The Holocaust was a definitive event of the 20th century. During the Holocaust more than 6 million people of mixed background were exterminated for a variety of reasons revolving around the application of racial hygiene. The placement of the Holocaust in the time line of World War II combined with the logistical and bureaucratic considerations involved meant that the Holocaust was conducted like any other battle or war, albeit one conducted against a civilian population. The Holocaust employed the same manpower, technological resources and military hierarchy as any other battle front of World War II except where the goal of other battles was the acquisition of land or resources, the goal of the Holocaust was the extermination of populations and racial annihilation. The Holocaust was Hitler's second war, or a war within a war, where the objectives and tactics were different but the expected outcome was the same: to win. Hitler believed the “Aryan” race was besieged, and no doubt had little trouble reconciling the destruction of millions as a defensive actions in light of that belief.
While the exact beginning of the Holocaust is a matter of debate, it is a matter of fact that up until 1942 the German army had been unstoppable.1 The annexation of Austria and the invasions of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France had been swift.2 Moreover, Operation Barbarossa had initially been a resounding success.3 Therefore, whether as a result of hubris or genuine lack of potential repercussions, by 1942 Hitler's “Final solution” was in full motion even though the official state sanctioned persecution of Jews had been effect since 1933.4 The persecution Jews was systematic, although few Jews realized the long term implications early exclusion poli...
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...able elements from the German sphere of influence, which ultimately meant the entire world. Jews everywhere, moreover, were marked for eventual destruction based on these goals for total domination.18 Hitler declared he had the right to destroy his own citizens that he felt was destructive based on the legalistic claims made by President Wilson's fourteen points following World War I which established a doctrine of political autonomy for previous imperial states.19 Racial theory was applied to various facets of antisemitic belief and established Jews as an underlying disruptive force in German society.20 In 1943, Germany was declared Judenfrei21, or free of Jews, a declaration which underscores the dual purpose of World War II for Nazi Germany: world domination and racial purity. In terms of Hitler's political and racial doctrine, the two end points were analogous.
In a speech on 30 January 1939, Hitler told the Reichstag that another war would mean the “total annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe”. It seemed clear that Hitler intended to massacre the Jews - but many historians dispute this. They believe that the Nazis seriously considered forcing all the Jews to emigrate, or to resettle in a ‘Jewish homeland’, and that the idea of physically exterminating the Jews only gradually took over as the war went on. At a certain point, it came to be the most practical solution to the ‘Jewish problem’.
At the start of Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror, no one would have been able to foresee what eventually led to the genocide of approximately six million Jews. However, steps can be traced to see how the Holocaust occurred. One of those steps would be the implementation of the ghetto system in Poland. This system allowed for Jews to be placed in overcrowded areas while Nazi officials figured out what to do with them permanently. The ghettos started out as a temporary solution that eventually became a dehumanizing method that allowed mass relocation into overcrowded areas where starvation and privation thrived. Also, Nazi officials allowed for corrupt Jewish governments that created an atmosphere of mistrust within its walls. Together, this allowed
Synopsis – Hitler’s Willing Executioners is a work that may change our understanding of the Holocaust and of Germany during the Nazi period. Daniel Goldhagen has revisited a question that history has come to treat as settled, and his researches have led him to the inescapable conclusion that none of the established answers holds true. Drawing on materials either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars, Goldhagen presents new evidence to show that many beliefs about the killers are fallacies. They were not primarily SS men or Nazi Party members, but perfectly ordinary Germans from all walks of life, men who brutalized and murdered Jews both willingly and zealously. “They acted as they did because of a widespread, profound, unquestioned, and virulent anti-Semitism that led them to regard the Jews as a demonic enemy whose extermination was not only necessary but also just.”1 The author proposes to show that the phenomenon of German anti-Semitism was already deep-rooted and pervasive in German society before Hitler came to power, and that there was a widely shared view that the Jews ought to be eliminated in some way from German society. When Hitler chose mass extermination as the only final solution, he was easily able to enlist vast numbers of Germans to carry it out.
From 1933 onwards, Adolf Hitler and his Nazis began implementing simple discrimination laws against the Jews and others who they did not see part of their master race. Hitler and the Nazis believed that German power was being taken by the Jews. Hitler was able to convince his followers of this issue with the Jewish question as it was known, and get away with murdering millions of people in an attempt to cleanse society of anyone inferior to the master race. The Holocaust lasted for 12 years, until 1945. Starting as early as 1944, the Allies were finally advancing on the Germans and began taking over their camps. These liberations and takeovers by the Soviets, American’s and other allies slowly began to remove Hitler from power. In my essay I will go into detail on the final years of the holocaust and how it ended.(1)
The Holocaust was the mass murder of over ten million European 'undesireables' between 1941 and 1945 by the Nazi regime. Hitler and his Nazis established a large number of labor and death camps throughout Nazi occupied countries. A holocaust, by definition, is a mass human slaughter caused by fire. These events Hitler authorized were categorized as a holocaust because after the prisoners in the camps died, or, if they were at a labor camp, close enough to death that they were no longer of any use to the Nazi guards stationed at the camp they were at, the guards would burn the bodies in mass. The purpose, center and essence of the Holocaust lies within one man, Adolf Hitler.
A holocaust is defined as a disaster that results with the tremendous loss of human life. History, however, generally identifies the Holocaust to be the series of events that occurred in the years before and during World War II. The Holocaust started in 1933 with the persecuting and terrorizing of Jews by the Nazi Party, and ended in 1945 with the murder of millions of helpless Jews by the Nazi war-machine. "The Holocaust has become a symbol of brutality and of one people's inhumanity to another." (Resnick p. 11)
As early as age thirteen, we start learning about the Holocaust in classrooms and in textbooks. We learn that in the 1940s, the German Nazi party (led by Adolph Hitler) intentionally performed a mass genocide in order to try to breed a perfect population of human beings. Jews were the first peoples to be put into ghettos and eventually sent by train to concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. At these places, each person was separated from their families and given a number. In essence, these people were no longer people at all; they were machines. An estimation of six million deaths resulting from the Holocaust has been recorded and is mourned by descendants of these people every day. There are, however, some individuals who claim that this horrific event never took place.
The holocaust was a catastrophic event that killed millions of innocent people and showed the world how inhuman mankind can be. This dark period in world history demonstrated unmatched violence and cruelty towards the Jewish race that led toward genocide. Genocide did not begin with the Holocaust; nor was it a spontaneous event. Many warning signs within world events helped provide Germany and Adolf Hitler the foundation to carry out increasing levels of human depravity (Mission Statement). These warning signs during the Holocaust include; Anti-Semitism, Hitler Youth, Racial profiling, the Ghettos, Lodz, Crystal Night, Pogroms, and Deportation. However, their exposure comes too late for the world to help prevent the horrors of the Holocaust. For example, Anti-Semitism was never put into reality until the holocaust overcame the attitudes of its’ German Citizens. It also provided the driving force behind the education of the Hitler youth. Hitler’s persuasive characteristics consumed the people into believing all of his beliefs. This is how racial profiling came about; Hitler made it so that the Germans had the mindset that Jews were horrible, filthy, people that did not deserve to live like the Germans or have the same luxuries. As a result, they moved all the Jews into one secluded area away from the German citizens; an area called the Ghettos. One of these Ghettos was the town of Lodz, who kept meticulous historical records of everything that went on in the city. However, it was not a safe for Jews; never feeling at ease not knowing the uncertainties or dangers lying ahead. For instance, in Crystal Night, they did not know that it would be the last night for some of them to be with their families. In general, Jews were just living...
The history of the Jewish people is one fraught with discrimination and persecution. No atrocity the Nazis did to the Jews in the Holocaust was original. In England in 1189, a bloody massacre of the Jews occurred for seemingly no reason. Later, the Fourth Lateran Council under Pope Innocent III required Jews to wear a badge so that all would know their race, and then had them put into walled, locked ghettos, where the Jewish community primarily remained until the middle of the eighteenth century. When the Black Death ravaged Europe in the medieval ages, many Europeans blamed the Jews (Taft 7). Yet, the one thing that could be more appalling than such brutal persecution could only be others’ failure and flat-out refusal to intervene. Such is the case with the non-Axis coutries of World War II; these nations failed miserably in their responsibility to grant basic human rights – even the right of life – to Jewish immigrants prior to World War II.
This is clearly evident towards the victims of the Holocaust, whereby the ultra-nationalist mentality of the Nazi Party established a culture of immense violence against the targeted population. A major characteristic of modernisation was ethnic targeting and an underlying racial dimension which motivated perpetrators to commit wholesale massacres. A number of violent policies stemming from the notion of ethnic cleansing became conducive to repression, murder and ultimately genocide. The scope of twentieth century violence can be explained by modernity’s defining features such as the combined force of new technologies of warfare and administrative techniques that “categorised people along strict lines of nation and race”. Genocides stem from long-term obsession on the part of the perpetrators with the emphasis on religious or cultural differences of the victim group. Nationalism provided society with an opportunity to systematically categorise society based on ethnicity and race. This was certainly a modern phenomenon and was conducive in spreading violence and ultimately genocide. A defining feature of the twentieth century, and more specifically the Holocaust is the perpetrators ability to totally disregard the identity of its victims. Fear and “ubiquity of perpetrators and victims” are considered at the core of modern genocide that “encompasses society in a vicious cycle of devastation and murder”. The premeditated plan of the Nazi Regime is outlined in its ability to merely transform society’s perception of the victims into repulsive figures that threaten the prosperity of the nation. This became an effective technique that rendered mass support among the citizens of Nazi Germany. Hitler’s vision of the Final Solution was to create a Judenfrei Europe as Judaism was considered “a mortal, universal
The main focus of the post war testimony of Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess, Commandant at Auschwitz from May 1940 until December, 1943, is the mass extermination of Jews during World War II. His signed affidavit had a profound impact at the Post-War trials of Major War Criminals held at Nuremburg from November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946. His testimony is a primary source that details and describes his personal account of the timeline, who ordered Auschwitz to become a death camp, and the means used to execute and exterminate millions of Jews. Obtained while tortured nearly to death under British custody, the authenticity and reliability of this document is questioned due to arguable inconsistencies that exist. However, the events sworn to in his testimony have been recounted and corroborated by witnesses and thousands of survivors.
The Holocaust was a time period in history that is very important to learn about. We learn about it for many reasons, but I think the most important reason is to learn not to discriminate against other people. Not only is it very important to learn about the Holocaust, but it's also important to learn about Hitler's rise to power and how he came to make his decision of the discrimination affiliated with the Holocaust. The events and outcome of World War II and Anne Frank are very important topics, too. These topics are all factors that are associated with the overall events of the Holocaust and all back up the reason as to why we study the Holocaust.
The Holocaust, the mass killing of the Jewish people in Europe, is the largest genocide in history to this date. Over the course of the Holocaust nearly six million Jewish people were killed by the Nazi Party and Germany led by Adolf Hitler. There are multiple contributing factors to the Holocaust that made it so large in scope. Historians argue which of these factors were most significant. The most significant contributing factor is the source of the Holocaust, the reason it occurred. This source is Adolf Hitler and his hatred for Jewish people. In comparison to the choices of the Allies to not accept Jewish refugees and to not take direct military action to end the Holocaust, the most significant contributing factor of the Holocaust is that Adolf Hitler was able to easily rise to power with the support of the German people and rule Germany.
Holocaust I've thought, and thought about resistance in the Holocaust and I've come to this comprehension: No phrase or verse or detailed explanation can illustrate the level of terror and oppression that took place. The Holocaust was probably the most arguably infamous series of despiteful human rights and cold blooded murder in modern history. The rise of the powerful Adolf Hitler has set his war against Jewish people, Jewish culture and Jewish memory. If the twisted philosophy of the Nazi regime was to eradicate Jewish memory, then it is our duty to remember the Jewish lives that perished and to keep Jewish memory alive. There was approximately six million Jews were sent to death camps and killed during World War II (1939-1945). So what do you think that led up to this? Why Adolf Hitler hatred towards Jews is so strong that made him did the inhuman cruel murder? Well the resolution lies in the ethnic undercurrents that ran beneath the peripheral of Germany and the world.
“Holocaust, 1933-1945, The” World Without Genocide. William Mitchell College of Law, 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .