The Reichstag Fire 1. Source A was written by Rudolf Diels, who was the head of the Prussian political police at the time of the fire. In his account of events, he explains that he caught Van Der Lubbe red handed, the suspect was alone and there was no evidence that he could see that involved other people, even other communists. He strongly disagreed with Goring and Hitler's theory that Van Der Lubbe was aided in some way, and that the whole affair was a communist plot to seize power. During the trial of Van Der Lubbe in 1933, he openly confessed to setting fire to the building, but denied that he had been helped. His statement in source B shows that he was adamant that he had worked alone. This would seem to prove Diels' theory, however, Van Der Lubbe could easily have been lying in order to protect the other arsonists, who would have probably been high ranking members of the communist party according to Goring's theory, and therefore much more valuable than a simple member, although extremely devoted, who was mentally unstable. If he was lying, he could also be covering the tracks of the Nazi party, who could have set it all up and, as they did, place the blame on the communists. All of this causes great confusion for anyone trying to uncover the truth. Rudolf Diels' account could be seen as reasonably reliable as he seems to have considered all the evidence and come to a thought out and unbiased opinion. Unfortunately, Van Der Lubbe is not a reliable source as he could be protecting any amount of people; there is also evidence that he was mentally unstable, and this means that his evidence is even more unreliable. 2. Source A, Rudolf Diels' account of the fire, although coming from a high ranking Nazi official, seems to d... ... middle of paper ... ...elp his own election bid. Therefore, I think that the Reichstag fire was started by the Nazis, so they could take power and crush all their opposition as there is more reliable evidence to support this theory. But some of the evidence could lead me to believe that Van Der Lubbe was alone in setting the fire. There has been so much disagreement over the Reichstag fire because of the different stories and accounts that were put forward. The main two were the arguments between the communists and the Nazis. Ever since communism was being exported from Russia, other Capitalist states have feared the effects of its policies. It was no different in Germany, the Nazi party were essentially a capitalist party and saw all other parties as a threat, especially the communists because they were the ones prepared to fight for their beliefs, they also had an enormous following.
During World War II, many German soldiers killed thousands of innocent lives, especially Jewish. However, not all lives lost during World War II, and the Holocaust be accounted for by German soldiers, and the mobile killing task force, Einsatzgruppen, but citizens themselves. In the book, Neighbors by Jan Gross, studies a Polish town called Jedwabne during World War II. The book provides evidence on a mass killing on July 10, 1941, by Polish citizens. The Polish citizens murdered roughly 350 victims, Jewish, in Jedwabne. This evidence brought to light by the author shows not all Germans were accountable for all the mass murders during the time period.
"75th Anniversary of the Nazi Book Burnings." AbeBooks:. AbeBooks Inc., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. .
The night of May 10, 1933, German students from some of the best universities in the world, gathered in Berlin to burn books with un-German ideas. The students, along with Nazi officials, threw hundreds of books into a bonfire while giving the Hitler salute and singing Nazi anthems. The students gave up everything that they had believed in due to their unwavering adoration for Hitler and his beliefs.
and so it was best to put these powers in to place now before it was
Mckale, Donald, A case of Nazi "Justice": The Punishment of Party Members Involved in the Kristallnacht, 1938, Jewish Social Studies, Vol.35, No. 3/4 (Jul.-Oct. 1973), pp. 228-238
The events which have become to be known as The Holocaust have caused much debate and dispute among historians. Central to this varied dispute is the intentions and motives of the perpetrators, with a wide range of theories as to why such horrific events took place. The publication of Jonah Goldhagen’s controversial but bestselling book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” in many ways saw the reigniting of the debate and a flurry of scholarly and public interest. Central to Goldhagen’s disputed argument is the presentation of the perpetrators of the Holocaust as ordinary Germans who largely, willingly took part in the atrocities because of deeply held and violently strong anti-Semitic beliefs. This in many ways challenged earlier works like Christopher Browning’s “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland” which arguably gives a more complex explanation for the motives of the perpetrators placing the emphasis on circumstance and pressure to conform. These differing opinions on why the perpetrators did what they did during the Holocaust have led to them being presented in very different ways by each historian. To contrast this I have chosen to focus on the portrayal of one event both books focus on in detail; the mass shooting of around 1,500 Jews that took place in Jozefow, Poland on July 13th 1942 (Browning:2001:225). This example clearly highlights the way each historian presents the perpetrators in different ways through; the use of language, imagery, stylistic devices and quotations, as a way of backing up their own argument. To do this I will focus on how various aspects of the massacre are portrayed and the way in which this affects the presentation of the per...
November 9th, 1938: The precursor to the Holocaust or the start of it itself? In either case, by November 11th––with thousands of Jewish stores looted and/ or destroyed, several hundred synagogues burned down, and houses vandalized and robbed––the appearance of war had seemingly passed through Central Germany. Kristallnacht, otherwise known as the “Night of Broken Glass”, was one the events that most likely struck fear into all the hearts and minds of the Jewish family's within Hitler's Third Reich. The atrocities committed against a whole population within a region were all caused by one young man's actions, which shows how ruthless yet organized the Nazi regime truly was. Oppressing Jews was the Nazi's way of showing Germany who was in control and those against it would be silenced in one way or another.
build up a name for himself, as well as, to get to know people in high
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.
more evidence. It is very hard to believe that lower ranking Nazis, such as Adolf Eichmann,
In 1943 or as you may know it as The Holocaust, there were many different ways they executed the people at the Auschwitz camp, including hanging, shooting their heads or even letting them starve to death. But I'm not going to talk about them. This may tickle your fancy or wreck with your emotions after seeing the movie. I'm going to be talking about the Gas Chamber. The Gas Chamber is probably the worst place to be EVER, because you're going to be standing in a grey metal room ,butt naked surrounded by hundreds, even thousands of other people. Everyone is crammed inside the room as Cyclone B (a highly used deadly mixture) was sprayed into the room, causing you to either burn to death, or have to sit around dying slowly over an amount of days
The Schutzstaffel (SS) started off as Adolf Hitler’s personal bodyguards. They later became one of the most feared and powerful organizations in all of Germany. Founded in 1925, the SS started off as a small group of eight members who were lead initially by Julius Schreck, a dedicated Hitler loyalist. The SS crew grew to more than 250,000 by the start of World War II. The SS did more than just guard Hitler; they guarded the concentration camps, and the Waffen-SS specialized in brutalizing and murdering people in territories occupied by the Nazi’s. The SS guards had an important role for Germany in World War II because they did most of Hitler’s work. The SS-VT were the SS guards that actually fought in the war, they were later named the Waffen-SS, who also caused terrorism. The regular SS’s guarding of Hitler, and of concentration camps affected the war in a major way.
Living in the crumbled remains of Germany, or the Weimar Republic, in the 1920’s was a dismal existence. Hyperinflation was rampant and the national debt skyrocketed as a result of the punishing features of the Treaty of Versailles. During the depression, however, a mysterious Austrian emerged from the depths of the German penal system and gave the desperate German people a glimpse of hope in very dark times. He called for a return to “Fatherland” principles where greater Germany was seen as the center of their universe with zealous pride. Under Hitler’s leadership, Nazi Germany rapidly grew and expanded, continually approaching the goal of world domination and the “Thousand-Year Reich” that Hitler promised the German people. Only a few years later, Nazi Wehrmacht soldiers could be seen marching the streets from Paris to Leningrad (St. Petersburg, Russia). The German Empire, however, like all other expansive empires, had its limits and integral components such as resources, manpower, and industrial capacity began to fall in short supply further crippling the Nazi war machine. Basically, by 1944, “Nazi Germany’s fundamental problem was that she has conquered more territory than she could defend” (Ambrose, 27). Hitler conquered a vast area and vowed to defend every single inch of his empire with every last drop of blood at his disposal. As Frederick the Great warned, “He who defends everything, defends nothing” (Ambrose, 33). It is interesting to study any empire’s rise and fall because similarities are always present, even with some nations today promising to fight the evil, when it reality, it might be becoming what it vows to fight.
[5] C.V.-Zeitung, No. 22, June 1, 1933 (cited in Documents on the Holocaust p. 50-51).
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire not only affected the city of New York, but also the rest of the country. It forever changed the way our country would look at safety regulations in factories and buildings. The fire proved to America what can and will happen if we over-look safety regulations and over-crowd buildings. Unfortunately, 146 lives are taken before we fully understand this concept.