History and Impact of Anti-Semitism in Germany

1. “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”- Anne Frank The human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet.

2. The Holocaust A History of Anti-Semitism in Germany

3. Anti-Semitism • Anti-Semitism is the discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed at Jews. • The instances of anti-semitism range from individual hatred to institutionalized, violent persecutions. The most extreme instance of persecution was the Holocaust of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. • Anti-Semitism has existed since ancient history; the reason for anti-semitism since 167 A.D. is deicide, or the killing of God (Jesus).

4. Anti-Semitism in Germany Before 1933 • Prior to 1914, Germ. was not an esp. anti-semitic country. • Everyday discrimination did exist, but it was not particularly strong or different from other countries at this time. • 1933: The Nazis wanted to create a racial power/superiority. • They sought to get rid of minorities, Jews, the handicapped, “unfit” Germs. etc.: create a racial (Germ.) utopia.

5. WWI and Anti-Semitism • Spike of anti-semitism post-WWI: • Conditions of the war were blamed on the Jews. • Stab-in-the-back Thesis – Jews are associated with the SPD (Socialist Party). • Chaos feeds into an aggressive and irrational outlook of the far R. – they associate the problems of modernization with the Jews (symbol for the SPD).

6. Jews and the SPD • Socialists were considered to be not completely Germ. – identify themselves more w/ Marxism and world workers instead of Germ. • Small shop keepers would find it convenient to blame Jews – represent big business: plutocrats exploiting workers and the Germ. people. • Struggle with modernization again. www.answers.com/topic/the-protocols-of-the-el...

7. Nazis and Anti-Semitism • When Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933, the persecution and exodus of Germany's 525,000 Jews began almost immediately. • In his autobiography Mein Kampf (1925), Hitler had been open about his hatred of Jews, and gave ample warning of his intention to drive them from Germany's political, intellectual, and cultural life. He did not write that he would attempt to exterminate them, but he is reported to have been more explicit in private. As early as 1922, he allegedly told Major Joseph Hell, at the time a journalist:

8. Nazis and Anti-Semitism • “Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews. As soon as I have the power to do so, I will have gallows built in rows—at the Marienplatz in Munich, for example—as many as traffic allows. Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in Munich has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews.” www.telegraph.co.uk/.../2006/01/01/nchurch01.xml

9. Nazis and Anti-Semitism • Nazis picked up the anti-semitic sentiments and pushed them onto the Germ. people in the 30s and 40s: • Sometimes they toned it up or down, it depended on the elections and crowds. • the Nazis engaged in a gradual public education for Germs. against Jews – they represent a threat w/in Germ.: • Bolshevikism, leading Germ. volk away from their destiny • Sneaky, greedy, capitalist dealers. • The Nazis were trying to influence peoples’ perceptions – most Euros. were anti-semitic in a broad sense, and the Nazis were trying to “educate” them to increase their anti-semitism.

10. Nazis and Anti-Semitism • The Eternal Jew (German: Der ewige Jude): 1937 German poster advertising an anti-semitic Nazi movie.

11. Other “Undesirables” • Other enemies of the Germ. volk: Gypsies, Slavs, Poles, Russians, homosexuals, Free Masons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. • Minorities targeted in addition to Jews. • These “undesirables” were considered to be people notproper for the ntl. community. • Germs. “racially unfit” were targeted for extermination1st: 1939-41 – these people are euthanized (template for the final solution).

12. The T-4 Program • Action T4 was a program in Nazi Germ. officially between 1939-1941 (and into 1945), during which the regime of Adolf Hitler systematicallykilled between 75,000 to 250,000 people with intellectual or physicaldisabilities. • The T4 program developed from the Nazi Party’s policy of “racial hygiene,” the belief that the German people needed to be “cleansed” of “racially unsound” elements, which included people with disabilities. This poster reads: "60,000 Reichsmarks is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money too. Read '[A] New People', the monthly magazines of the Bureau for Race Politics of the NSDAP."

14. The Persecution of the Jews • 3 Phases of Nazi persecution: • 1) Restriction and Segregation (1933-38). • 2) Expulsion and Exclusion (1938-41). • 3) Extermination (1941-45).

15. Restriction and Segregation (1933-1938) • Jewish immigration from S.U., Poland, etc. restricted. • Rights and econ./political lives restricted. • Nuremburg Laws 1932: • Jews are banned from the military and public/political life. • Nuremburg Laws 1935: • Intermarriage b/w a Jew and a Germ. forbidden (protection of Germ. blood). • Jews are forbidden to display the national flag or colors (permitted to display Jewish colors). • If these laws were broken: imprisonment w/ hard labor.

16. Expulsion and Exclusion (1938-1941) • Jews are truly excluded from public life. • Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht): Nov. 9, 1938. • Jewish homes were ransacked in numerous German cities along with 8,000 Jewish shops, towns and villages, as civilians and both the SA and the SS destroyed buildings with sledgehammers, leaving the streets covered in smashed windows — the origin of the name "Night of Broken Glass." • Jews were beaten to death; 30,000 Jewish men were taken to concentration camps; and 1,668 synagogues ransacked with 267 set on fire.

18. Jews arrested during Kristallnacht line up at the Appellplatz for roll call at Buchenwald concentration camp.

20. Reaction to the Night of Broken Glass • There was an international outrage against this attack. • Many Germs. watched in horror while many others participated in the attack (Nazi education). • Kristallnacht changed the nature of persecution from economic, political and social to the physical forms such as beatings, murder and incarceration, and as such it is often referred to as the beginning of the Holocaust.

21. Expulsion and Exclusion (1938-1941) Part II • With the invasion of Poland, Germ. has a self-imposed “problem”: millions of more Jews are now under Nazi control. • In Poland and in other conquered lands: • Jews are expelled from jobs and schools. • They are forced to wear yellow badges of the Star of David. • They are forced to live in Ghettos, the largest of which was in Warsaw: ½ million.

22. Badges of Hate www.brest-belarus.com/History_1900_2005.shtml

23. isurvived.org/Holocaust-definition.html

24. isurvived.org/Holocaust-definition.html

25. The Ghettos

26. The Ghettos • The Jewish Ghettos were surrounded by high walls, fences, and barbed wire (sealed off). • Ghettos had narrow streets and tall, crowded, and unsanitary houses – contagious diseases spread rapidly. • The Nazi deliberately tried to starve residents by allowing only small amounts of food: tens of thousands of people died of starvation, disease, and cold.

28. www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/wars...

29. www.warsaw-life.com/poland/warsaw-ghetto

30. isurvived.org/Holocaust-definition.html

32. www.hmd.org.uk/resources/item/64/

33. www.israelnewsagency.com/israelwarsawghettodi...

35. Jewish Ghettos and Deportations (04:38)

36. The Beginning of Extermination (1941-45) • Nazi leaders posed many “solutions” to their Jewish “problem” other than expulsion from public life and Ghettos: • Resettlement to Madagascar or Siberia. • Mass killing of Jews hadn’t been decided on in 1939, 40, and 41. • Jews still had visas at this time – if they had plans to kill them, why would they allow them to leave?

37. The Beginning of Extermination (1941-45) • With the invasion of the S.U. in June 1941, the turning point for mistreatment of Jews began: • At that time, the Nazis turned from forced emigration and imprisonment to mass murder. • SS troops would move through captured Soviet land and kill every Jew they could find.

38. The Beginning of Extermination (1941-45) • If Jews were captured, they had to surrender their valuables and then forced to march to open areas on the outskirts of captured towns or cities; there they were shot, and their bodies were dumped in mass graves. • The killing squads murdered more than a million Jews and hundreds of thousands of other innocent people.

39. "The last Jew in Vinnitsa".

40. www.katardat.org/.../images08-nazicruelties.html

41. Babi Yar Massacre Sept. 29-30, 1941: 35,000 Jews were killed in 2 days dulceetdecorumest.org/tag/things/mass-graves/

42. The Final Solution is Decided • The “Final solution to the Jewish question” was decided at the Wannsee Conference Jan. 20, 1942. • The purpose of the conference was to inform senior Nazis and senior Governmental administrators of plans for the "Final solution.” • The systematicextermination of the Jews was called Operation Rhinehard, although over 1 million Jews had been killed by death squads, it was not until this decision that the extermination camps were built.