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Essays on anti-semitism
History of antisemitism essay
The final solution and the change in attitude towards Jews
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Through the course of history, the Jewish people have been mistreated, condemned, robbed, even put to death because of their religion. In the Middle Ages, they were forced to wear symbols on their clothing, identifying them as Jews. The dates 1933 to 1945 marked the period of the deadly Holocaust in which many atrocities were committed against the Jewish people and minority groups not of Aryan descent. Six million innocent Jews were exterminated because of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” This paper will exhibit how Adolf Hitler used the three anti-Jewish policies written in history, conversion, expulsion, and annihilation to his advantage.
In the fourth century when the Christian church gained power in Rome, the Jews considered the Christians as a Jewish sect early on. Soon their beloved Talmud was being burned because they would not accept the Christian doctrine. By the sixteenth century, the Jews were given an ultimatum, to convert to the Christian faith, which was part of the first anti-Jewish policy or face expulsion. The second anti-Jewish policy was expulsion. This policy was still used when the National Socialist rose to power in 1933 (Bartov,O., 2000).
After Germany surrendered in 1918, Adolf Hitler was in the hospital recovering from mustard gas poisoning. He felt the deep humiliation of and for the German Reich, and it was then the hatred and bitterness towards the people he felt were responsible began. In 1919, Hitler wrote his first and last political statement regarding the “Jewish Question.” He proclaimed the Jews were a Jews altogether (Wistrish, R., 2003).
Hitler had three long- term idealistic goals he would share with audiences as he spoke about Nationalism and the econo...
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...s and sent an order for the traitors to be imprisoned. Before the Allied troops arrived, Nazi soldiers removed many Jews from the death camps in an effort to kill as many more refugees as they could (Rubenstein, W., 1999).
Through the course of history, the Jewish people have been mistreated, condemned, robbed, even put to death because of their religion. In the Middle Ages, they were forced to wear symbols on their clothing, identifying them as Jews. The dates 1933 to 1945 marked the period of the deadly Holocaust in which many atrocities were committed against the Jewish people and minority groups not of Aryan descent. Six million innocent Jews were exterminated because of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” This paper exhibited how Adolf Hitler used the three anti-Jewish policies written in history, conversion, expulsion, and annihilation to his advantage.
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’.
Although the systematic murder of Jews had not yet begun until 1941, there was still a practiced discrimination, which had come into practice years earlier in Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler was elected democratically in the year 1932. He had always pitched a unified German party that would reignite the power and might of Germany, which they had lost after the Treaty of Versailles. Although his official rhetoric may not have included visions of an anti-Semitic state initially, people knew he had an exclusionary agenda. Hitler published Mein Kampf while in prison in 1925. In Mein Kampf, which literally means My Struggle, Hitler had already published his anti- Semitic rhetoric. Paradoxically, he equates all Jews as being Marxists, and the creators
Gordon, Sarah. Hitler, Germans and the "Jewish Question." Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1984.
In the Summer of 1941, Adolf Hitler started exterminating Jews and other non-Aryans, as a part of his plan to create a perfect Germany and to carry out his ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘Jewish Question’. Before exterminating 6,000,000 Jewish people, Adolf Hitler had already performed several actions which singled out the Jew as an evil person and one who should be killed. In 1923, Hitler was caught while trying to overturn the Bavarian government and was imprisoned for 5 years. In prison, he wrote the famed autobiography, Mein Kampf, in which he stated his first publicly known anti-Semitic beliefs and his ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘Jewish Question’. While imprisoned, there was a worldwide depression as economic markets crashed worldwide. This would help Hitler because once out of prison he would use this to help gain power both for the Nazi’s and for himself politically by promising better things to come in the future. In 1933, while preaching in front of a large Nazi crowd, Hitler used the Jews as scapegoats for Germany’s loss in World War One. “If at the beginning of the War and during the War twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in the field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.'; Many people were upset at the loss, and blaming the Jews made many people anti-Semites. Once he was named chancellor in 1933, Hitler preached about creating a Germany for true German people and a more centralized Germany. This included eliminating those who were non-Aryans and/or non-German. He would later detail about what a true German was in the Nuremberg Laws. He stated that Jews were not really Germans but instead, they were non-Aryan, and they were malignant tumors.
Tent, James F. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Nazi Persecution of Jewish-Christian Germans. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2003.
Norton, James. The Holocaust: Jews, Germany, and the National Socialists. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2009. Print.
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.
It was in December 1948, when it was approved unanimous the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide at France which became the 260th resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations. What made the leaders of the 41 States create and sign this document in which the term Genocide was legally defined? This document serves as a permanent reminder of the actions made by the Nazis and their leader Adolf Hitler during the Holocaust where more than five million of European Jews were killed. In summary I will explain what were the events that leaded the ordinary Germans kill more than six million Jews in less than five years. To achieve this goal, I will base my arguments on the Double Spiral Degeneration Model provided by Doctor Olson during the spring semester of the Comparative Genocide class.
Why didn't the non Jewish people fight for their friends, family, and acquaintances? If the non Jews would have collaborated then they would have had capitulate from the Nazis. Were they scared, or were they afraid that they could not do anything? Well, if enough of the non Jews had fought back they could have helped the Jews out of the Concentration camps and all of the torture that they were being put through. One reason that the non Jews should have fought back was if they were in the Jews predicament then they would want help too. The non Jews could have been triumphant. The non Jews should have had an aspiration for saving their friends. Hitler was putting them through the worst possible treatment. I know that I would want help. I would help it is the right thing to do and that the Jews have a right to believe what they want. Everybody has the right to believe what they want.
During World War I, Hitler was hospitalized from temporary blindness from a gas attack. Hitler had heard about the Armistice, and at that point “his hatred of Jews and Marxists, who it was widely alleged had ‘stabbed Germany in the back,’ became the keynotes of his worldview.” (“Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)”). Hitler had blamed the Jews for the loss in World War I, and he feared that they were destroying Germany by poisoning “pure” German blood. Hitler saw Jews as an “eternal enemy of all higher forms of culture...which he thought infected the purity of German blood” (“Hitler Adolf (1889-1945)”). Hitler stated in 1922 in a conversation with Joseph Hell that, “If I am ever really in power, the destruction of the Jews will be my first and most important job...until Germany is cleansed of the last Jew!” (Stein). Sadly, he truly did act upon his promise to the German
“ Hitler used propaganda and manufacturing enemies such as Jews and five million other people to prepare the country for war.” (Jewish Virtual Library), This piece of evidence shows Hitler’s attempt of genocide toward the Jewish race a...
In 1934, the death of President Hindenburg of Germany removed the last remaining obstacle for Adolf Hitler to assume power. Soon thereafter, he declared himself President and Fuehrer, which means “supreme leader”. That was just the beginning of what would almost 12 years of Jewish persecution in Germany, mainly because of Hitler’s hatred towards the Jews. It is difficult to doubt that Hitler genuinely feared and hated Jews. His whole existence was driven by an obsessive loathing of them (Hart-Davis 14).
1860 was the earliest recorded time in history that the term “anti-Semitism” came into the general vocabulary; it was first introduced by a scholar from Austria by the name of Moritz Steinschneider and was intended to clarify the class distance between Aryans and Semites. It was originally formed to bring about harsh and unreasonable Jewish discrimination on the basis of scientifically proven facts. Over time, the phrase “anti-Semitism” grew to become a blanket term for anyone who expressed and followed Judaic beliefs. Use of the words Übermensch and Aryan became more frequent...
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Germany was experiencing great economic and social hardship. Germany was defeated in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles forced giant reparations upon the country. As a result of these reparations, Germany suffered terrible inflation and mass unemployment. Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party who blamed Jews for Germany’s problems. His incredible public speaking skills, widespread propaganda, and the need to blame someone for Germany’s loss led to Hitler’s great popularity among the German people and the spread of anti-Semitism like wildfire. Hitler initially had a plan to force the Jews out of Germany, but this attempt quickly turned into the biggest genocide in history. The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933.“...the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.” –Adolf Hitler
Despite anti-Semitic views being represented throughout Germany’s history, they were nowhere as severe as the views that were prevalent during the Nazi rein. Being traced back to as early as third century B.C., anti-Semitism has almost always played a role in society. In Germany before the rise of Hitler Jews were often tormented and disliked by members of society, but could still hold jobs and be members of society. This attitude towards Jews changed drastically when Nazis came into power. In 1920, Hitler announced to the Nazi Party the Five Points of National Socialism. It was one of these points that stated that no one except those of German blood could be a member of the nation. Therefore no Jew could be a member of the nation. This was the beginning of Hitler’s shift in the ideals of anti-Semitism because not only were Jewish people treated differently then other members of society, but were no longer members of society at all. To further excommunicate Jews from society, Nazis prevented Germans from shopping in stores owned or run by Jews. By 1934, all Jewish shops were marked with the yellow Star of David or had the word "Juden" written on the window. This was no...