Nazi Germany Racial Policy 1933-1945
- Created by: pav_ys
- Created on: 06-03-18 18:10
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- Nazi Racial Policy 1933-1945
- 1936 - 1937: decrease in anti-Semitic acitivity
- Responses to anti-Semitism
- In response to Hitler's anti-Jewish speech in 1937: Schacht resigned.
- Anti-Semitism was not a popular belief, certain groups supported it more than others but not all Germans were anti-Semitic
- Mostly a calm year to allow the economy to recover and foreign relations to improve
- Anti-Jewish signs in Berlin removed during the 1936 Olympics
- Little action until autumn: September 1937 Hitler gave a speech attacking the Jews
- Responses to anti-Semitism
- 1933 - 1935: Legal discrimination
- Boycott: April 1st 1933, official boycott of Jewish shops
- Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service 1933: bans Jews from employment in the civil service
- Hindenburg's response: any Jews who served Germany in WW1 were to NOT be affected by this law because of Hindenburg
- 1934: a calmer year, SD propose emigration of Jews. This was caused by Hindenburg's statement against anti-Semitism.
- September 1935: The Nuremburg Laws
- 2. Reich Citizenship Law: deprived Jews of their German citizenship
- 1. Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour: forbade mixed marriages, sex between Aryans and Jews
- 3. Law for the Protection of the Genetic Health of the German people: medical examination before marriage, 'certificates of fitness for marriage', centres by the League for the Propagation of Racial Knowledge where people could have their cranial measurement taken to reassure them they are Aryan.
- Reich Press Law 1933: censorship
- Voluntary emigration 1933: 37,000 Jews left Germany
- 1939 - 1941: Legal and violent persecution continue to escalate
- Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration set up to promote emigration
- War against Poland: Einsarzgruppen murder thousands of civilians
- German Jews placed under curfew & radios confiscated
- 1939-1940: 550,000 Jews deported eastwards
- 1940: Madagaskar Plan seemed viable --> Nazis worked with Jewish Zionists in an attempt to take the Jews to Palestine (which was a British colony so it didn't work)
- Einsatzgruppen, 1941 June & July: sent to eliminate the 'Jewish-Bolshevik intelligentsia' in the U**R, killed Red Army commissars, communist officials and partisans too.
- Killed: 7000 Jews in Poland, 250,000 in the Baltic states + 45,000 more killed in Baltic stated by Group B
- 1938: Violent persecution begins
- 9-10 November, Reichskristallnacht --> 91 Jews killed, hundreds injured, 20,000 sent to camps
- Jews forced to pay 1 billion Reichmarks for the damage
- 200 synagogues burnt: firefighters told not to extinguish the fire but simply to prevent it to spreading to other buildings.
- organised by Goebbels, supported by police but unofficial - CHANGE, FIRST large-scale violent attack on Jews, not coordinated by the whole Nazi leadership, just Goebbels
- ** officers dressed as civilians carried out the attacks
- Jews forced to pay 1 billion Reichmarks for the damage
- Continuity with legal discrimination 1938 the Decree of Registration of Jewish Property provided for confiscation of all Jewish property worth more than 5000 Reichsmarks.
- 9-10 November, Reichskristallnacht --> 91 Jews killed, hundreds injured, 20,000 sent to camps
- 1942-1944: Mass, organised extermination
- Wannsee Conference, January 1942: 15 high-ranking Nazi officials met up, chaired by Haydrich, made arrangements for the acceleration of mass killing --> the decision had been made before the conference
- Camp system: 1942-45 there was a wider system of camps created for mass extermination of Jews
- Chelmno (Kulmhof): 40 miles from Lodz, first killing centre established in Dec '41. first use of Zyklon B & 150,000 Jews died there.
- Majdanek -- death camp on 1941 & 200,000 died here, 60% were Jews and others prisoners of war of Polish political prisoners.
- Belzec: near Lvov, became a death camp in '42, 500,000+ Jews killed, closed in '43.
- Sobibor, near Lublin as part of a construction programme agreed at Wannsee, approx 250,000 died there, a Jewish revolt in Oct '43 led to the escape of 800 prisoners. camp closed down soon after on Heydrich's orders.
- Treblinka, 75 miles away from Warsaw, operated from July '42-September '43, almost 1 million Jews killed.
- Auschwitz (Oswiecim) a few miles from Krakow, took a long time to build so opened in '43, it was a complex of buildings, estimated that 960,000 Jews were killed there.
- Treblinka, 75 miles away from Warsaw, operated from July '42-September '43, almost 1 million Jews killed.
- Sobibor, near Lublin as part of a construction programme agreed at Wannsee, approx 250,000 died there, a Jewish revolt in Oct '43 led to the escape of 800 prisoners. camp closed down soon after on Heydrich's orders.
- Belzec: near Lvov, became a death camp in '42, 500,000+ Jews killed, closed in '43.
- Majdanek -- death camp on 1941 & 200,000 died here, 60% were Jews and others prisoners of war of Polish political prisoners.
- Chelmno (Kulmhof): 40 miles from Lodz, first killing centre established in Dec '41. first use of Zyklon B & 150,000 Jews died there.
- 1945: extermination until the very end
- Death Marches
- As the Red Army approached, prisoners of the camps were forced to march westwards in freezing weather without sufficient clothing.
- 250,000 - 400,000 died during the death marches --> many were women. Those who could not keep up during the march were shot, others died from illness or exhaustion.
- Death Marches
- Ideology
- Social Darwinism: early 19th century modern belief about the 'survival of the fittest' --> believed that the best race, the Aryan race, would dominated inferior such as the Jews, Slavs and Roma.
- Volksgemeinschaft: a people's community, but not inclusive of all people - Aryans only, To fit in with the 'Volk' it was essential to be a true German by blood (racial purity) and loyalty. To protect the Volk it was essential to eliminate racial enemies and un-German elements, especially the Jews.
- Lebensraum: the idea that the Aryan race, the 'superior' race, needed more space for expansion. Not new or original Nazi idea, proposed by later 19th century thinkers but the Nazis twisted the idea with anti-Semitism. Allowed for 'Germanisation', the return of 'Lost Germans' and for race war.
- Reactions to Reichskrstallnacht
- most of the German people were shocked and horrified
- Some Germans joined the ** in looting and violence
- Jewish Resistance and support
- Ghettos
- illegal schools and printing presses
- black market for food smuggled from outside
- Bialystok ghetto: violent revolt.
- January 1943: Warsaw ghetto revolt took Nazis by surprise since 80% of Warsaw Jews were already in death camps. 2000 German troops crushed the resistance in May.
- Death Camps
- October 1943, a Jewish revolt in Sobibor led to the escape of 800 prisoners and the closing down of the camp.
- Auschwitz-Birkenau 1944: Jewish prisoners blew up Crematorium 4 + a network of Jewish organisations smuggled information to the Allies about the Nazi extermination process --> Allies could not do much.
- Eastern European partisan groups
- 10,000 Jewish Partisans active in Lithuania in '42.
- General Government of Poland: 20 partisan groups
- Belarus from 1941: Bielski brothers were a Jewish resistance group of 1200 partisans.
- Ghettos
- 1936 - 1937: decrease in anti-Semitic acitivity
- March 1938: Anschluss --> brought 150,000 more Jews under the German Reich, 45,000 Austrian Jews forced to emigrate
- Polish Jews moved into ghettos: February 1940, first ghetto set up in Lodz where approx 320,000 Jews lived. conditions: 6 people shared an average room and 15 lived in an average apartment, little food, medicine and fuel. the rise of lice, spotted fever, typhus, typhoid and tuberculosis.
- By Pavlina
- Ideology (anti-Semitic)
- NSDAP programme 1919
- Mein Kampf 1924
- Hitler's annihilation speeches
- Hitler's speeches 1949-1941
- Methods
- propaganda and indoctrination
- Legal discrimination + persecution
- violence + persecution
- Genocide + mass killing
- Stages
- 1933-1939
- gradualism: propaganda and indoctrination
- separating / legal discrimination
- persecution: legal and violent
- separating / legal discrimination
- gradualism: propaganda and indoctrination
- 1938-1945
- '38: violence and persecution (ad hoc)
- genocide
- '38: violence and persecution (ad hoc)
- 1933-1945
- gradualism
- persecution & violence
- genocide
- persecution & violence
- gradualism
- 1933-1939
- Turning points
- 1933: legal discrimination
- 1937-1938: violence & Reichstkristallnacht
- 1941- 1942: Final Solution
- 1945: death marches
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