Alex Williams & Srijan Bhattarai

Hitler recognized the cruelty involved in the war and understood that whether it is one
person dying or eliminating millions of people, justification given for both will be the same. He
was able to justify the massacre of the Jews because he regarded German blood to be superior
that the others (DOC 3). Not all people are regarded as equals and even the manner of their death
may differ (DOC 10).
This feeling of superiority to the Jews is felt by many of the people of Germany, not just
Hitler and his men. The Jews are often referred to as a lice to the German race, one man who
strongly believed they were lice was Himmler. Himmler gave a speech in early 1943 pointing
out the reason for killing the Jews, Getting rid of lice is not a question of ideology. It is a matter
of cleanliness. (DOC 5). These people honestly believed the killing was necessary for cleansing
the nation of lice. Himmler is one of the many people who looked down upon other races and
with this hatred fueled the fire for eliminating them.
Hans Frank was another person who believed in the superior nature of Germans. He has
two speeches that point out the need for eliminating the Jewish race because they are lice.
Frank speaks to the soldiers of Germany about their families worrying about them, but
encourages them to continue on the journey because this job needs to be done to rid the world of
Jews and lice (DOC 8). This is again seen as the driving point for the Germans to achieve their
goal of Jewish annihilation. Franks makes another speech in late 1941, he stresses the point that
there are too many Jews (3.5 million) to just line them up to shoot or poison, but with patience,
the German race will prevail and eliminate Jews (DOC 9). The whole point of these speeches
were to make sure the people involved stayed on board for overall goal to be accomplished in the
future.