Germany During the Second World War

Paper 1 : Development of dictatorship : Germany , 1918-1945

Germany during second world war.

• Nazi policies towards Jews including ghettos, death squads, and the Final Solution

Ghettos

• Walled off- guarded parts of cities where Jews are forced to live.
• Jews from Germany and other occupied countries were sent there.
• By 1942, 50,000 Jews died of hunger, cold, diseases in the Warsaw ghetto.
• Nazis did this because :
  • They wanted a Jewish free population.
  • Segregation of Jews from the rest of the population.
  • Control of Jewish movement.
  • Free valuable Jewish property for the Nazi use.
• Effects :
  • High death rate due to overcrowding and poor, unhygenic facillities.
  • Reinforced Nazi's propaganda about Jews being dirty.
  • People perceived them as "sub-humans/ untermensch" and thus ignoring the way they are being treated.

Death Squads Final solution

• Plan to exterminate every Jewish person.
• Started in 1942, 6 major death camps were set up.
• They were all run by ** officers and located in the outskirts of Germany.
• Prisoners arrived in carts.
• The sick, the weak, the handicapped would be killed first and whatever they owned would then be Nazi possesion.
• They were sent to gas chambers to slowly let poisonous gas infect their organs and die a painful death.
  • 2000 people would be packed into a gas chamber.
  • Within 30 minutes, everyone would be dead and their bodies would be burnt in ovens.
  • On average 4000 people were killed a day at the camps for 3 years.
  • 400,000 Jews were exterminated in 3 months.
  • 90% of Jews in Poland, Germany, Austria were dead.
• Other prisoners would be experimented on without anaesthetic in order to experiment with the dried skin.
  • This was turned into gloves, lamp shades, shoes and even hand bags.
      
• The changing role of women, "total war", rationing and the effects of allied bombing

Total War

• 94,000 German soldiers fighting for Stalingrad surrendered to the Soviet Army.
• Terrible defeat forced Goebbels to call for "total war".
• Goebbels made the longest radio speech calling on all Germans to show Allies that they were not defeated or worn out, they could carry on fighting and make more sacrifices for Germany.
• Everything was to give way to war production,
• As a result :
  • Longer working hours
  • Women aged 17-45 was registered to work.
  • Bars, night clubs, luxury shops were all closed.
  • Rationing of foods
  • Hair dying and perming was banned.
  • Goebbels commisioned a film Kolberg which told of heroic German resistance to Napoleon in 1897 which cost 8.5 million marks, 187,000 soldiers were employed as extras, 10,000 uniforms were made for it.

Changing Role of Women

• Women were required to work as they have to do essential war work when there was no men available.
• Goebbels required ALL women to work.
• This challenges the Nazi policy where women were only required to stay at home and look after their children.

Effects of Allied Bombing

• Number of doctors available to treat victims were going down.
  • In Berlin, number of doctors available to civillian population fell from…