Minority Treatment in Nazi Germany (1933-1939)

1. How were minorities treated from 1933 to 1939? B aim – to explain how minorities were treated in this period, why they were treated like this and what this suggests about the holocaust A/A* aim – to explain how minorities were treated in this period, why they were treated like this, who was to blame and what this suggests about who was to blame for the holocaust • Get your timeline out on the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany which you should have completed for homework • How did the treatment of Jews change over time? • Why do you think this treatment of Jews changed over time? • Who do you think was to blame for this treatment? • Use pp. 342-343 to help you in addition to this

2. Abwehr • Up to 1943 the Abwehr, was the military intelligence part of the army. In March 1943 they tried to kill Hitler in Operation Flash. The Gestapo discovered it, arrested the conspirators and disbanded the Abwehr.

3. Why did the slaughter of minorities happen and who was to blame? • A question • Treatment of minorities 1933-1939 (Jews, gypsies, mentally ill, physically and mentally disabled, criminals, homosexuals, political opponents, religious sects) • Treatment of Jews during WWII • Causes of the final solution and who was to blame • Treatment of gypsies during WWII • Treatment of homosexuals, mentally ill and others during WWII

4. How were minorities treated from 1933-1939? General Homosexuals Gypsies Religious groups Criminals Mentally and physically disabled and unwell Jews

5. History of Anti-Semitism in Europe Write two sentences about the History of Anti-Semitism in Europe to the left of your timeline. • Anti-Semitism was nothing new – religious base • Excluded from England 1290 • Russian pogroms in the 19th C • Permeated European culture • During the occupation in WWII a lot of French and Polish people helped the Nazis persecute Jews • From 1920 Hitler stated that Jews would not be a member of the people and used them as scapegoats. • Traditionally thought that anti-Semitism played a limited role in the Nazi seizure of power, but this was revised in the 1970s to show that the Nazis used anti-Jewish propaganda in places with high levels of anti-Semitism to target their propaganda effectively • Hitler was the product of a prejudiced society not the creator of Anti-Semitism • However, most voted for him out of desperation in the early 1930s • Anti-Semitism was a gradualist policy

6. Do you think this subject should be taught in schools?

7. Propaganda • Posters • Education – eugenics and textbooks • Jews not wanted her signs • Der Sturmer was very anti-Semitic • Der Jude (the eternal Jew) • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIQp31Oyn70&safe=active Label where there was propaganda and what kind of propaganda there was on your timeline

8. Exclusion of Jews from society • Using the timeline from pp. 342-343 highlight where Jews were excluded from society • Promoting Aryans • Lost jobs from 1933 – Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service • Berlin Olympics – toned down – removed ‘no Jews’ signs. • After the Olympics increased by making businesses register so that they could then dismiss any Jewish workers and managers, and then Jewish businesses were taken over and bought for bargain prices by aryan Germans. Jewish doctors were not allowed to treat non-Jews and Jewish lawyers were not permitted to practice law. Everyone had to carry an identification document in Nazi Germany – but Jews had to have it stamped with a J and given new Jewish middle names, Israel or Sara if they didn’t have Jewish sounding first names • Culture • 1933 – 1 day boycott – enforced by the SA but not universally accepted Add to your timeline

9. Add to your timeline Jews – Nuremberg Laws • Problem of not being able to identify Jews. • To try to reconcile anti-Semitic SA vs. Moderate Schacht. There had been a decree in August 1935 telling people to stop assaulting Jews, they continued, Frick threatened harsh penalties against those who ignored this order • SEPTEMBER 15, 1935NUREMBERG LAWS ARE INSTITUTEDAt their annual party rally, the Nazis announce new laws that revoke Reich citizenship for Jews and prohibit Jews from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." "Racial infamy," as this becomes known, is made a criminal offense. The Nuremberg Laws define a "Jew" as someone with three or four Jewish grandparents. Consequently, the Nazis classify as Jews thousands of people who had converted from Judaism to another religion, among them even Roman Catholic priests and nuns and Protestant ministers whose grandparents were Jewish. • OCTOBER 18, 1935NEW MARRIAGE REQUIREMENTS INSTITUTEDThe "Law for the Protection of the Hereditary Health of the German People" requires all prospective marriage partners to obtain from the public health authorities a certificate of fitness to marry. Such certificates are refused to those suffering from "hereditary illnesses" and contagious diseases and those attempting to marry in violation of the Nuremberg Laws. • NOVEMBER 14, 1935NUREMBERG LAW EXTENDED TO OTHER GROUPSThe first supplemental decree of the Nuremberg Laws extends the prohibition on marriage or sexual relations between people who could produce "racially suspect" offspring. A week later, the minister of the interior interprets this to mean relations between "those of German or related blood" and Roma (Gypsies), blacks, or their offspring.

10. Add to your timeline Jews – Kristallnacht – Nov 1938 • http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/kristallnacht/3278.html • March 1938 – Anschluss. 200,000 Jews attacked in Vienna. • November 1938 - Herschel Grynszapn shot a German diplomat in Paris on the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch • Goebbels encouraged escalation to Kristallnacht – when SA and the Hitler Youth started to attack Jews without direction Heydrich was worried a riot could break out. Heydrich sent a telegram telling SA leaders where to attack to control the situation. • 30,000 Jews arrested, 267 synagogues attacked, 7,500 Jewish owned businesses looted • Escalation of anti-Semitic policy • Why did it escalate here? • Does this show the treatment of Jews was planned or improvised?

11. Add to your timeline • 1937 – Schacht slowed down anti-Semitic policies due to the impact they may have on the economy • Further excluded – encouraged emigration. Many left voluntarily for Palestine, Britain and the USA – most famously Einsten for the US. From 1938 this was foeced, this started in Vienna where the Central Office for Jewish Emigration was formed. Jewish poperty was confiscated to finance the emigration. Within 6 months 45,000 had left Vienna. Goring was so pleased with this he set up a Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Berlin. Around half the Jewish population left. Many who left ended up in countries which were later occupied.

12. Add to your timeline Mentally ill • Pp. 356-337 pink • ‘burdnes on the community’, ‘life withou life, worthless life’, ‘unworthy of life’ • Compulsory sterilisation of hereditarily ill 1933 • Considered euthanasia but it was only in 1939 that this was enforced when a father asked for his son to be euthanised. A special unit, the T4 unit, was set up to kill the children. By 1944 200,000 had been murdered. Relatives were informed by letter and sent urns with the ashes in. The techniques learnt were later used in the Holocaust. Released pro-Euthanasia films to help. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fORUgqpvmg&safe=active

13. Add to your timeline Asocials, homosexuals, Christian branches, gypsies • Pp. 338-339 pink • Nazis believed needed to be removed in the interests of the community • Asocials defined as anyone who didn’t fit into Volksgemeinschact and were vagabonds (petty criminals and unwilling to work), gypsies, beggars, prostitutes, alcoholics, eccentrics, workshy, juvenile delinquents) • 1933 rounded up half a million vagrants, the ordlerly were given work and the disorderly were imprisoned , some died here. Unemployment seen as an issue for the police. • 1936 Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion established, Himmler tried to establish a resgiter. 1937 ordered that homosexual SS officers should be sent to concentration camps and ‘shot while attempting to escape’. 10,000-15,000 homosexuals arrests and sent to camps. Some were castrated and endured medical experiments. Lesbians weren’t pursuedas it was felt that they weren’t a threat. • Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to join the army and to swear allegiance. Whole families arrested. 1/3 of Germany’s Jehovah’s Witnesses died in concentration camps died. Christian Scientists and Seventh Day Adventists suffered a similar fate. • 19th and 20th C tried to integrate Gypsies into ‘ordinary’ German society. 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring sterilised Gypsies, part-Gypsies and Gypsies in mixed marriages. Under the "Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals" of November 1933, the police arrested many Gypsies along with others the Nazis viewed as "asocials", and "work shy", including prostitutes, beggars, chronic alcoholics, and homeless vagrants, and imprisoned them in concentration camps • 1938 Himmler issued a ‘Decree for the struggle against the gypsy plague’ • 1939 sent to camps before being expelled to Poland • 1942 – sent to Auschwitz where there was a speical gypsy camp. Most German gypsies died.

14. How were minorities treated from 1933 to 1939? B aim – to explain how minorities were treated in this period, why they were treated like this and whether it was haphazard or improvisedA/A* aim – to explain how minorities were treated in this period, why they were treated like this, whether it was haphazard or improvised and what this suggests about blame for the mass killings during WWII • Does the increasing anti-Semitism seem planned to you or haphazard and improvised? Give a reason for your answer. • How were minorities treated in this period and did it change? • Why were minorities treated like this? • What does the treatment of minorities from 1933 to 1939 suggest about who was to blame for the mass killings during WWII?

15. Homework – Due Monday • Find an account of someone from a minority group in Nazi Germany • Make a timeline of how they were treated. Compare this with your timeline from the lessons and label where a policy is being applied. • ‘To what extent was opposition a serious threat to the Nazis during WWII?’ 30 marks. (include opposition types and suppression – make sure you analyse your information by answering the question at the end of every paragraph)