seven day war of terror against the Jews (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). Shops that were owned by Jews were destroyed and robbed, homes and synagogues burned
In the tumultuous period leading up to World War II, a series of laws were devised in Nazi Germany that subjected the Jewish people to prohibitory and discriminatory forms of treatment. Although the Jewish people only accounted for 503,000 of the 55 million occupants of the country, Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship preached the incorporation of anti-Semitism into law and practice in order to quell the people he considered to be the enemy of the country.