Holocaust, or the killing of six million Jews and other community inferiors, was caused by Nazi anti-Semitism. Led by Adolf Hitler, the Nazi German party persuaded the Germans to kill the Jews and five million other outgroups (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). To the Nazi leader, the Jews were an inferior race and were an alien threat to the German racial purity. The Germans blamed the Jews for having lost the World War 1 and accused them of having the plot to start a war. Jews would not convert to Christianity and had separate social norms that differentiated them from others. Thus, as the Germans grew up in their society, they were taught to hate the Jews. Having lost in the World War 1, the Germans acted towards restoring the nation’s power. In other words, the Holocaust victims were targeted for ideological, political, racial, and behavioral reasons.
Reasons
Hitler managed to brainwash the Germans by spreading his anti-Semitism propaganda. The Germans were convinced that they were protecting their land from their enemies. The Germans already had negative attitudes towards Jews but the Nazis made it worse by attributing many negative stereotypes to the community. From the Nazi’s perspective, the Jews were the root of all evils, including diseases, cultural decline, social injustice, communism, and capitalism (Persaud, 2019). Furthermore, early Christianity viewed Jews as unwilling to accept the word of God, as for murderers of Jesus, and agents of the devil (Persaud, 2019). The German law prevented Jews from owning land or an office. Thus, prevented from taking various occupations, the Jews started trading, lending money, and doing commerce. They were constantly discriminated against for their efforts to remain as a separate group instead of conforming to the religious and social customs of their superiors.
Lack of Resistance
When the Germans were called for the mass killing, they did not resist. Their desire for conformity with the superior race and to show obedience as ingroups of the Nazi regime attributed to their willingness. The Nazis polarized the two fighting communities by spreading prejudiced sentiments through art, films, music, books, radio, press, and educational materials(“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). Through these propagandas, the Germans were pressured to conform to anti-Semitism and Nazi leadership. Indeed, the Nazi government would arrest all press members who opposed or criticized Hitler or the party. Various European countries, for their reasons, supported the Nazi’s actions and their sentiments against the Jews. The bystander effect from these nations and that of most Germans who were not involved in the fight allowed millions of people to be murdered. While other war participants were acting from a thinkgroup phenomenon, others saw compliance as a way to win Jewish property.
Justification of Beliefs for Actions
Anti-Semitism boosted with unrealistic beliefs about Jews practices helping German anti-Jews to justify their actions. According to Persaud (2019), Nazi ideology about races and Jewish inferiority was taught in schools. Teaching the prejudice about Jews in school helped in the process of impression formation about the community, thus having a reason to believe that the Jews needed to be eliminated. By the Nazis incarcerating those who supported Jews, they gave the superior race the reason to believe that favoring the Jews was a crime. The idea to avoid imprisonment, therefore, gave the willing participants of war a reason to justify their actions (Persaud, 2019). The Nazi propaganda spread through various mainstreams was formulated to convince people that they were protecting their race from evil.
Small to Dangerous Steps
The Nazis and the collaborators moved from taking small steps about anti-Semitism to killing the Jews. The small steps involved failure to defend the Jews from negative stereotypes and prejudices against their characters. In this step, the collaborators of the Nazis watched Jewish accusations from a distance and never wanted to announce their position in this matter of social categorization. Tired of being in a cognitive dissonance position, the collaborators take the position bias of anti-Semitism by disregarding the Jews. The next step is agreeing with the Nazi propaganda and accepting the social categorization of Jews as an evil race that should not exist (Persaud, 2019). Finally, the dangerous step is engaging in their fight when the Holocaust happened. The continuous communication of anti-Semitism by Hitler and his party and pressuring people to conformity slowly moved the supporters from the small step to the dangerous one.
Hitler’s Transformation
Hitler’s aggressive character started after Germany lost the 1st World War. During the war, he was a compassionate German army who fought for his country. After losing the war, Hitler started scapegoating the Jews by blaming them for the defeat. While imprisoned for his treasonous role in Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler wrote an anti-Semitism propaganda memoir named my struggle (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). The memoir predicted that there would erupt European war which would dehumanize and cast the Jews from Germany. The Nazi leader grew an obsession for superiority and the desire to serve a pure (Aryan) German race and expand it. When he was released from prison, Hitler became the Nazi leader and quickly overtook the nation’s powers. Following his desire to eliminate the Jews race as a “bad or impure blood,” Hitler became a dictator who later caused Holocaust.
Vague and Ever-changing Rules
After the Nazis overtook the German leadership, they stripped off Jewish citizenship in 1935. In the first year of the ruling, Hitler revoked Jews’ rights to attain high-profile occupations such as journalism, public offices, radio, teaching, and even farming. Posters for “Jews not welcome” would then be put in shops, hotels, and even public arenas (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). Laws were passed to prevent Jews from marrying Aryans or getting employment from the pure race. It later became difficult for Jews to access food, groceries, and even healthcare. These continually changing rules were not explained and later led to the killings.
Re-labeling of Jews
Germans and their collaborators used local identifications and paper records to identify Jews for killing. The Jews were formed to identify with their race and other listings including parish, police records, government taxes, and denominations (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). Some Jews were forced to wear marked clothing or add new names like Sara or Israel to their IDs (Persaud, 2019). In other conforming countries, the non-Jewish neighbors would show the local authorities some Jews hidings. Jews were identified from the Aryans by having lighter hair and eyes compared to the blonde and blue eyes of the Aryans.
Social Models of Compliance
Hitler changed social norms for both Aryans and the Jews by demanding them to take certain social roles. Through his memoirs and propaganda, the Nazi leader demanded that the Aryans would not interact with the Jews. The Aryans would no longer welcome Jews to their homes or workplaces (Persaud, 2019). The Jews were forced to live in the ghettos, change some of their cultural practices, and names. Aryans were prevented from supporting Jews and those who broke this rule were punished by imprisonment or killing.
Verbal Dissent Allowance
Hitler would allow the Jews to disagree with his ruling so long as they did all he demanded. The Jews were allowed to fail to convert to Christianity, speak against the Nazi ruling but not in media, or publish any material that would influence opposite views (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). Hitler expected Jews to agree to be marked with stars for easy identification, admit that they were Jews, and conform to all changing laws.
Dehumanization of Victims and Diffusion of Responsibility
By terming Jews as an “impure blood” race, Hitler and his supporters dehumanized the Jews community. The Nazis changing laws made conditions impossible for the Jews to live. Indeed, the re-labeling, segregation, and killing were the worst acts of dehumanization towards the Jews (Persaud, 2019). When the Nazis reached out to other European countries to deport all Jews, they diffused the non-Jewish Germans from the responsibility of protecting Jews. The Germans saw that the situation’s bystanders were many thus regarding them less responsibility of taking an action.
Jewish Difficulties to leave and Possibility of Holocaust
The Nazis ensured that the Jews had no country to run to when they made most countries including Croatia, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary their partners. They also made them abandon their property and assets thus making them hard to escape (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). America and other nations were already depressed by the events of World War 1 hence did not have a say in the issue. Consequently, the Nazis took advantage of these situations to eliminate the “Jewish Blood.” The situations like the Holocaust could happen in the future based on the revealed scriptures of the bible. In the last days, the true believers who will refuse the mark of the beast labeling will be put together and destroyed. Otherwise, in ordinary political situations, such events would never happen because the world is no longer blind to such possibilities.
References
Introduction to the holocaust. (2022). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web.
Persaud, C. H. (2019). Israel against all odds: Anti-semitism from its beginnings to the Holocaust years. Christian Publishing House.
The onset of the year 1933 in Germany was marked by the inauguration of the Nazi government into power. This government orchestrated the mass murder of the Jewish settlers in their country; Germany. These killings were methodical, technical and were financed by the Nazi government. In total, by the end of the Second World War, about six million had died as a result of the activities of the Nazi and its allies.
This event was named the holocaust, a Greek word that meant to ‘sacrifice by fire’. The proponents to this state of affairs (the Nazis) were spurred on by the feeling that theirs’ was a superior race and the Jews were the inferior, and for that they were a foreign threat to their race and their sovereignty.
The Jews were not the Nazi’s only victims during the holocaust, other casualties were the weak and disabled people in the society, who were killed on the pretext of the Euthanasia program. This program involved isolating the mentally ill and the disabled people (both adults and children) in the German society, keeping them in some form of concentration camps under the pretext of medicating them.
The whole agenda behind this was that the Nazis wanted a perfect society, one representation of their own perceptions of themselves, and they could stop at nothing (Gilberts, 21). These people were collected and murdered in the concentration camps through overdose of medication and keeping them hungry. Children as young as three years who showed or had any symptoms of mental disorders were also killed.
The other category of people affected in Germany is those who had been serving the German households as workers and slaves to their farms; these included the Russians and the Polish. Politics, contrasting and differing opinions, weird characteristics that were not at par with the accepted social norms like homosexuality were given as the reason as to why other people were prosecuted. The people in this group included those with communist ideas, the socialists, and the people who belonged to the church called Jehovah’s witnesses.
When the Nazi took over, the Jewish population was over nine million, but as it would happen, they lived in countries that Germany would later conquer or have direct influence over their affairs during the Second World War. Around ten years after they took control of government, the Nazis had killed two out of every three Jews, though some two hundred thousand people with mental cases, mostly Germans had been killed through the Euthanasia program.
The Germans and the people who supported them during this ghastly acts mini-estate they referred to as ghettos and other concentration camps, this was to help them monitor the number of the Jews in their country as well as to make it easier when they would later depot them. With time the soviet republic became subject to German rule as they had been conquered by Hitler’s troupes in the year 1941. Organized killing units, then referred to as “Einsatzgruppen” trailed The German forces(Gilberts, 65).
They carried out mass-execution of the Jews, the people of the soviet republic and officials of the communist party in the Soviet. These people mentioned above were mainly killed using the gassing facilities, where they were held in confinement and poisoned the air they inhaled inside the chambers causing instant death.
This led to the death of millions of Jewish men women and children, until several years down the line when other forces came together and led a series of attacks against the German forces. In spite of this, they still came across people of the Jewish race in death matches and other prisoners. The allied forces piled pressure on Germany until May 7, 1945, when they were downed their tools in defeat (Gilberts, 75).
After this, the distraught survivors of the Holocaust obtained protection from Displaced persons camps which had been put up by an alliance of the allied forces that thrashed Hitler’s army. The three years after the holocaust witnessed mass movement of the Jews to Israel and other countries.
The Holocaust memorial is a commemorative building designed by architect Peter Eisenman and another Engineer Buro Haplod. It has been put up one block to the North of Brandenburg, in Friedrichstadt. Structurally, the building is erected on a nineteen thousand square meter parcel of land, calculated to round up to 4.7 acres of land. Its construction began in April 2003after much hullabaloo from the political sides.
By December 15th 2004 construction was complete, but its inauguration was delayed up to May 10th 2005, when it would coincide with the day the Second World War ended. It was open to the public on May 12th 2005. The total cost of construction was put at around twenty five million Euros (Eisenman, 24).
The construction of the memorial was not an easy task as it faced setbacks from every quarter of the German population and even the international community. The quest to erect a memorial as a memento to the atrocities of the past was driven by a journalist called Lea Rosh, and in 1989 formed a group that would advocate for its construction and help source for funds. As time went by, more and more people supported their initiative and the Bundestag resolved that the project should go on. The design of the memorial was obtained in a rather funny way.
Artists were called over and requested to give their designs on what they think the memorial should be (Eisenman, 31). It was so open to the point that the only rules outlined were that whatever their designs, their construction costs should not surpass Twenty five million Euros.
Quality was stressed upon, and the submissions were to be vetted by judges whose professions revolved around art, architecture, history, politics and other dimensions and fields the symbolic building would represent. Over five hundred proposals were submitted, and the jury would start their work on January 15th 1995 led by their chairman, Walter Jens, of getting the submissions.
The days that followed would witness the elimination of all but thirteen of the submitted designs after thorough scrutiny. As pre arranged earlier, the jury met again on the 15th of March, and this time eleven of the submissions were brought back to the contest as had been requested by some judges.
In the months that followed, thorough review of the submissions led to the recommendations by the jury; an enquiry into whether the costs of some two top most designs would be completed within the price range given. The concept behind one of the finalist’s submission was that of Simon Ungers, a native of Humburg.
It entailed an 85x 85M square girders that were made of steel (Eisenman, 73). The girders were placed above concrete blocks situated at the corners, and on this they would display the names of the various concentration camps. This would further be projected into visibility to the people around by sunlight.
The other design which reached the final two was a project by Cristine Jackob-Marks. The idea behind her design was that of a concrete plate whose dimensions measured 100x 100 M, and its thickness 7M thick.
It could lie at an angle, and reached a peak of eleven meters, special paths to tread had been designed in the structure. The names of the victims of the holocaust were to be written on the concrete slab, and spaces left for people whose names were still a mystery.
The plans to these designs were to be finally vetted by the then chancellor, Helmut Kohl. In 1997, the Bundestag decided on Peter Eisenman’s design of the project through another round of the competition. He had modified his design by attaching a source of information or museum close to the memorial center (Eisenman, 125).
Another incident that almost bugged the construction and put to question the credibility of method of sourcing companies was the Degussa incident. This was a big issue in the country that was trying to forget what it had gone through and live as one nation. The company had in a big way contributed to the state persecution of Jews.
One of its associate companies was involved in the production of Zyklon B, a gaseous substance that had been used by the regime to kill the Jews in the concentration camps. This made the construction of the memorial to be stopped so that the pending issues could be resolved.
After lengthy discussions they decided to proceed with the construction, since they could not exclude all the Nazi companies out of the project (Eisenman, 163). Many people debated on the Degusa incident while the architect himself did not have an issue working with the company. Their resolution set the stage for the completion of the project.
December 15th 2004 marked the completion of the project, and was dedicated on May 10th the following year; this coincided with their 60th commemorations of the V-E day. It was opened to the public a few days later and estimates show that on the first year alone the memorial center received about 3.5 million visitors and the number has grown ever since.
War crimes are considered as violations of international humanitarian law that are instated in both treaty and customary versions.
The Geneva Convention obliges states to criminalize such violations via national legislation.
The Holocaust stands for the mass abuse and murder of six million Jews instigated by authorities of the Nazi Germany. The driver of this process was anti-Semitism, which Adolf Hitler and his supporters promoted. According to ideology, the Jews were the cause of political and economic problems, so they had to be exterminated. The extermination of an entire ethnic group was carried out from 1933 to 1945 on the territory of Europe and was carried out through death camps, executions, and deportation to ghettos.
The First Reaction of the United States
Only in 1942 American publications began to write about the horrors of the Nazi regime towards the Jews. The U.S. State Department received an intelligence document from a member of the World Jewish Council in Switzerland. However, officials considered it a rumor. Three months later, U.S. government officials confirmed that the atrocities committed against the Jews were true. Jewish groups throughout several Allied countries conducted protests and vigils, and on December 17, 1942, the U.S. and Allied states issued a Declaration on Atrocities.
Strategic Approach of the USA
Americans were fully informed about the atrocities that were taking place in Europe. Newspaper columns were filled with news of murders and abuses. Americans went to demonstrations and signed petitions. However, the anti-Nazi campaign was not successful, and the main reason for this was the harsh foreign policy of the USA. Namely, the entry of refugees and immigrants was prohibited. Moreover, the United States of America had no intention of intervening in the war until the end, and this determined its course of neutrality until a certain time.
In response to public pressure, the U.S. government nevertheless took specific actions to protect Jews. First, on January 22, 1944, Roosevelt issued an executive order establishing the War Refugee Board. American troops freed massive concentration centers, such as Dachau and Mauthausen. In 1948, 200,000 displaced people entered the country. However, not everyone was fully aware of the scale of the tragedies and that mass extermination of people was possible. The U.S. Parliament adopted new immigration rules that limited the entry of refugees into the country. In the 1940s, the United States did not have a stable refugee policy, and they were forced to endure difficult trials to escape. Although the U.S. rescued about 200,000 Jewish refugees, the number could have been higher. However, the USA has long followed the policy of neutrality and isolation.
The Role of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Holocaust
The U.S. public was not ready and did not realize until the end the seriousness and horror of the situation of the Jews during the Second World War. It left its mark on the features of U.S. foreign policy in this matter. America sought neutrality and in no way wanted to become a part of this war. And so, the rescue of the Jews was never the primary goal of this conflict. Anti-Semitism was not only present in Nazi Germany but also in the USA. Segregation based on ethnic characteristics has always existed in America, and no one hid it. Thus, although the United States allowed many refugees to enter their country, for them, this process was challenging due to prohibitions and restrictions based on American anti-Semitism.
The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines the Genocide deals with one of the most debatable issues of the history of the twentieth century, i.e. Holocaust. In this book Benz depicts facts telling the “story with exactness and absolute candor” (ix). The uniqueness of the book is that it is one of the first books on “Jewish issue” written by a German scholar.
Thus, there is no biased perception of the historical facts, since “Benz seeks only to provide the basic and incontrovertible facts” (ix). Of course, Benz pertains to the nation which was involved in this conflict of humaneness and common sense.
Nevertheless, being German Benz has an opportunity to make a deeper analysis of those distant events. He does not try to acquit Nazis or hush up some of their horrors. The book provides many facts which took place and had an impact on the history of two nations (Germans and Jewish people) and the whole world.
Historical context
Benz wrote his book more than 50 years after the events took place. This can be good evidence that the book uses only reliable and unbiased data. The book concisely reveals all the events which led to the “unique crime in the history of mankind” (p.152). For instance, Benz starts with depicting Wannsee Conference when Nazis revealed the first plans and inclinations concerning the “Jewish problem”. After this Benz considers the beginning of discrimination of the Jews which grew into anti-Semitism, massacre and genocide.
Interestingly, the book tackles various issues which others did not highlight. For instance, Benz dwells upon emigration of Jews. Admittedly, many people think that the most appropriate solution for Jews living in Germany in 1930-40s was to leave the country.
Moreover, many people (especially youth) suppose that there could be no genocide if the Jews simply abandoned their homeland. Nevertheless, Benz gives quite substantial explanation why Jewish people had to stay in Germany and other countries in constant danger and fear. Benz mentions major factors which prevented Jews from emigration, one of which is as follows: “the confiscation of assets and the crippling fees limited the possibilities for emigration” since no “country accepting immigrants is interested in impoverished newcomers” (p. 34).
Apart from highlighting difficult and controversial issues the book reveals many details which make the picture complete. Thus, Benz points out some facts which are known to Germans and those who live in Germany (or lived there in 1930-40s). Creating such atmosphere Benz manages to make his narrative more illustrative and more persuasive. The reader can not only find out some facts but can understand how this or that could happen.
The target audience
The book in question is great historical narrative which can be a valuable source of knowledge on the issue. Nevertheless, I would like to point out that although the book contains bibliography where many reliable sources are mentioned, there are not footnotes in the text.
Although there are many citations the reader cannot know the source of those quotations. This peculiarity makes the book quite inappropriate for using as a source for some substantial academic writing. However, the book can be used in schools sine it is very informative and illustrative. The book can be a really good source for young people since there are many precise facts and explanations of the most difficult issues. Moreover, the language of the book is not too sophisticated and will be understandable for many students.
The significance of the book
Of course, there are many different books about Holocaust. However, the exclusive significance of the book in question is that it does not reconsider the issue, but it simply provides comprehensive information about the events of that period. According to Hertzberg (1999) there are many “revisionist historians” who try to prove that there was no Holocaust and that “the gas ovens in Auschwitz were disposal units for the bodies of those who died in the cam from disease” (vii-viii).
So, books like The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines the Genocide are very important since they reveal the real history without any “amendments”. The book makes the reader know the past of humanity which an enable people to build up their future without making the same mistakes. Apart from this, the book makes people think of many important or even essential issues. Many people can learn not only some historic facts but the basic values of humaneness.
What readers can learn
Thus, the reader can learn many details which became a basis for the obscure page of the human history. The reader will understand why many solutions which seem obvious now were inappropriate for people living in that period. What is more important, the reader will remember about the horrors which took place some decades ago.
They will see that those massacres grew from quite abstract ideas. Initially, those abstract ideas could seem quite positive and patriotic but in some time they transformed into a plan of genocide. After reading the book, people will be able to feel the danger of some “positive ideas” emerging nowadays. Apart from this the reader will be able to learn that all people are equal and no nation or individual should decide who deserves to live and who does not.
Finally, the reader can learn that Germans accept their past with its mistakes but they are ready to move on. They do not want to covert the deeds of their predecessors, but on the contrary, they want to reveal real historic facts which enable all people of the world know exactly what was happening in that difficult period.
Recommendations for reading
I would like to recommend the book to teachers and students. In the first place, teachers should know that there is such a book concerning Holocaust written by a German scholar. They should know that there is that particular viewpoint on the events of 1930-40s. This will definitely enlarge teachers’ horizons and enable them to provide their students with more comprehensive and at the same time more precise information.
On the other hand, students should read the book since they need to know this part of the world history. They should be aware of those terrible things which took place in the world in the twentieth century so that they could never repeat those mistakes. Young people should read the book which will make them remember what can happen to the world if certain ideas win.
In conclusion, I would like to stress that unbiased and comprehensive data provided in the book makes it one of the most valuable sources for students to learn about the Holocaust which took place in the twentieth century.
Reference List
Benz, W. The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines the Genocide. (Sydenham-Kwiet, J., Trans.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1999.
The Holocaust is the term used to denote the execution of more than six million Jews which was perpetrated by the National Socialist Germany Workers [Nazis] Party during the Second World War. Holocaust [Shoah] signifies the era of the reign of Adolf Hitler as the chancellor of Germany from 30 January, 1933 to 8th may, 1945.
This genocide represented two-thirds of European Jewish population, and a third of the world Jewish population. Those Jews who were killed were victims of intentional and systematic efforts of the Nazi to annihilate all Jews in Europe, but not casualties of Second World War which devastate Europe (“Jewish virtual library,” par. 1).
Following the success of the National Social Germany Workers Party in the 1932 elections, Adolf Hitler was appointed Germany chancellor. The Nazis, capitalized on the then unstable Germany government to gain an electoral foundation. The Nazis provoked conflict with the communist, organized numerous demonstrations, and conducted a ferocious propaganda crusade against its political rivals -the Weimar authority, and the Jews who they held accountable for the all the Germany evils (“Jewish virtual library,” par. 3).
Why did it happen?
Propaganda against Jews
The common media the Nazis used for the campaign against the Jews was the Weekly Nazis newspaper, “The attacker.” At the bottom line of the front page of the newspaper, a slogan, “the Jews are our misfortune!” was inscribed in bold letters. The attacker often featured Jewish cartoons characterized with hooked-noses and ape statures. In fact about half a million copies of “The Attacker” were supplied per week (par. 4).
Shortly after Hitler attained chancellorship, he organized for new elections in endeavors to acquire full power over Reichstag (parliament) for his party. The Nazis terrorized other parties using government’s resources. After the Reichstag house was burned down, the German’s democracy was placed in jeopardy.
Immediately, the Nazi’s government eliminated various privileges including the sovereignty of press, freedom of expression, the right to assemble and the privilege for privacy. In the March 5 election the party succeeded by securing more than 50 percent parliament seats (par. 6).
The Nazis immediately transformed their authority into dictatorshipvia the Enabling act passed on March 23. This act legitimized Hitler’s dictatorial ideas and allowed him to implement them over generally all areas. Additionally, the Nazis organized their propaganda machine, Der sturmer, and overshadowed their critics. In addition the put up a well organized military and police unit. Any opposition to the Nazis authority culminated to imprisonment in the concentration camps, which initially served as political prisoners (par. 7, 8).
Eventually, Hitler gained full authority over Germany and reinforced his campaign against the Jewish community in Europe. The Nazis accused the Jews of contaminating pure German traditions with their “mongrel” and “foreign” exertion. They depicted an evil and cowardly impression of the Jews, as opposed to the Germans who they expressed as truthful, brave and industrious. The Nazis alleged the Jews for the weakened German’s economy and civilization, because they occupied considerable positions in finance, commerce, the press, art, theatre and literature (par. 9).
Another element which contributed to the holocaust is race perceptions in which there was a misconception that the superior race was the “Aryans” which signifies the Germans (Leni Yahil 36).
Anti-Semitic myths
It is believed that the holocaust was perpetuated by the sentiment European Christians had about the Jews. These sentiments are proven by various anti-semantic myths that were held across Europe (Ashliman, par. 1). These myths portrayed the Jews as very brutal and sacrilegious people, causing them to be hated by the rest of the communities in Europe.
The proceeding paragraphs reviews one of the anti-Semitic myths. Most of these legends were propagated in Germany which explains why Germany was the setting of the holocaust. I am going to review one of the twelve anti-Semitic legends to emphasize why there was such ferocious hate for the Jews.
“The Jews’ stone,” is a story of a peasant who sold his child to some Jews. The Jews then took the child and brutally persecuted her on a large stone till death. From hence forth the stone was denoted the Jews’ stone. The mother of the child who was working at the farm sensed that a terrible thing has befallen her child. She hurried home to inquire about the child from the father who told her, he had sold the child. In the mean time the money turned to leaves.
The mother went to look for the child and she found her hanged on a tree and brought it down and took it to the church. The father was shocked and he lost his mind and shortly died. The stone was placed at the grave side of the child and it is believed that it is still lying there up to the present. Later on a shepherded shopped the tree down, but he broke his leg when trying to carry it home and he later died of the wound (Ashliman, par. 1).
The other anti-Semitic legends include; “the girl who was killed by the Jews,” “Pfefferkorn the Jew at Halle,” “the expulsion of the Jews from Prussia,” “the bloody children of the Jews,” “the imprisoned Jew at Magdeburg,” “the chapel of the holy body at Magdeburg”, “the lost Jew,” “the story of Judas,” “malchus the column,” “buttadeu, and the eternal Jew on the Matterhorn” (Ashliman, par. 1).
The way the Holocaust was conducted
Isolation
The Nazis reinforced their genocidal activity against the Jews with their racist hypothesis in conjunction with Darwinian Theory of evolution. Hitler started terrorizing the Jews and he imposed harsh legislation on them. These racist intents entailed a wide range of activities including exclusion from public proceedings, investment and assets confiscation; exterminating their professions and public learning institutions, and burning books of Jewish author(s). The most notorious of the anti-Jewish policies were the Nuremberg laws. This legislation constituted the legal foundation for the Jews elimination from Germany (“Jewish virtual library;” par. 12).
These reforms triggered a massive Jewish emigration from Germany to the neighboring European nations. Nevertheless, tough immigration policies hindered the Jews from leaving Europe. In fact such frustrations compelled a Jewish boy aged 17 to shoot and kill a third secretary in the Germany Embassy in France.
Nazi hooligans used this assassination as the excuse for initiating a famous night of destruction known as Kristallnacht. They plunder and spoiled many Jewish possessions including their residence, enterprises and place of worship, the synagogue. During these skirmishes, many Jews lost their lives and 30,000 of them were arrested and taken to the concentration camps (par. 13).
Jews confinement in the ghettos
During the onset of the Second World War, Germany invaded Poland and developed ghettos for the Polish Jews. There were about three million Jews in Poland, representing about 10 percent of the entire polish population. The Nazis authority forced the Jews from their homes to live in ghettos isolated from the rest of the ethnic groups.
This concentration in ghettos facilitated the Jews deportation to concentration camps by the Nazis authority. The ghettos were characterized by shortage of food, water, sanitary amenities, and space. Deprivation and starvation contributed to the deaths of many Jews in the ghettos (par. 17).
The “final solution”
In 1941 the Nazi invaded the Soviet Union and culminated into a plan of execution which they termed the “final solution.” In the same year four itinerant the Nazi developed einsatzgruppen A, B, C, and D, whose duty was to move around killing the Jews. The duties of this group were to systematically collect Jews from towns, parade them to pre-dug pits, strip them, align them, and execute them with sub-machineguns. One such popular massacre is the Babi yar’s in which between 30,000 to 35,000 Jews were murdered within a period of two days (par. 18).
The pinnacle of Nazi authority met to develop the a system to use to implement mass killing of the Jews. This discussion, the Wannsee Conference, indicated the preliminary for massive, thorough Jewish execution, and developed the plan for its administration which ensued shortly following the completion of the conference (Yahil, p. 328, qtd in “Jewish virtual library,” par. 19).
Although the Nazis killed other nationalities and communities including various soviet prisoners of war, gypsies and polish academics, just the Jews were targeted for methodical and complete annihilation. The Jews were specially exterminated by often chlorine gas poisoning (par. 20)
Noteworthy, all the execution points were situated along the railway lines to allow for easy transportation of the Jewish victims. A huge structure of camps backed-up the execution camps. The support camps played various roles such as serving as workforce camps, transportation camps, concentration camps, while others as death camps (par. 21).
In almost all the colonies of the Nazi, the Jews were obliged to wear badges to distinguish them from the other ethnic groups, so that they could be gathered into ghettos or alternatively concentration camps to be gradually conveyed to the death camps. Thousands of Jews were conveyed to the death camps from all the Nazi colonies. Shortly after their arrival, the victims will be gas poisoned’ and the bodies blazed. An estimated 3.5 million Jews were murdered via death camps (22).
Nevertheless, the able bodied young Jews were spared, to be used in the Nazi’s war effort and to provide forced free labour. They were confined in labour and concentration camps, and forced to labour in Germany’s munitions and other manufacturing plants including I. G. Farben and Krupps, and in every place the labour was necessary. These slave laborers were exerted from dawn till night with inadequate food and cover. Many of these Jews were essentially labored to death by the Nazi in conjunction with their collaborators (22).
Eventually, in the final months of Adolf Hitler’s reign, the Nazi military began to parade the survivors in the concentration camps to the regions they still governed. The Nazi military pressured the emaciated and sickly Jews to trek so many miles to reach other concentrations camps in nation that were still their subjects. Approximately 250,000 Jews died naturally or were shot during the marches (23).
Works Cited
Ashliman, D. L.(ed.). Anti-Semitic Legends. Jewish virtual library; The American Israel Cooperation Centre. 2010. Web.
The Holocaust which is known as a systematic extermination of Jews by Nazi Germany during the World War II is undoubtedly one of the greatest tragedies in the history of humanity. Doris Bergen, an American professor of Holocaust Studies, in her book War and genocide: A concise history of Holocaust claims that the Nazi program of Holocaust should be viewed in the context of the whole war and Nazi ideology in general because it is inseparable from them.
The Holocaust can be regarded as an inextricable, but unjustifiable part of the World War II which was possible only under the conditions of the war time, but was rooted rather in the Nazi ideology of advancing the so-called Aryan race and killing the “undesirable” people than the actual war strategies.
Growth and Systematization: Oversees War and Terror
The discussion of the Holocaust cannot be separated from the context of the World War II because the Nazi ideology of advancing the Aryans and murdering the undesirable people became one of the top reasons for the beginning of the war, and the systematized genocide of millions of Jews in Europe became possible only in the context of warfare.
Bergen (2003) noted that the Holocaust can be regarded as a significant part of “the Nazi quest for race and space” (p. X). This quest consisted of two main components, including those of “attack on people deemed to be undesirable and advancement of those considered Aryan” (Bergen, 2003, p. 107). Grant (2003) noted that the Nazis attempted to use the legal means for eliminating Jews from the territory of Germany, using the racial origin as the dominant principle for the mass massacre (p. 20).
Another influential factor is the extension of the German boundaries in the course of war because around 95% of the Jews assassinated between 1939 and 1945 lived outside Germany’s prewar boundaries. Bergen (2003) noted that the war “did not alter the goals of the German leaders but did transform what it was possible for them to achieve” (p. 141).
War and invasion delivered into Nazi German hands the Jews of eastern and southeastern Europe that is, Poland, Ukraine, Belorussia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece and elsewhere over and above the minor Jewish populations of the west such as those found in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Simultaneously, war especially the Nazi war of total destruction to Germany’s east, exponentially escalated the numbers and variety of victims as atrocious plan of persecution, expulsion and massacre, bloated on bloodshed, commanded and formed even more rivals. Immense homicide of non-Jews were also part of the Nazi German war attempt, a battle instigated for the interrelated objective of race and opportunity, the so-called racial cleansing and territorial extension.
Warfare provided killers with the necessary screen for hiding and justifying the mass massacre. During the warfare, carnage was put on a normal footing and acute even genocidal measures could be justified with recognizable arguments attributing to the necessity to defend the native country.
Thus, the Holocaust would be impossible but for the conditions of the World War II, but the murderous actions were explained and justified not by the warfare itself, but rather by the Nazi ideology of advancing the Aryan race. Equally, the objective was not Jews alone but also the mentally and bodily disabled, that became the aspiration of the extensively standardized murder in Nazi Germany under the euphemistically branded Euthanasia program.
Genocide of non-Jews population
Though Jews occupied the center of the Nazi philosophy of race and space, the fates of millions of European Jews who have become the victims of the Holocaust were similar to those of other ethnic groups and even disable citizens of Germany. The fact that Nazis killed their handicapped compatriots clearly demonstrates that the mass genocide cannot be regarded as a justifiable part of the World War II.
The Nazi racial policy was outlined in Hitler’s work Mein Kampf, but the dictator still needed the support of his people for maintaining the murderous actions. Claiming the well-being of an individual can be sacrificed for the sake of the so-called collective good, Nazis defined the categories of undesirable people who had to be attacked for advancing the Aryans. On the one hand, the silence of the majority of Germans can be explained with their decreased empathy towards human suffering which was caused by the warfare.
On the other hand, the protests of some Germans, especially those of relatives of the killed disabled turned out to be ineffective. For instance, when some doctors refused to participate in the T4 program (the program of experimenting and killing of handicapped Germans), their protests remained almost unnoticed. Bergen (2003) noted that “it was not problem to find enough ambitious professionals to keep the program running smoothly” (p. 127).
The conflict allowed the German government to build up a pace of revolution both locally and externally, while cracking down the opponents and other assailants. The German government went further on to forbid all civil gatherings and watching media. The groups detained during Nazi rule augmented, those breaching the orders of the government could face apprehension and potential persecution.
War send abroad the Nazi approach of judgment, for instance prejudice of Jews, employed Nazi practices such as split up, and conquer in new territories. The pre WW II victory of Hitler’s rule, for example the seizure of Austria and the capture of the Sudetenland in 1938 had assisted to bring a number of reluctant Germans in action. Germany’s impressive military victories in 1939 and 1940 turned out to be even more successful.
German nationalist of all kinds including many who repeatedly had voted against Hitler celebrated with him at the devastation of Poland and the triumph over France. To German nationals these achievements seemed to justify old wishes for vengeance and to lawful German violence.
Warfare provided a cover for mass massacre and made possible the training of many experienced killers, commencing in Poland. The battle trapped the victims of Nazism inside Europe, making them even more susceptible. After September 1939, it became exceedingly tricky for Jews to move out of Europe. War equipped Nazi propagandists to present attacks on blameless civilians of all ages as if they were protective procedures necessary to defend the German nation from its rivals.
On 22 June 1941, German military raided the Soviet Union. The invasion was given the code name Operation Barbarossa. With this step, Hitler’s military crossed the ultimate line to what he called a war of annihilation. Fighting in Soviet Union was tremendously bloody.
The German attack on the Soviet Union was not warfare of troops against troops or army against army. It was a war targeting full devastation of the Soviet Union, arrest of land, colonization, enslavement, and assassination of people. In short, the main objective of Germans was establishment of a new order in Europe (Bergen, 2003, p. 145).
The Peak of Genocide
By the end of 1942, the Germans were marching towards their fourth year of war. At least in the short term their conquests shielded them from much of the grief and adversity that war brings. Similarly, it was not true for the people they subjugated. The damaging of Poland financially, politically and communally became even more horrible as the poles tolerated year after year of crush and occupation.
The Nazi German hand may had been less heavy in Western Europe but there too, in occupied Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, adversity and depression continued to build up. Meanwhile, in Balkans and the Soviet territories in 1941, the German occupation practices produced an ever-escalating rule of horror (Bergen, 2003, p. 161).
It was not just the typical dynamic of war that served to multiply human anguish as World War II went on. The Nazi ideologies of spatial growth and racial sanitization meant that more and more murder was itself a direct ambition of the German warfare endeavor.
The more Hitler’s territory extended its reach and consolidate its hold on subject lands and people’s, the more its forces sought to demolish those it considered rivals; Jews primarily, but also slaves and others defined as unnecessary (Bergen, 2003, p. 161). Therefore, 1942 and 1943, the years when German power in Europe reached its height, were also the climax of killings.
One point is so noticeable it is frequently not stated that is, Hitler and the Nazi intended to prevail in the war since Hitler supposed that the war would not purely overcome the foes militarily; it would develop a new order.
German designers developed in much more detail the practical meaning of their concept of Lebensraum, living space in a significant memo called General Plan East. Sketched in 1941, that document detailed the Nazi objective for Eastern Europe. One of its prime authors was a young historian called Theodor Schielder. After the conflict, Schielder pursued a flourishing academic career in West Germany. His friends later on revealed his ideologies after his death.
Hitler and other initiators considered slave labor a way to maintain the German home front glad. They did not want to launch procedures that might have been unpopular with many Germans, for instance, employing huge numbers of German women into industrial unit work or curtailing supplies of food and consumer goods. After all, Hitler and others like him still supposed that discontent at home had led to German loss in the last war.
Therefore, they brought in millions of people they considered not reusable and utilized them to waging a war of eradication as comfortable as possible for the German people. The Germans also brought under control agricultural produce in the areas they controlled, leading to food emergencies and hunger among the people left behind. They took over any industrial production had not been relinquished by the Soviet Army as it fed in 1941.
Berenbaum & Peck (2002) noted that the war against the Soviet Union was represented with the “symbiosis between ideology and strategy” (p. 280). In the name of combating partisans, German forces destroyed every part of villages, often together with many of the people who lived in there. Public executions, torment, rape and sexual slavery were all widespread happenings in the occupied east (Bergen, 2003, p. 134).
Conclusion
In general, it can be concluded that the history of the Holocaust as one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the humanity cannot be separated from the history of the World War II in general, but cannot be justified with the warfare.
The mass massacre and horrifying anti-humane experiments which were conducted with Jews, other ethnicities and even disabled Germans had nothing in common with the war strategies, but were rather rooted in the Nazi ideology of advancing the Aryan race and killing the undesirable people. The Holocaust is undoubtedly unjustifiable and should become an important lesson for the humanity.
Reference List
Berenbaum, M. & Peck, A. (2002). The Holocaust and history: The unknown, the unknown, the disputed and the reexamined. Bllomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Bergen D. (2003). War and Genocide: a concise history of the Holocaust. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Grant, G. (2003).Holocaust: In the name of the fuehrer. New York, NY: Trafford Publishing.
In 1933, the population of people belonging to the Jewish race stood at above nine million in Europe. Majority of this Jewish population lived in the countries that Germany deserved to occupy and or have impeccable influence during the Second World War.
The holocaust[1] entangled “the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators” (Gilbert 1986, 13). Germans who came to power in 1933 believed in a big way on the racial superiority of the German as compared to other people coming from different races. They considered the Jews as racially inferior[2].
Consequently, the people had advocated for mass slaughter of Jews. In fact, the word holocaust refers to the “sacrifice by fire” in Greek. Because of the perceived beliefs of racial inferiority, the German authorities also targeted other races not related to Jews. Such groups included disabled, gypsies, Russians among others. About 200,000, gypsies, about 200,000 physically or mentally challenged patients from German race were also murdered.
Additionally, “…other groups were prosecuted on political, ideological and behavioral grounds, among them communists, socialist, Jehovah’s witness and homosexuals” (Dawidowicz 1975, 3). Many of the people belonging to holocaust target group, particularly the religious leaders and those whose behavior did not much some of the prescribed social norms principally died out of starvation, mistreatment and or neglect.
Reinhard Heydrich was one of the Germans high-ranking officials who played proactive roles in the Nazi government[3] holocaust incident. Perhaps his inspirations for his involvements in the holocaust were long inbuilt within him right from the age of sixteen. Gilbert, reckons that “At the age of 16 Heydrich took up with the local Freikorps and became strongly influenced by the racial fanaticism of the German Volk movement and their violent anti-Semitic beliefs” (1986, 33).
After two years, he abandoned Halle in an endeavor to a career with the German navy at the capacity of signals officer. In fact by 1926, he had risen up to the “rank of second lieutenant in the Baltic Command of the German Navy (Admiralstabsleitung der Marinestation Ostsee)” (Dawidowicz 1975, 11).
It is while serving at this capacity that he made his initial encounter with “admiral Wilhelm Canaris of the German military intelligence” (Dawidowicz 1975, 11)). Although the two became influential friends they latter ended up being enormous foes. On being accused of being involved with a woman, sired a child and later refused to marry her, his dreams of becoming an admiral within the German navy hit a dead end. On dismissal, from the commission, he joined the Nazi party[4].
At the age of 27, in 1931 he became officially a member of SS. Gilbert reckons that “It wasn’t long before his Aryan looks and strict attention to detail caught the eye of the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, with whom he managed to secure an interview for the role of SD Chief” (1986, 18). Borrowing from his experience as a signals officer, he was able to pass the interview.
His tenure at the SD saw the organization grow from a small entity into a gigantic organization capable of controlling nationwide informants’ networks. As Dawidowicz notes, “He collected information and created files on Communists, Trade Unions, Social Democrats, wealthy industrialists, Jews, even Nazi party members and SA leaders” (1975, 37). With aid from Goring and Himmler, he organized for the fall of Ernst Röhm: the SA leader. During this incident, many SA leaders were murdered.
This saw the end of SA term in power. Through this incident, he gained an enormous reputation for being a merciless and efficient mass killer. Gilbert posits, “When Hitler needed a pretense to invade Poland he turned to the master of intrigue and Heydrich delivered” (1986, 19). This reputation perhaps saw him appointed as the president of Interpol in 1940. Reinhard Heydrich chaired the Wannsee conference in 1942 while still serving as the president of Interpol.
The main agenda of this conference was to come up and lay strategies for the ‘ final solution’: deportation coupled with extermination of every Jew who occupied territories that deserved to be solely occupied by Germans. This is what is termed as holocaust. This paper presents his role in the holocaust around the Wannsee conference shading light on the affects it had on the holocaust. It also unveils whether the murdering of the Jews was an incident already determined before the holding of the conference.
Reinhard Heydrich’s role in the Holocaust
Reinhard Heydrich was among the holocaust engineers. He took orders and answered to all matters involving the extermination and deportation coupled with the imprisonment of Jews[5].
Such orders and queries emanated from his bosses Himmler and Hitler. In 1938, “During kristallnacht, he sent a telegram to various SD and Gestapo offices, helping to coordinate the program with the SS, SD, Gestapo, uniformed police (Orpo), Nazi party officials, and even the fire departments” (Dawidowicz 1975, 41). The telegram permitted the destruction, as well as acts of arson against Jewish synagogues together with their businesses.
The telegram also gave direction to remove all archives material positioned in the synagogues and community centers belonging to the Jews. According to Graber, the telegram also insisted that “as many Jews – particularly affluent Jews – are to be arrested in all districts as can be accommodated in existing detention facilities” (1980, 9). Soon after the conducting of his arrests, there was the need to contact the necessary concentration camps according to the telegram.
This endeavor aimed at ensuring the placement of all the Jews in the camps in the shortest time possible. The directions given in the telegram well indicates that he had the capacity to manipulate and control the Nazi government tools of governance[6]. Any attempt by the law enforcers to concentrate all the Jews in the concentration camps consequently, arguably were conducted at his command and influence of the powers conferred to him.
Reinhard Heydrich had an impeccable ability to control the police and tools of state security. With the help of his boss: Himmler[7], they used political forces to influence the police in an attempt to ensure the consolidation of the Nazi administration in the entire nation of Germany[8].
In 1934, he was chiefly responsible for running the largest political police force: Prussian Gestapo. As Ron reckons “In 1935, he described the police as “the state’s defensive force that could act against the legally identifiable enemy” with the SS as “the offensive force that could initiate the final battle against the Jews”” (1998, p.13).
The final battle was perhaps the early stages for holocaust. Even as the initial violence constructed by the Nazi regime principally to attack Jews begun in 1938, Reinhard Heydrich still headed the police force. His orders were mainly “”Whatever actions occurred should not endanger German lives or property; synagogues could be burned only if there was no danger to the surrounding buildings” (Ron 1998, 27).
On 21 September 1939, he called a conference in which he reiterated the significance of confining Jewish population in the fewest possible concentration camps[9]. As a prerequisite for facilitation of this call, he gives an authority for the establishment of Jewish elders’ council. This council had the chief mandate of ensuring the execution of every order given to the Jews without giving excuses. If the council failed in the realization of this noble duty, the “were to be threatened with “the severest measures” (Ron 1998, 29).
During the 12 November 1938 meeting, Reinhard Heydrich insisted that measures to ensure restriction of the “external sub humans”: There were no adequate strategies to get rid of them completely. Later in January the following year, Goring asked Reinhard Heydrich to tackle the Jewish problem through evacuation coupled with emigration strategies[10].
In June 1940, Heydrich “wrote to the Reich Foreign Secretary Joachim von Ribbentrop that emigration alone could not take care of all the Jews and that “A territorial final solution has thus become necessary[11]” ( Ron 1998, 35). Reinhard Heydrich joined the German navy when his country had just been defeated during the First World War. He thus had the opinions held by his parents of blaming the Jews for the defeat. Consequently, he could have done anything to ensure the incapacitation of the Jews who were to survive the holocaust.
Goring offered him a position to head the ‘central office for Jewish emigration’. While working in this capacity he incredibly dedicated a lot of effort to ensure coordination of differing initiatives geared towards fostering dominance of policies that favored SS, as opposed to Jews. He also credited a lot of his time to work on the initiatives that would facilitate the ‘final solution’.
Furthermore, while still serving as the head of the central office for Jewish emigration, in 1939, “Heydrich sent out a teleprinter message to the Chiefs of all Einsatzqruppen of the Security Police with a subject of “Jewish question in the occupied territory””(Dawidowicz 1975, 65). This telegram contained a detailed instruction addressing the appropriate strategies on how to round up the Jewish population for the purposes of placing them in ghettos[12].
It also addressed and advocated for the formation of Judenrat coupled with an order to conduct an urgent census. This census aimed at unveiling the much-desired information about the actual number of Jewish population occupying the German territories. The telegram also ordered for the “Aryanization plans for Jewish owned business and farms” (Graber, 1980, 45).
There was the issuing of orders for evacuation of Jews from the Eastern provinces by Reinhard Heydrich. These were evident in the 29 December telegram sent by him in 1939. With regard to Lehrer (2000), the telegram described “various details of the “evacuation” of people by railway, and giving guidance surrounding the Dec 1939 Census which would be the basis on which those evacuations were formed” (79).
During the Prague meeting held on 10 October 1941, he was among the invited senior official of the government. In this meeting, the members present discussed the agenda for deport 50,000 Jews occupying of Moravia and Bohemia protectorate. They were to hand over the Jews to the ghettos of Riga and Minsk[13]. Additionally, the meeting tackled yet another crucial agenda. This entailed the decision to hand over about 5000 Jews Rash and Nebe.
Arguably, these two agendas were immensely consistent with the concerns of the Wannsee conference. The main idea was to get rid of the Jews immigrants who the people deemed racially insignificant as compared to the native Germans. As Lehrer (2000) comments, the conference discussed “The creation of ghettos in the Protectorate, which would eventually result to the construction of Theresienstadt, where 33,000 people would eventually die, and tens of thousands more would pass through on their way to death in the East” (76).
Amid being part and parcel of the officials dominating this meeting, later in 1941 he was appointed to take the responsibilities of implementing another essential decision that would help Germany deal with the perceived menace of the Jews presence in their territories by Himmler.
To this end, he was to facilitate the task of forcefully relocating the Jews to Lodz ghetto situated in Poland from Czechoslovakia, as well as Germany. The involvement of the Reinhard Heydrich in these meetings perhaps lays the foundation for his selection as the chair of the 1942 Wannsee conference that would result to holocaust.
During the 1942 conference, he presented to the German government officials the detailed plan that he deemed vital for dealing with the Jewish population. His plan perhaps well exemplify his reputation in possession of the capacity to conduct mass killing and ruthless interventional strategies to deal with anyone who happens to step on the spot forbidden by the Nazi government.
Jews happen to step on this spot: the German territories. Perhaps quoting from his speech, Graber posits, “Under suitable direction, the Jews should be brought to the East in the course of the Final Solution, for use as labor” (1980, 11).
As part of the final solution, mass moving of the Jews to areas that required heavy labor inputs was to follow. This happened with both sexes distantly separated. Reinhard Heydrich added that “the Jews capable of work will be transported to those areas and set to road-building, in the course of which, without doubt, a large part of them (“ein großteil”) will fall away through natural losses” (Graber 1980, 12).
Natural causes were used to avoid direct mentioning of the terms starvation combined with hard labor, which would have anyway killed the Jews rather than direct execution. The main intent here was to ensure that all the Jews died, if possible. Perhaps Reinhard Heydrich’s speech during the Wannsee conference reinforced this concern.
He argued that “The surviving remnant, surely those with the greatest powers of resistance, will be given exceptional treatment, since, if freed, they would constitute the germinal cell for the re-creation of Jewry” (Graber 1980, 12). Special treatment, or “special action” or “treated accordingly” as deployed in different connotations of varying Nazi correspondences, implies that the remnant Jews were to be killed through firing or gassing.
The SS squads had the obligation of arranging this nature of execution of which Reinhard Heydrich had full control[14]. Furthermore, considering the way Reinhard Heydrich constructed his language in an attempt to disguise the actual actions, it evident that he took critical roles in the doctoring of the strategies presented to the government officials at the conference.
One evident concern of this speech is that Reinhard Heydrich was a racial stereotype. He seems to advocate for his proposed strategy to end the races that appeared as unimportant in comparison to his German race. This way, through his contributions in Wannsee conference, he acted to propagate racial hatred, which would then result to more increased mass exportation and killing of people belonging to Jewish race.
As a way of example, in his speech regarding the issue of the special treatment, he argued that “The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a particularly distressing police and political record that shows that he feels and behaves like a Jew” (Graber 1980, 27). This perhaps portrays well and justifies his merciless treatment of Jews in the due cause of the final solution decision of the implementation process[15].
In fact, the Nazi government had a dare need to control the reproduction of Jewish people. Some of the other official present in the Wannsee conference like Dr. Stückart, the then state secretary went on to advocate for forced sterilization, as a way of ensuring that the second-degree Jews hardly reproduced.
To him this would have permanently curtailed the replication of Jewish trait in Europe. In this extent, his proposal was well consistent with the dilemma that faced the Nazi regime: dealing with the high population of the Jews occupying its protectorates, especially as the Germany contemplated on getting into the World War II. Reinhard Heydrich was principle person mandated to ensure successful implementation of the final solution.
As Kimel posits, “State Secretary Dr. Bühler stated further that the solution to the Jewish question in the General Government is the responsibility of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD[16] and that his efforts would be supported by the officials of the General Government” (2008 Para.5).
Reinhard Heydrich happened to the person holding this post. Indeed, at the end of the conference, members agreed that he had the noble responsibility to ensure a successful handling of the Jew question. They thus vowed to provide the necessary support.
Apart from his role as the holocaust mastermind, Reinhard Heydrich was the man solely charged with the implementation of the plan. Kimel posits, “The man entrusted with implementing Hitler decision to eradicate the Jewish population of Europe was Hitler’s deputy- Reinhard Heydrich” (2008 Para.1). Consequently, he was part of all phases of the final solution including his selection to chair the Wannsee conference.
A major part of the final solution entailed creation of concentration camps where the Jews would accumulate awaiting transportation to the killing centers or deportation to the areas where their death was to take place. In this extent, Reinhard Heydrich “created the master plan, organized the ghettos, trained and supervised the Einsatzgrouppen[17]” (Kimel 2008 Para.1). In fact, he took proactive roles in the endeavors to ensure the resettling of the Jews in gas chambers.
As the chairperson of the famous Wannsee conference, he sealed the decision to solve the Jewish question. As notes, after this conference “he ordered the creation of the Ghettos in Poland, at railroad junctures to facilitate their future “resettlement”, he was in charge of rounding up and transportation of the Jews to the Death Factories” (2008 Para.5). This process required hefty mobilization of the German tools of maintenance of laws and order. Heydrich turned out as a gigantic genius at this.
His reputation as a mass killer perhaps gave him additional enthusiasm to execute his roles. His involvements in the holocaust are, additionally justifiable since “Heydrich had an incredible acute perception of the moral, human, professional and political weaknesses of others and he also had the ability to grasp a political situation in its entirety” (Kimel 2008, Para.9). Such a negative perception of the Jews values as compared to the Germans stands out based on the manner in which he classified Jews- first class and second class.
Those Jews who never had the German blood at were to face the weirdest treatment: executed immediately. He had an intense racial hatred that was essential for ruthless actions against the Jewish population[18]. Gilbert, concurs with this argument adding that “His unusual intellect was matched by his ever-watchful instincts of a predatory animal, always alert to danger and ready to act swiftly and ruthlessly” (1986, 45).
Reinhard Heydrich was an ardent centre of evil in the Nazi administration. He changed the responsibilities of the police as dictated by the totalitarian states from tools for enhancing law and order into lethal weapons of the state. In this regard, Breitman claims that the police acted as instruments of “oppression of the citizens[19]” (1991, 121).
He also deployed enormous steps to ensure that the police hardly acted in accordance to the interests of the state. Consequently, Reinhard Heydrich enabled the police to violate human rights[20]. In fact, he provided an absolute assurance that they would not convict for their acts. The decision to murder Jews was a state engineered policy and hence police had to enforce it.
Reinhard Heydrich had proved in other instances as a merciless cold killer. According him the responsibility for implementation of the concerns of the final solution, guaranteed both his senior Himmler and Hitler incredible success of the decision to mass eliminate the Jewish population amounting to about eleven million. He was thus the disguised pivot upon which the Nazi regime oscillated. As Kimel (2008) notes, “The development of a whole nation was guided indirectly by this forceful character” (Para.7).
By noting that he had an immense power to manipulate all political centers of Nazi regime administration, his contribution to doctoring and subsequent implementation of Hitler decision was conspicuous. Fleming reckons, “He was far superior to all his political colleagues and controlled them as he controlled the vast intelligence machine of the SD[21]” (1984, 56). The circumstances giving rise to the holocaust are arguably chiefly attributable to his position and perceived capabilities by his superiors particularly Hitler.
Opposed to somewhat many anticipation that the final decision: being one of the critical decisions made by Nazi government, to have more of the most senior administrator’s follow up, Reinhard Heydrich was responsible for the follow up of its proceeds. This was perhaps because he was an impeccable manipulator.
He even manipulated Hitler leave alone Himmler. Additionally, he employed “his extensive knowledge of the weaknesses and ambitions of others to render them dependent on himself” (Fleming 1984, 57). An introspection of his earlier life perhaps exemplifies his magnitude of atrocity against the Jews.
When he served in the army majority of his comrades initially thought that he was a Jew. He disputed immensely these allegations. As Graber reckons, “When Heydrich was a child in Halle, neighborhood children made fun of him, calling him “Isi” (Izzy), short for Isidor, a name with a Jewish connotation” (1980, 81). Such allegations made him incredibly angry especially when he served in the navy[22].
He, in fact, challenged everybody who made such allegations for tarnishing his personality. His hatred for Jews was thus a long-term concern. Now that he had the opportunity to wipe out this long hated race, people expected the holocaust perhaps to be even worse than it was.
The responsibility of the implementation of the final solution was not by coincidence that it landed to the hand of Heydrich. He was brilliant in giving witty ideas during the meetings between Hitler and Himmler. He, in fact, outshined Himmler in terms of ideas. As Fleming (1984) reckons, “He made Hitler dependent on him by fulfilling al his most insane schemes, thus making himself indispensable.
He supplied Himmler with brilliant ideas so that he could shine in conferences with Hitler, and would do it so tactfully that Himmler never suspected that these ideas were not his own” (57). Holocaust was evidently on Hitler’s insane scheme whose implementation was squarely dependent Reinhard Heydrich for its successful implementation.
Reinhard Heydrich made proactive steps towards solving the nightmare problem of Jewish population destruction. He initiated the steps to ensure that the fabric bonding the Jewish community was substantially torn. To do this, he adopted the strategies of starving, brutally mistreating the Jews, and making use of his foes (Jews) to initiate their process of self-extinction.
As Kimel notes, he “camouflaged the gas chambers as showers for disinfection, incited starved people to volunteer to “resettlement” by offering them bread and sugar and brought Jews from the west in first class railroad cars with dining cars to Auschwitz” (2008, Para.9). A vast myriad of dirty tricks against the helpless Jews had Reinhard Heydrich name conspicuously written behind them.
Reinhard Heydrich had the ability to covert masses of people other than police into murderers. As Kimel notes, “he personally selected the Einsatzgrouppen from ordinary people, not psychopaths; they were bankers, policemen, clerks and even one pastor” (2008, Para.11).
He perhaps managed to accomplish this through the aggravation of racial discrimination amongst the native German population. In this context, Jews stood out as lesser human beings who only served to deprive the native population off their rights. Killing them on a mass scale was then not a significant issue.
Reinhard Heydrich constituted one of the gifted Germans who would pursue whatever responsibilities accorded to them to completion. He would do anything to ensure the realization of his desires. During the holocaust, his desires changed from the roles that he had assumed in overthrowing the previous regime, to extermination and extinction of Jewish population. In fact, he was the most lethal person in Germany.
In Germany, it was almost impossible to gain power without using some black mail. Even though, Reinhard Heydrich had the immense ambition of becoming Reichsminister Minister and if possible the next top most leader of Germany he was not of much threat as compared to, Himmler before the eyes of the Hitler. The most positive way of dealing with Himmler was to subdivide his responsibilities. Implementation of the final solution happened to be one of the responsibilities deemed suitable for multiplication.
Without the contribution of Reinhard Heydrich in the implementation coupled with evaluation of the final solution, mass killing of Jews was not possible. As Kimel notes, “Heydrich was nominated by Hitler as the Protector of Czechoslovakia, and in this post he performed a remarkably admirable job[23]; Heydrich introduced a series of liberalizing moves, decreased the level terror, increased the food rations” (2008, Para.9).
Czechoslovakia government ordered the killing of Reinhard Heydrich. This order excelled. What followed was his assassination in 1942. Upon his death, the implementation of the final solution was now to go to Himmler. As MacDonald notes, the “…cunning, bluffing and superior intelligence of Heydrich was gone” (1989, 12).
Consequently, amid brutal approach in the implementation of the final solution by Himmler ended up not being such a success as compared to Heydrich’s case. Consequently, some Jews survived in Hungary, Bulgaria and France. In October 1944, Himmler suspended the killing of Jews because of “disregarding Hitler’s orders and overruling the objection of the head of Gestapo, Miller” (MacDonald 1989, 15).
Evidently, it stands out safe perhaps to make an assumption that if Reinhard Heydrich was alive, hardly could have any Jew have remained. The manner in which the killings ended additionally justify that Reinhard Heydrich was the main architect and implementer of the final solution. His death resulted to non-completion of the aim of the final solution. Only around six million Jews died out of the targeted eleven million.
Decision to murder Jews
Right even before the holding of the conference to seek the final solution, in January 1942, the Nazi government had a clear intent to conduct mass killing of the European Jews. As Fleming (1984) notes, “The decision itself, to exterminate the Jews, was presumably taken before the conference was held.
People had approximated the number of Jews murdered before the Wannsee Conference took place to be 1 million” (1). The meeting, additionally, lasted for only ninety minutes. With the immense factors worth considering when making a decision, it was impossible arriving at ways of handling the possible threats posed by the Jewish people to Germany and the European territories it controlled within this short time span.
From the situation that was on goings in Poland and other territories in the Soviet Union, the conference hardly discussed or came up with new strategies of handling the Jewish question.
In fact, new extermination camps were in place at the time of holding the conference. As Cesarani reckons, “Fundamental decisions about the extermination of the Jews, as everybody at the meeting understood, were made by Hitler, in consultation, if he chose, with senior colleagues such as Himmler and Göring, and not by officials” (1999, 181).
Consequently, it must have been evident to the majority of the participants that the decision on the Jewish question had already been made. Reinhard Heydrich was thus acting within his capacity to brief the conference attendants on some policy under implementation.
Perhaps Reinhard Heydrich main purpose of convening the conference was mainly to make sure that conflicts such the ones experienced upon mass killing of Germans with Jewish blood was conducted in Riga. As Cesarani observes, “The simplest and the most decisive way that Heydrich could ensure the smooth flow of deportations was by asserting his total control over the fate of the Jews in the Reich and the east, and [by] cow[ing] other interested parties into toeing the line of the RSHA” (1999, 187).
Majority of content of the speech delivered by him happened to be news for the better part of the attendants. Again, they took remarkably little time to answer technical question regarding the strategies for solving the Jewish question. This perhaps well indicates that such decisions must have come from a non-disputed authority. This authority happened to be Hitler.
The decision to murder Jews was not arrived upon convening of the Wannsee conference. The chief purpose of holding the conference was perhaps to seek legitimatization of the mass killings of the vast Jewish people in Germany, as well as its territories.
On the closure of the meeting, he appeared to have managed to convince the participants on his strategies of dealing with the Jewish question. Many of them not only admitted having thought the plans as effective, but also promised to offer assistance that was within their capacity. The conference was thus a final step toward advocating for ruthless actions against the Jews. The aftermaths of the conference gave rise to an immense catastrophe on the Jews.
As Fleming notes, “They deported them in considerable numbers to the ghettos in the east and murdered them after the conference” (1984, 5). For the case of German Jews, this was a new thing, only that the magnitude of the exercise of this exercise was aggravated upon the convening the Wannsee conference.
Right from 1941, Reinhard Heydrich has sort for authenticity of plans to exterminate and murder Jews. Goring had as a repercussion accorded this authority European Jews deportation having yielded success. His main intention to call the conference was no predominantly depended on the need to come up with a plan mad by the top official, of the government.
This also appears as the thought of Cesarani who laments, “the main purposes of the conference were to establish the overall control of the deportation program by the RSHA over a number of significant Reich authorities, and to make the top representatives of the ministerial bureaucracy into accomplices and accessories to, and co-responsible for, the plan he was pursuing” (9).
In fact, special approval by the transportation minister was vital since the process of deportation entangled hefty logistical needs. With the existing economical difficulties, this was necessary since the appointment of the rail transport was essentially for this purpose.
Ron Rosenbaum, a journalist author, reveals that the term final solution had been used much earlier in the Nazi party documents even before the Wannsee was held. As at 1931, the Nazi party documents incorporated the terms to refer to putting the Jews forced labor entangling cultivation of swamps, which were predominantly administrated by the SS division (Ron 1998, 23).
This is perhaps giving rise to the Nuremberg laws. The proposition of the final decision was thus arguably implementation of Nuremberg laws in the extreme manner.
Hitler, on the other hand, on 16th of December 1941 in a meeting with the top government officials, had given hints on the decision to murder Jews well in reasonable time before the day of the conference. He had priory called for incorporation of plans to handle the Jews mercilessly. In this regard, he argued that the Germans had no need to spare the Jews or even any other person in the world, apart from their fellow Germans in one of meetings with his senior official in the Nazi government.
Ron expounds on this and records Hitler to have having commented that “if the combined forces of Judaism should again succeed in unleashing a world war that would mean the end of the Jews in Europe…I urge you: Stand together with me…on this idea at least: Save your sympathy for the German people alone” (1998, 67).
This call aimed at drawing the support for the mass killing of the Jews-holocaust. Additionally, Hitler noted that he was involved in a discussion that would finally see the Jews relocated to the east. Although, not all the 3.5 million of people were possible to shoot, according to Hitler, they had to do something about them[24]. Additionally, he commented, “…is scheduled to take place in the offices of the RSHA in the presence of Oberqruppenfuhrer Heydrich.
Whatever its outcome, a prominent Jewish emigration will commence” (Ron 1998, 69). Hitler’s comments about the strategies of copping with the Jews menace perhaps gave the take and the decision to murder Jews well before the time of Wannsee conference. The argument here is that, Reinhard Heydrich was only reading the harsh decisions against the racially considered outfit group of people: Jews, during the Wannsee conference.
Conclusion
Upon losing in the first war, Germans associated the loss to the people who Heydrich termed as inferior subhuman: Jews. In 1933, the popu lation of this inferior race, stood at around even million. These Jews occupied the area that Germany thought it was its right to occupy and or influence.
Consequently, Goring directed Heydrich to solve the Jewish question through evacuation and emigration. On evacuation and emigration of around 200,000 Jews, Heydrich thought that evacuation and emigration was not adequate strategy for ensuring that the Jews entirely got out of the German colonies.
Consequently, he brought up the idea of the final solution. In the paper, it has been argued that Heydrich was much close to Hitler than Hitler was to Himmler: the boss to Heydrich. The paper continued to argue that Heydrich was part of the initial planning of the final solution decision, which translated to holocaust.
This line of argument is largely justifiable since as the paper has noted, Heydrich was an impeccable brilliant influencer, who influenced even Hitler. Whenever any plan to execute dirty deals, including the blackmails that saw Hitler come to power, Heydrich was there for Hitler to ensure successful implementation of the plan.
His roles in the holocaust were particularly significant. Right from the preliminary arrangements that saw mass killing of Jews emerge even before the convention of the Wannsee conference, Heydrich was largely involved with them. It is also apparent that the Wannsee conference aimed at briefing the senior members of the Nazi regime administration on the strategies worth taking to solve the Jews question for the last time.
The implementation process of the final solution solely fell in the hand of Heydrich. As the paper argues, the implementation process would not have been as successful as it would have been if pioneered by his boss Himmler. Perhaps this is incredibly justifiable by the manner in which the implementation process came to a dead end upon the assassination of Heydrich in 1942.
Bibliography
Breitman, Richard. The architect of genocide: Himmler and the final solution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.
Cesarani, David. Holocaust: from the persecution of Jews to mass murder. New York: Rouledge, 1999.
Dawidowicz, Lucy. The War against the Jews, 1933-1945. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975.
Fleming, Gerald. Hitler and the final solution. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984.
Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1986.
Graber, Gyn. The Life and Times of Reinhard Heydrich. London: Robert Hale, 1980.
Kimel, Alexandra. Holocaust understanding and prevention. Web.
Lehrer, Steven. Wannsee House and the Holocaust. North Carolina: McFarland Jefferson, 2000.
MacDonald, Callum. The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich. New York: The Free Press, 1989.
Ron, Rosenbaum. Explaining Hitler: The Search for Origins of His Evil. Harper Books, 1998.
Footnotes
In its strict sense, the term Holocaust implies a Jewish affair. Therefore, despite the presence of other races, the holocaust strictly targeted the Jews
This is the reason as to why the found it easy to carry out any evil activity against the Jews
This government also tortured other categories of people like the homosexuals. However, the degree of torture towards the Jews was pronounced
This happened immediately after the first world war
He was there to implement the plan put forth by Himmler of clearing the Jewish people from the face of Europe
People referred him to as a genius who could successfully implement any plan given to him including orders
He was appointed Himmler’s deputy in 1931
This administration was entirely against the Jewish people. It could not tolerate anything that the people did, whether good of bad
According to them, the Jews were inhuman and had not valid reason of living. Therefore, the only possible option was to exterminate them
This was an activity done along the lines of racism
He had identified the weaknesses of the Jews from all perspectives: morally, politically and even professionally. Therefore, according to him, these people were weak and useless. They could not bear any fruits in the European continent
This was the best place where they could be tortured without affecting other people
While in these places, the Jews could not access food, medicine, clothes, and or any other basic requirement. Therefore, besides the physical torture, they were also tortures in terms of their rights
He had altered the duty of the police: instead of performing their noble role of maintaining law and order, they had become oppressive tools whose major duty was to kill, steal and destroy
According to him, what he did and said was right and worth implementing. In fact, there is one instance where he literary impregnated a girl and declined his marriage promise that he had made to the girl. This paved way for another style of torture to the Jewish girls: raping
Heydrich was the organizer of this service despite his being unemployed
His pronounced wits made him stand a chance to manipulate both his boss, Himmler and Hitler. He had the ability to control them as he did to the central service system
He even did these evils acts himself like raping girls
They did every sort of evil to disrupt law and order for the Jewish people who had no powers to defend themselves
They carried out acts of terror, blocked food from reaching the starving Jews, exposed them to stern environments and duties despite their deteriorated bodies
In fact, he could even use the Jews to harm themselves unknowingly through the unhealthy foods he ordered to be given to them
In fact, many people attribute his ruthless actions against the Jews to this name. He did not like it and consequently the Jews. The name significantly influenced his character.
The admirable job in question included the organization of the arrest of massive number of people including the Catholic political aspirants. In fact, they say that the available accommodation space in the jail was inadequate following the massive arrests
Arguably, this indicates the possibilities of inculcating some strategies of execution of some Jews
According to Engel (12), “holocaust is a Greek word meaning to sacrifice by fire”. Many Germans believed strongly that they were superior compared to every other race. The Germans also viewed the Jews as inferior. The Germans were against these Jews because they appeared to threaten their community. This “fear and enmity resulted in the bureaucratic, systematic, and state-sponsored persecution of over six million Jews” (Engel 49).
The Nazi regime and its partners became the pioneers of the Holocaust. During this period, the Nazis targeted every inferior race in Europe. Some of these inferior groups “included the Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled members of the society” (Hitchcock 21). The Nazis killed these individuals because they appeared to threaten their socio-political ambitions. This research paper offers a succinct analysis of the issues surrounding the Holocaust.
Origin of the Holocaust
The “German society had promoted various ideas such as anti-Semitism for very many years” (Hildebrand 19). Austria and Germany emerged as superior nations during the third quarter of the 19th century. The famous Volkisch Movement encouraged more Germans to treat the Jews as inferior.
The Aryan Race (the Germans) embraced new ideas in order to dominate the world. According to the Aryans, “the Jews formed a race and not a religion” (Engel 25). Anti-Semitism became an acceptable idea in every part of Germany. The educated members of the society also promoted the idea of inequality. Many “many Germans supported their race because they wanted to become superior” (Hildebrand 37). Many medical professionals embraced “euthanisation of disabled and mentally-ill patients” (Engel 93).
Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party became powerful in 1933. Adolf was against the empowerment of the Jews. His “ambition was to drive the Jews from the country” (Hungerford 29). Hitler’s party identified three key enemies. These enemies “included different racial groups, political opponents, and immoral individuals” (Davies 94).
The major political opponents “included Christians, Marxists, and Liberals” (Hungerford 59). Hitler passed new laws to prevent the Jews from interacting with his people. Some of these “policies included the Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring and Nuremberg Laws” (Hildebrand 44). That being the case, the anti-Semitism ideas and prejudices experienced in Germany before the Second World War led to the infamous Holocaust.
Hitler: How He Came Into Power
The economic depression of the early 1930s destabilized the country’s economy. This development changed the moods of many citizens. Many individuals were against the weakening Weimar Republic. Many citizens in Germany were jobless. The “people were also unhappy because the nation had lost terribly after the World War I” (Hildebrand 64). This development made it impossible to support the government.
These challenges led to the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). Adolf Hitler had become famous during the First World War. Hitler had joined the German Worker’s Party (GWP) by 1921. Hitler “attempted to throw the government in 1923 but failed” (Hildebrand 39). He was later arrested and imprisoned for one year. After his release, Adolf “began to attack the Treaty of Versailles because it had not favored Germany” (Davies 56).
Hitler supported new concepts such as Anti-Semitism, Pan-Germanism, and Anti-Communism. He also “denounced both communism and capitalism because such models had been designed by the Jews” (Grabowski 59). He eventually formed his Nazi Party. This famous party attracted more people in the country. Adolf “became the Chancellor of German in 1933” (Grabowski 85). The “next step was to transform the Weimar Republic into a new dictatorship called the Third Reich” (Hitchcock 66).
Hitler became powerful within a few months. Hitler’s intentions were “to make every citizen happy and produce a powerful nation” (Davies 50). Hitler party appealed to every young and unemployed citizen in the country. The middle and low classes also supported Hitler’s policies. Many “people believed strongly that the new head of the country’s government would become their savior” (Davies 72).
Adolf Hitler: Jews and Other Minorities
Many historians “have not identified the main reason why the Hitler targeted these Jews” (Hildebrand 42). According to some scholars, “Hitler treated the Jews as scapegoats in an attempt to achieve his political ambitions” (Engel 102). The powerful dictator was ready to support the expectations of many Germans.
He also identified the unsettled issues of the World War I. According to Hitler, the Germans had been misled by these Jews. He was also against Capitalism and Communism. He “believed strongly that such market systems were pioneered by the Jews” (Davies 87). He also believed that major Jews were out to destroy Germany and its people. Hitler also explained how the social divisions experienced in Germany were promoted by the Jews (Engel 84).
Adolf also explained how these Jews destroyed the fate of every citizen. It was the right time to get rid of these inferior individuals. New policies became evident in Nazi Germany after Hitler began to support the Aryan race. These ideas encouraged the people to exterminate every inferior race. According to the Nazis, “the Aryans were superior based on different scientific studies and analyses” (Davies 108).
Hitler’s Racial Policy “targeted different races such as the Jews, Poles, and Russians” (Hildebrand 83). The policy also targeted “inferior individuals such as homosexuals and Gypsies” (Stone 68). The Germans believed strongly that such inferior people were no longer required in the country.
Adolf Hitler “used these races as scapegoats in an attempt to address the anger of his people” (Davies 79). He believed that such individuals were the leading causes of poverty and inequality in the country. Hitler “used numerous cartoons to spread his propaganda” (Engel 102). This effort made it easier for many Germans to support him.
The Holocaust
The Nuremberg Laws
Germany enacted new policies called the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. These “laws would remove every Jewish influence from the Aryan community” (Stone 92). According to Adolf Hitler, it had become the right time for Germany to impose new policies against the Jews. For instance, such laws “prohibited every Jew from marrying a member of the Aryan society” (Stone 47).
Hitler used such laws to protect and honor his people. Adolf approved “these Nuremberg Laws in order to deprive Jews of their citizenship” (Stone 49). Such laws also “prohibited Jews from hiring German housemaids below 45 years” (Engel 87).
According to many historians, Hitler’s laws “were aimed at discriminating, ostracizing, and expelling Jews from the country” (Stone 97). These laws made it easier for Hitler to implement new policies. Such policies would make it easier for him to punish the Jews and other inferior groups. Hitler also implemented new policies in order to persecute more Jews. Hitler also “described such laws as a precursor to harsher decrees in the country” (Hitchcock 31). Many leaders in the country believed that the Jews were incompatible with the Aryans.
These laws made it possible for Adolf Hitler to get rid of these Jews. According to Engel (78), “these Nuremberg Laws created the required ground for the next one decade of prejudice, discrimination, and racial policy”. Hitler produced new official statements and documents in order to kill more Jews. Hitler “was also unhappy with such laws because they seemed too humane to the Jews” (Engel 98). Such laws therefore empowered Hitler in order to murder the Jews.
Dr. Josef Mengele
The “Jews were the prime targets of the Nazis during the 1930s” (Engel 98). The Nazis also “targeted other races and groups such as individuals living in various healthcare homes” (Stone 93). The Nazis “murdered these individuals using a new strategy called the Euthanasia Program” (Hitchcock 43).
Josef Mengele became famous during the period. Mengele was born on 16th March, 1911 in Ulm. He became a member of the Nazi Party in 1937. Mengele “worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (KWI) whereby he advanced his skills” (Grabowski 18). He was later promoted to become a SS Captain. The Nazi Government eventually transferred Mengele to a concentration camp in Auschwitz in 1943.
Josef Mengele “was one of the high-ranking physicians at the concentration camp” (Grabowski 44).Josef joined other doctors such as Dr. Eduard Wirths. He began to undertake various scientific experiments using human bodies. He experimented “with fraternal and identical twins in order to understand the origin of different diseases” (Grabowski 48). Mengele “had conducted similar legitimate studies throughout the 1930s” (Grabowski 76).
The doctor was allowed “to main, injure, or kill his subjects” (Grabowski 79). Josef’s position at the concentration camp made it easier for him to perform lethal studies and experiments. His subjects included the Jews and individuals from different minority groups (Hungerford 69).
Most of Josef’s studies “illustrated the absence of resistance among different groups and Jews” (Grabowski 48). Mengele also killed most of his “test subjects in order to get the best results after conducting the required post-mortems” (Grabowski 93). The doctor also endorsed a new doctrine known as the National Socialist Racial Theory (NSRT).
He also “encouraged different medical practitioners to perform mundane experiments and autopsies” (Grabowski 73). These actions and experiments forced the Allies to put his name on the list of Nazi Criminals. He was captured by the U.S. government but released due to lack of evidence. Mengele “eventually migrated to Argentina” (Grabowski 89).
The Ghettos
The Nazis attacked and destroyed various communities throughout the Second World War. They identified and attacked many Jew in different societies. They also expected these Jews to work as slaves. The Jews were also beaten and killed regularly. The Nazis “ordered the Jews to wear armbands on their right arms” (Hitchcock 93).
The Germans wanted to put these Jews in ghettos. According to Hitler, this strategy would present a permanent solution to the Jewish problem (Hungerford 109). The ghettos would make it easier for the Nazis to prosecute a large number of Jews.
A good example of these ghettos was in Lodz. This ghetto “had a Jewish population of over 230,000” (Stone 124). The Nazis forced these Jews to pay for every service including security. It was “also mandatory for the Jews to pay for food and every expense incurred by their imprisonment” (Stone 137).
These individuals were forced to live in pathetic conditions. The Warsaw Ghetto in Poland had a population of over 380,000 individuals. These ghettos were “characterized by diseases such as typhoid” (Hungerford 75). Most of the Jews died because of such diseases and poverty. These conditions forced many Jews to rise against the Nazis. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (WGU) eventually backfired after the Nazis overpowered the Jews. The survivors in every ghetto were deported to various death camps.
The Concentration Camps
Nazi Germany used different camps in order to deal with the Jewish problem. The government established over 20,000 camps in different parts of Europe. Such camps were used “to imprison every individual who opposed the government’s policies and missions” (Grabowski 86). Most of the “prisoners in these concentration camps included the Jews, socialists, homosexuals, Gypsies, and German Communists” (Stone 93). In 1938, Germany managed to annex Austria thus identifying new methods to deal with the Jews.
The Nazis began to capture and imprison these Jews. The “major concentration camps were located in Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, and Dachau” (Hildebrand 81). According to Stone (153), “the Nazis imprisoned, killed, and abused many people in different types of concentration camps”. During the Holocaust, the Germans and their associates managed to murder millions of Jews. Majority of the individuals imprisoned in different concentration camps did not survive.
The Gas Chambers
The Holocaust continued for very many years before and during the Second World War. However, new shifts were experienced towards the end of the war. The Nazis were becoming less powerful. The Allies were becoming “stronger thus forcing the Nazis to find the best solution to the Jewish problem” (Davies 57). This knowledge facilitated the Final Solution (mass killing of the Jews).
The Nazis decided to establish several centers in Poland because it had many Jews. Such centers would make it easier for the Nazis to kill all the Jews. The first Gas Chamber “was opened in Chelmno in 1941” (Hungerford 49). More chambers were established in Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor (Davies 108). These gas chambers “were filled with poisonous gases in order to kill more Jews” (Hungerford 82). The Nazis managed to murder over three million Jews in these gas chambers.
Conclusion
The “killing of the Jews and other minority groups took place in every German-occupied state” (Davies 12). The Holocaust claimed the lives of more than six million Jews. The Holocaust became one of the bloodiest events in the history of the world. Under the command of Adolf Hitler, “the Nazis oppressed and killed different political, religious, and ethnic groups in Europe” (Hungerford 91). The Nazis empowered various physicians and leaders in order to support the Holocaust.
The Germans used different policies, ghettos, concentration camps, and death chambers in order to kill the greatest number of Jews in Europe. This discussion explains why the Holocaust is an unforgettable event that transformed the history of the world. It is also agreeable that the Nazis did not have any concrete reason for murdering millions of Jews and other minority groups during the period. New policies and laws should therefore be in place in order to protect every race in the world.
Works Cited
Davies, Ian. Teaching the Holocaust: Educational Dimensions, Principles and Practice. London: A&C Black, 2009. Print.
Engel, David. Historians of the Jews and the Holocaust. St. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2010. Print.
Grabowski, John. Josef Mengele. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.
Hildebrand, Klaus. The Third Reich. London: Routledge, 2005. Print.
Hitchcock, William. Liberation: The Bitter Road to Freedom, Europe 1944-1945. London: Faber and Faber, 2009. Print.
Hungerford, Amy. The Holocaust of Texts: Genocide, Literature, and Personification. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Print.
Stone, Dan. Theoretical Interpretations of the Holocaust. New York: Radopi, 2000. Print.
During the Nazi era in Germany, the society was meant to believe that certain groups of people needed to be eliminated if the German society was to flourish. Attempts to crush the Jews in a bid to provide what the Nazi referred to as the ‘Final Solution’ were launched throughout the European continent (Yahil, 1990, p. 15). The Nazi together with their collaborators in Germany and other regions where they received ideological sympathy combed cities and the countryside of Europe.
The Nazi took Jews and condemned them to death mostly by burning them to death in the concentration Camps. According to Bentley et al. (2008), the Nazi Holocaust’s effects have been widely reverberating (p.45). They have been transferred from generation to generation since then. There have been profound effects as realized through the way the survivors interact with the other people in the societies they reside in and the manner in which they view themselves.
Recently, studies aimed at analyzing the far-reaching effects of the Holocaust have found that the effects still play a crucial part in the social and psychological lives of survivors and their descendants as well as the entire society where they reside. This study aims at analyzing the claim that social and psychological effects of the Holocaust linger in areas of political systems in which the survivors of the holocaust currently reside.
Existing Psychological and Social Effects of the Holocaust
Analysis of Holocaust’s Lingering Psychological Effects
The marked and wide-ranging psychological effects of the holocaust came to be recognized years later but only reluctantly by interested parties. Diagnostic labels had to be established to classify the “pervasive scarred survivor with numerous symptoms” (Braham, 2007, p. 77). Survivor syndrome was the most widely accepted label that fitted the holocaust survivors together with their immediate offspring.
About seventy years down the line since the Jews in Europe were rescued from the cruel Nazi regime, psychological effects of the holocaust still haunt the survivors, as well as their later generations (Bentley et al., 2008, p. 36). Although holocaust survivors and their offspring show resilience in their daily lives, they often manifest various psychiatric symptoms that can be traced back to their experiences during the holocaust.
It should be noted that the survivors who settled in Israel have better managed the posttraumatic stress they suffered from in relation to those who chose to settle in other nations (Yehuda et al., 1998, p. 844). This can be related to the fact that efforts that ensured that institutions that helped these survivors manage posttraumatic stress disorders were created extensively in the newly established plan, which existed years later.
Another reason to this can be attributed to the function of the nation in creating the assurance of protection to the survivors. Some of the survivors ended up in nations where they identified some aspects of their daily interactions with the hosts that have the hatred that the Nazi regime showed to them.
In a study, done by Braham (2007, p. 75) to establish how the holocaust affected survivors and the first generation, general adjustment established that holocaust survivors and their first generation offspring had a poorer psychological well-being in relation to their second generation. The study also established that there were no substantial differences between the three group’s cognitive functioning, as well as physical health.
In analyzing the connection between the first generation’s psychological problems and the survivors traumatic experiences, Braham posits that, based on the traumatizing experiences of the holocaust, the survivors could not adapt effectively to their new surroundings, which transferred their psychological problems to their first generation (2007, p. 77). The second generation was better, as the psychological problems faded throughout the generations.
Instead of embracing the external world, and bridging the worlds of their children, most holocaust survivors bridged their holocaust experiences to their children who developed sensitivity based on their interaction with their parents. According to Yehuda et al. (1998, p. 842), “…the children also absorbed some unconscious roles that they were assigned by their parents such as substituting for their dead parents or prior siblings”.
The children felt overburdened and often overprotected by their parents, but could not resolve to be assertive considering the fact that they understood the fragility of their parents who required a show of compassion and understanding. This contributed to transfer of the psychological implications of the holocaust from one generation to the next.
The holocaust survivors who settled in countries that are relatively unstable politically suffer problems that are even more psychological emanating from their traumatizing experiences in the hands of the Nazi (Yahil, 1990, p. 33).
Their children were also affected by this considering that they were constantly reminded of the horrors by experiencing or observing the happenings in their current environment. Some phobia exists in these generations, as they connect the violence and instability with the effects that their ancestors experienced in the Nazi regime.
However, the psychological scars the holocaust survivors or their offspring suffer have not substantially affected their abilities to cope with events of their day-to-day lives. This is the principal reason why people tend to believe that the psychological effects of the holocaust have entirely disappeared with time. Although they are not as adverse as they were, the psychological effects of the holocaust affect subsequent generations of Jews, Gypsies and others wherever they are currently residing.
Analysis of Lingering social effects of the Holocaust
The hatred and prejudice that fuelled the Holocaust was intertwined with the political agenda, which dominated the Nazi regime. According to the aggression theory, Hitler thought the Jews were responsible for the loss of the World War I, and sought to solve the Jewish question with what the Nazi regarded as the ‘Final Solution’ (Whealey, 2011, p. 763).
Instead of targeting the aspects of the Jewish community, as well as in other instances, the gypsies directed his aggression upon the entire community creating ideologies that aided him in creating sympathizers throughout the European continent.
With the help of the anti-Semitism prejudice that existed in Germany for a long time, Hitler managed to garner sympathizers in Germany and other parts of the European continent where the Nazi had influence (Whealey, 2011, p. 764). Together with these sympathizers and fellow Nazis, Hitler carried out one of the grievous genocide in the history of the world.
In several incidences during the years that the Nazi party ruled Germany, thousands of Jews and other groups were mercilessly burned to death in the concentration camps that spread throughout Europe. Almost two thirds of the existing Jewish population in Europe lost their lives as victims of these atrocities.
As evidenced by the resurgence of anti-Semitism in the aftermath of the Nazi regime and the Second World War, the social and police effects of the holocaust affected the lives of the holocaust survivors, as well as their subsequent generations throughout the world, where they ended up settling. The social implications of the holocaust were mostly experienced by the actual victims of the atrocities more than the other Jews who resided in other more tolerable regions as revealed through a study carried out by Williams (2010, p. 79).
The study relates the social implications of the holocaust on the survivors in relation to the other Jews who resided in other nations. The study uses a sample of holocaust survivors currently residing in the US, and compares them with another Jewish control group comprised of Jews who resided in the US during the time of the holocaust. The study reveals that the Jewish holocaust survivors are reluctant to participate in social activities compared to the control group.
The holocaust survivors living outside the Israel nation portrayed aspects of the “survivor syndrome”, which was often marked with the fear to participate in social and even political activities. A phobia in collective activities is a social implication still portrayed by the survivors of the holocaust.
However, this does not reveal itself in the second generation of the survivors according to Braham (2007, p.73). This means that the later offspring of the survivors are breaking from some of the social and psychological effects of the holocaust that their parents and prior generations portray.
Comparatively, a similar study conducted in Israel reveals that such a problem does not exist even among the survivors of the holocaust and even their descendants. The establishment of social institutions aimed at addressing the social implications of the holocaust has succeeded in achieving the same.
Braham’s study also found out that the Jewish holocaust survivors residing in both Israel and the United states currently face life with more optimism compared to their counterparts who chose to remain in nations such as Germany and Poland (2007, p. 76). This narrows down to their worldviews and the associations they make out of the institutions that caused them grievous social and psychological agony for years. They, in fact, took the longest time to show progress in recovering from the effects of the holocaust.
Conclusion
While studies carried out to establish the existence of the implications of the holocaust in present day world prove that they exist, it should be noted that the magnitude of such implications is reducing with time.
There were higher rates of psychological breakdowns in the years after the Jews were saved from the cruelty of the Nazi regime during that time as compared to the present. Psychologically troubled survivors, as well as the anti-social behaviors among the Jewish survivors in the different countries, can argue this by considering the deaths because of suicide they sought refuge after the experiences.
Even children committed suicide because of posttraumatic stress and associated complications in the 1950s and 60s (Whealey, 2011, p. 765). Although such adverse social and psychological effects of the holocaust among the survivors and their offspring are rare, the effects of the holocaust caused long-lasting social and psychological effects that still linger in the societies. They can even be noticed through studying the social and psychological behaviors of these survivors.
References
Bentley, J., Ziegler, H., & Streets, H. (2008). Traditions & encounters: A brief global history (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.
Braham, R. (2007). The Psychological Perspectives of the Holocaust and of its Aftermath Forty Years Later. New York: Columbia University Press.
Whealey, R. (2011). Historians of the Jews and the Holocaust. Canadian Journal of history, 46(3), 763-766.
Williams, S. (2010). The socio-political impacts of the Holocaust on survivors and their later generations. Journal of European History, 2(1), 73-85.
Yahil, L. (1990). The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945. New York: Oxford University Press.
Yehuda, R., Schmeidler, J., Giller, E., Siever, L., & Binder-Byrnes, K. (1998). Relationship
between posttraumatic stress disorder characteristics of Holocaust survivors and their adult offspring. American Journal of Psychiatry, 155(6), 841-844.
The story of the Holocaust can be traced back to World War I. The First World War was the end result of a series of miscalculations and wrong decisions. Germany was forced to fight Great Britain, France, Russia, and the United States because it had an alliance with Austro-Hungary, Turkey and Italy. In the aftermath of the defeat Germany was humiliated through unreasonable demands by the victors such as the loss of lands that used to belong to the German people as well as restriction on their capability to build up a military force.
German patriots were not happy with the armistice and many were bitter. One of those who harboured ill-feelings towards his enemies was Hitler. But in his mind it is not only the foreign powers that must be blamed for the misfortune of Germany. Hitler said that the root cause of the problems were the despicable Jews of Europe. His plan to eradicate them led to the Holocaust.
Adolf Hitler was a young soldier during World War I. He could never forget the humiliating defeat. He developed a plan to strengthen the military capability of Germany and to restore the state to her former glory. However, he had a more sinister plan hidden from public view. With full support from the Nazi party, Hitler developed a plan to systematically eradicate all the Jews in Europe. At the end more than 6 million Jews were eliminated while others were displaced and had to seek asylum from foreign governments.
The Holocaust
Hitler believed in his heart that he was not dealing with a moral issue. He was convinced that the problem is political in nature and must be dealt with in a business-like manner. Hitler used the ideas that he gleaned from social Darwinism theory that provided justification to racial profiling.
Hitler believed that Jews are part of a race that has distinct characteristics. Hitler also believed that these characteristics were inherited and the main reason why Jews behave and think in a certain way. Hitler despised the Jews and based on his reasoning he did not want their genetic makeup to be mixed with pure German blood. In his manifesto entitled Mein Kampf Hitler enumerated the reasons why he abhorred the Jews.
Hitler said that he did not the way they look (Rash 37). He also said that he did not approve the way the Jews conduct their business (Rash 37). Finally, he said that overall they are an inferior people (Rash 37). Hitler concluded that the German people cannot intermarry with Jews because they will produce inferior children (Rash 37). Hitler devised a plan to segregate and isolate them. But in the end what he really wanted was to execute what he called the Final Solution.
Hitler’s plan called for the construction of ghettos. When he gained success he was emboldened to carry out the other aspects of the Final Solution. At the height of Nazi power, Hitler shipped Jews as if they were cattle. At the end of their journey the Jews were exterminated or forced to work in concentration camps to produce products deemed necessary for the establishment of the Third Reich.
Millions of Jews were systematically murdered at the hands of Hitler’s elite soldiers. When the Soviets liberated a major concentration camp, the world saw the true extent of the Holocaust. It is easy to digest statistics especially when it comes to faceless victims. But when confronted with the personal belongings left behind by those who were victims of genocide, the reality sinks in.
Consider the following items recovered from Auschwitz alone: a) 348,820 men’s suits; b) 836,255 women’s garments; c) 5,525 pair of women’s shoes; d) 38,000 pairs of men’s shoes; and e) huge quantities of toothbrushes, glasses, false teeth, gold caps and filling from teeth and 7 tons of hair (Fischel 117). The seven tons of hair forces the reader to see the evil of the Holocaust.
It must be pointed out that it was not only the Jews who were targets of racial cleansing. Hitler wanted to preserve the purity of the German race from Jews, Negroes and Gypsies. In Hitler’s mind, these people have certain genetic flaws that compelled them to act in contemptible ways. Gypsies and Negroes were not Hitler’s priority because unlike the Jews, these people are not owners of business and influential members of society.
Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and yet it is hard to believe that there was a government that could have authorized such a grisly plan. People must realize the severity of the crisis faced by the Jews during that time period. In order to fully comprehend what the Jewish people faced during that time, it must be pointed out that in 1933 the total population of Jews in Europe were only 9 million.
Hitler orchestrated a plan that made it possible to kill two out of three European Jews. d the magnitude of the genocide it is important to point out that in 1933 the Jewish population in Europe was estimated to be over nine million and therefore the Nazis orchestrated a plan to kill nearly two out of three European Jews (Griffiths 12). It can be argued that in the aftermath of the Holocaust there was no Jewish family that did not mourn the death of friends and relatives.
Present Day Israel
Hitler’s desire to eliminate the Jews in Germany and then, in Europe can be considered as genocide. It was an irrational action from an outsider’s point of view. It is difficult to understand the root cause of the hate and the aggression. The direct victims were the Jews but the rest of the world understood the consequences of inaction and the lack of resources to deal with a tyrant like Hitler.
The Holocaust was not possible without World War II or the rise of Hitler to power. Many realized that war could have been avoided if there was a mechanism to resolve conflict and diffuse a tense situation. If the German people were not agitated, Hitler could not have used their vulnerabilities to compel them to thrust him into power. Thus, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, global leaders pledged that the extermination of Jews will not happen again. A few years after Holocaust, the United Nations was established.
The UN is an example of a mechanism that can help prevent wars and bloodshed. The United Nations is an international agency that helps resolve international disputes so that this will not lead to war. Before a conflict is decided in the battlefield, the UN demonstrates the power of diplomacy.
The UN also serves as a guardian that assists member countries. If the UN was immediately established after, World War I bloodshed could have been prevented. It can be argued if the UN was already a functional entity during the time of Hitler, the pressure from the international community could have created problems for Nazi party’s plan to systematically eradicate the Jews.
The UN served another major purpose in favour of the Jews. The UN paved the way for the creation of a new Israel. The survivors of the Holocaust were scattered all over the globe. But there were those who chose to go back to Israel. Those who yearned for a fresh start migrated to present day Israel. However, Jews were scattered all over the planet. The United States and Israel account for 82% of the total number of Jewish people (Dashefsky, DellaPergola & Sheskin 14).
Conclusion
The main reason why Hitler was driven to systematically eliminate the Jews, Negroes, and Gypsies can be traced back to racial profiling as a result of studying the characteristics of human beings.
Hitler succeeded and the Nazi party became a formidable force in Germany. Hitler and the Nazi party were responsible for the murder of six million Jews and other members of the minority group. It was a tremendous blow for the Jewish community because two out of three European Jews were killed. Hitler was able to justify his actions and proved to all who listened to him that he had the power to make things happen.
Hitler exploited the vulnerabilities of the German people. As a result, they granted him the power to change Germany. But Hitler used his new-found power not to build but to develop offensive weapons and tactics to provide the Nazi party the capability to systematically eliminate the Jews. Those who survived the Holocaust were scattered all over the world. But the majority of the European Jews who survived Hitler’s wrath, majority went to the United States and Israel.
Works Cited
Dashefsky, Arnold, Sergio DellaPergola and Ira Sheskin. World Jewish Population 2010. CT: Connecticut University Press, 2010. Print.
Fischel, Jack. The Holocaust. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Print.
Griffiths, Williams. The Great War. New York: Square One Publishers, 2003. Print.
Rash, Felicity. The Language of Violence: Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006. Print.