Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

Adolf Hitler Image source

In 1933, Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi was put into power as the Chancellor
of Germany by other politicians who had hoped that his party (Nazi Party)
would bring economic change in Germany's economic crisis.
The Nazis were Fascists, they believed in law, obedience and order above
everything else. They implemented (applied) their fascists ideas in Germany,
where they (i) believed in absolutism ( total control), (ii) saw war as natural
and necessary to human kind to bring order (ii) they did not believe in
Democracy.
In a matter of a year in power, the Nazis had turned Germany into a totalirian,
where the Government (the Nazi Party) had absolute control over Germany.
Under Hitler’s Government, this is what happened:
 Hitler had total control over legislature (law).
 Those who criticised him were sent to concentration camps (detention
camps) often to be trained to perform brutal acts under the Nazis.
 Political opposition parties were banned.
 The education system in Germany emphasised Nazi ideologies, text-
books were re-written in order to be in line with Nazi movement.
 German youth was required to join the Hitler Youth (HJ), which
supported the Nazi Movement.
 Hitler ended up controlling the German army as well. At first, the
officials of the German army did not want him on board because of his
violent nature. Hitler then ordered a murder of army leaders who had
rejected him. After the army officials were murdered he was allowed in
 the army as the Commander-in-Chief. He then required the officials of
the army to swear an oath of loyalty to him.
 After Germany was defeated in the Second World War, it had lost many
of its soldiers and weapons. To strengthen the army, Hitler ordered that
it was compulsory for all young men to join the army. This made
Germany one of the most powerful nations in Europe in terms of
Military.

Eugenics in Germany
The Nazis believed in eugenics, where according to them the blue-eyed, blonde
and tall Europeans whom they called the Aryan race were at the advanced stage
of development that other people, and thus should be on top of the hierarchy in
society. The Nazis believed that the extermination (killing of a whole group) of
the inferior people was a progress of human kind. The Nazis were also inspired
by the eugenics works in USA such as sterilisation programmes for inferior
population.
Image showing ideal pictures of the Aryan race. Image source

Negative Eugenics in Germany

Like the USA, the Nazis forced the inferior population to be sterilised. They
removed the mentally-ill people and people with disabilities from society to
separate institutions. In these institutions the mentally-ill and people with
disabilities were often used for cruel scientific experiments, they were also
murdered by Euthanasia (put to death in a painless was normally due to
incurable diseases).
Promotion of the Master Race blood
Women who were considered to be members of the Master race were
encouraged to give more births to promote the master race blood. They were
discouraged from working, and encouraged to stay at home and raise children.
Which groups were not “Master Race” or “Aryan Race”
Groups which were not regarded as “master races” were killed in millions by
the Nazis. If not killed, the inferior groups were often sent to work as farm
labours or domestic workers, some were killed in masses, other sterilised and
some sent to concentration camps. These people included:
 Unemployed people
 People with disabilities
 Mentally-ill people
 Criminals
 Black people
 Homosexuals
 Political opponents
 Immigrants
 Jews were the main victims, the Nazis aimed to kill all of the Jews in a
policy of genocide. The Nazi killed six millions of the nine millions
Jews in Germany. In what was called “the Holocaust”

Who supported the Nazis

Supporters of the Nazi were mostly the “master Race” whose economic crisis
was improved by the Nazi. They did not care about the cruelty of the Nazis as
long as they were not harmed.
Who did nothing about the Nazi
Some Germans were simply scared of the Nazis. This was because the Nazis
were cruel to those who opposed them, so many Germans chose to keep quiet
and pretend nothing was happening, for their own safety.
Those who resisted against the Nazi policies
The White Rose Movement
This was a group of students at Munch University who were executed for
criticising Hitler. They were led by their philosophy lecturer. They were caught
while they were distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets. Although the movement
lasted for less than a year (from June 1942 until February 1943), they managed
to make six pamphlets on different Anti-Nazi topics.
Rescuers
Some Germans from the “master race” risked their lives and helped Jews hide
in their houses or help them escape.
While religious movements like the Quackery Movement which was an anti-
violence religious group who smuggled 2500 Jewish children out of Germany
into England, also came to the rescue of the Jews.
The Final Solution

Starving men in the Nazi concentration camps. Image source

The campaign against Jews was introduced bits by bits with the last more
severe than the previous.
 At first the Nazis encouraged boycotts against Jewish-owned-shops and
terrorised these shops
 In June 1933 Jews were fired and prohibited from working in civil
services.
 In 1935 the Nazi government passed Nuremburg laws which banned
Jews from sports fields or universities or Museums.
 In November 1938 a Jew man assassinated a German diplomat in Paris,
this made the Nazis upset and destroyed Jewish-owned-shops and Jews’
homes in Germany. This was called Kristallnacht (German for “Night of
broken glass”) because thousand s of pieces of broken glasses laid on
the streets as a result of the attacks of the Jewish shops. Jews, in large
numbers, were then forced into concentration camps and were sent into
hard labour.
 In 1939, after the Second World War, almost the whole of Eastern
Europe (where Jews were in large numbers) was under the control of
Nazis, who forced the Jews into overpopulated ghettos.

The Nuremberg Trials

In May 1945 Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allied armies (which consisted
of Britain, the USA and the USSR) (see grade 12, topic 1). Hitler committed
suicide. Other Nazi leaders also committed suicide.
The allies punished the remaining Nazi leaders. They first put them in an
international court at Nuremberg for trial, where they were convicted of crimes
associated with human rights violation. Thousands of Nazis and their helpers
(like the doctors that performed the cruel euthanasia on the mentally-
disturbed), were found guilty, their sentences varied from death sentences and
prison sentences.