Tarek El Zein
Holocaust
Jesus or Hitler?
Anti-Semitism was widespread in Europe at the time Hitler came to power. Much of this anti-Semitism was rooted, first, in religious beliefs that arose more than 1500 years before Hitler came to power, and second, on political beliefs, often cynically exploited for political gain. Though it was not accepted by everyone, this existing anti-Semitism was common and provided a receptive audience for Hitler's anti-Semitic claims.
Hitler did not just exploit the existing anti-Semitism in Germany; he changed it and built on it until it became an all-consuming obsession both for himself and for the rest of the National Socialist leadership. The most significant difference between traditional anti-Semitism and the philosophy of the Nazis was that the basis for the anti-Semitism was distorted and changed. Previous anti-Semitism had been based upon religious convictions - primarily on the questionable fact that Jews were responsible for the execution of Jesus - and political attacks to exclude Jews from the rest of society.
Although he exploited this religious anti-Semitism, Hitler and the other Nazi leaders, who were opposed to traditional religions, found another basis for their hatred of the Jews. They relied on the theories of "eugenics" and "social Darwinism" which were then common in Europe and transformed them into "race science." They also used the political expression of anti-Semitism coupled with the myth of the Aryans. This myth had developed in Europe the last part of the 19th century. According to Hitler's philosophy the Germanic peoples called "Aryans," were superior to all other races and had the right to rule over them. Hitler and the other Nazis claimed that other races, such as the Slavs and the Poles, were inferior species fit only to serve Aryan man. The Jews were even lower than the Slavs. Hitler believed that "Aryans" were the builders of civilization while Jews were parasites fit only for extermination. This racism had a political agenda as well. Hitler blamed the Jews for the loss of World War I, which he called "the stab in the back" and made the focus of his political campaigns. The combination of religious anti-Semitism and political anti-Semitism with patriotism led many German people to accept Hitler's message.
One of the stumbling blocks to even wider acceptance of the Nazis' racism was the assimilation of Jews into German life. Unlike the Jews of Eastern Europe, German Jews considered themselves no different from other Germans, but in religion.
“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach,” Adolf Hitler (The National World War Museum). The German Nazi dictator utilized his power over the people using propaganda, eventually creating a sense of hatred towards Jews. After World War 1, the punishments of the League of Nations caused Germany to suffer. The Nazi party came to blame the Jews in order to have a nation-wide “scapegoat”. This hatred and prejudice towards Jews is known as anti-semitism. According to the Breman Museum, “the Nazi Party was one of the first political movements to take full advantage of mass communications technologies: radio, recorded sound, film, and the printed word” (The Breman Museum). By publishing books, releasing movies and holding campaigns against Jews, antisemitism came to grow quickly, spreading all across Germany. The Nazi Party often referred to the notion of a “People’s Community” where all of Germany was “racially pure” (Issuu). They would show images of ‘pure’, blond workers, labouring to build a new society. This appealed greatly to people who were demoralized during Germany’s defeat in World War 1 and the economic depression of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Hitler, along with Joseph Goebbels, used developed propaganda methods in order to suppress the Jews and spread anti semitism.
Beginning in 1933, Hitler and his Nazi party targeted not only those of the Jewish religion but many other sets. Hitler was motivated by religion and nationalism to eradicate any threats to his state. It was Hitler’s ideology that his Aryan race was superior to any other. Hitler’s goal was to create a “master race” by eliminating the chance for “inferiors” to reproduce. Besides the Jews the other victims of the genocide include the Roma (Gypsies), African-Germans, the mentally disabled, handicapped, Poles, Slavs, Anti-Nazi political parties, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Homosexuals. In Hitler’s eyes all of these groups needed to be eliminated in order for his master race to be a success.
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
Before the nineteenth century anti-Semitism was largely religious, based on the belief that the Jews were responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion. It was expressed later in the Middle Ages by persecutions and expulsions, economic restrictions and personal restrictions. After Jewish emancipation during the enlightenment, or later, religious anti-Semitism was slowly replaced in the nineteenth century by racial prejudice, stemming from the idea of Jews as a distinct race. In Germany theories of Aryan racial superiority and charges of Jewish domination in the economy and politics in addition with other anti-Jewish propaganda led to the rise of anti-Semitism. This growth in anti-Semitic belief led to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and eventual extermination of nearly six million Jews in the holocaust of World War II.
Many religious conflicts are built from bigotry; however, only few will forever have an imprint on the world’s history. While some may leave a smear on the world’s past, some – like the homicide of Semitic people – may leave a scar. The Holocaust, closely tied to World War II, was a devastating and systematic persecution of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime and allies. Hitler, an anti-Semitic leader of the Nazis, believed that the Jewish race made the Aryan race impure. The Nazis did all in their power to annihilate the followers of Judaism, while the Jews attempted to rebel, rioted against the government, and united as one. Furthermore, the genocide had many social science factors that caused the opposition between the Jews and Nazis. Both the German economy and the Nuremberg Laws stimulated the Holocaust; nevertheless, a majority of the Nazis’ and Hitler’s actions towards Jews were because of the victims’ ethnicity.
Hitler’s rise to power before World War II was due to his anger at Germany’s defeat in World War I and the punishment Germany received from Britain and France. He also directed his anger at Jews and communists he believed contributed to that defeat. He blamed them for the loss of World War I, which he thought was a Jewish conspiracy (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 1). He also believed that the Treaty of Versailles was a Jewish conspiracy designed to take down the country of Germany (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 1) as well as the hyperinflation of 1923, which he believed to be an international conspiracy by the Jewish people (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany (The History Place: Holocaust Timeline pg. 1). This was the rise to power that he needed to carry out his campaign of evil against the Jewish people. After his rise to power, Hitler branded the Jews as
To begin with, Racism had a big effect in the genocide and murders in Germany. According A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust, it states that “ It was the explicit aim of Hitler's regime to create a European world both dominated and populated by the "Aryan" race. Some people were undesirable by Nazi standards because of who they were,their genetic or cultural origins, or health conditions.” (“ Victims” ). It is so devastating that someone could kill or torture anyone who was not like them or who fought against them. The Jews were required to carry their identification cards. They were also excluded from businesses, parks, resorts, and forests. German children were taught that the Jews and Gypsies were not as good as the Germans. One of the methods used to teach German children was to make the Jewish children stand up and point out their distinguishing features. Later on the Jewish children were banned from schools and had curfews. John Boyne Quotes from his book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas “What exactly was the difference? he wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?” In his speeches and writings Hitler spread his believes in racial “purity” and in the superiority of their Germanic race. What he called an “Aryan master race”. These believes became the governments ideology and were spread in publicly displayed posters on the radios,m...
n January of 1933 the Nazi regime took control of Germany with the belief that Germans were “racially superior.” Throughout this time period called the Holocaust, which is a Greek word meaning “sacrifice by fire,” the Jewish people were deemed inferior, and were the main threat to the German racial community. Though the Holocaust was a systematic and bureaucratic war, racism is what fueled the persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime. Racism is defined as “a belief or doctrine that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” This framework of racism was what Hitler believed would “carve out a vast European empire.” (Perry,
It was Hitler’s ability to make group identity salient within the Aryan German population, the transformation of his ideas to ideology, and his deep hatred for the Jews that ultimately led to the Holocaust. Although Anti-Semitism was already present within German society before Hitler rose to power, he was the actor that enacted policies against Jews and what ultimately led to the Final Solution
Many people before the Holocaust, and before Hitler, still hated the Jews. But Hitler made it his goal to kill this imperfect race.“Born in Austria,Hitler served in the German army during World War One.”( The Holocaust) To him the Jews were an inferior race the needed to be eliminated. He thought that by using anti-semitism he would become more popular with the crowd. “While imprisoned, Hitler wrote,
Hitler had thought that the Jews did not believe in the “right” thing so he tried to eliminate the race. He did not want them to believe in what they did and still do. He thought that the Jewish race was inferior and did not mean anything. The way that Hitler treated the Jews were crimes against humanity and I know that many non Jews saw that but did...
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.
First we need to clarify what is Anti-Semitism, a term that references the prejudice or hostility against the Jews. Known as the persecution of Jews, Anti-Semitism did not only happen in Germany, it had long been part of the history and tradition of other countries including the United States. However, the level of persecution in Germany changed dramatically after Hitler came to power in 1933.
Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, after World War 1 when tensions were high because the Treaty of Versailles blamed Germany for the destruction the war caused and they were faced with the payment for all the damages, which sent Germany into economic downfall. The Nazi party got a lot of electoral votes that year in the government, and started creating propaganda against the Jews; they blamed the Jews for the terrible things happening in Germany at the time. Some of the propaganda the Nazi party made were pictures of Jews pointing out what makes them Jewish and their distinctive traits, so you can spot them. These were on the front of newspapers printed everywhere in Germany. (An Introductory History of the Holocaust) They began to take away individual rights, and picked the Jews apart. They also put the Star of David on all Jews clothing, so they could easily be spotted in public.
Anti-Semitism, a hatred of Jews, has been present for centuries in many places. However, the term ‘Anti-Semitism’ itself only came into use in the nineteenth century, and along with it came an ideology which fuelled this deep psychological hatred to develop into a political movement which culminated in Nazism. Throughout history, the reasons for Anti-Semitism have differed and in Imperial Germany, it was a combination of religious, racial and political factors which led to such hostility toward Jews. However, the economic state of the nation is often thought to be the main reason behind the way in which Jews were treated during this period.