Fear and HatredApathy and Indifference

Fear and HatredApathy and Indifference

World War I

The War to End All Wars

World War I

The War to End All Wars

World War Iand the Treaty of Versailles

• 1918 Treaty of Versailles– Returned land won by Germany

– Pay war costs and damage

– Limited military

– Germany admit guilt

Demoralized Germany

• Fighting political parties

• Inflation

• Legend grew – WW I not lost on the battlefield– Germany “stabbed in the back by evil forces”

Rise of Hitler

• Hitler did not accept Germany’s loss of the war

• Became a national speaker

• Leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party = Nazi

• 1923: Attempt to take over government failed

Hitler in Prison

• Wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle)– Reunite people of the same

blood– Aim to “eradicate this alien

race”

Great Depression

• 1929: World Wide Depression– Stock market crashed– Large-scaled unemployment– Businesses close

Hitler’s Reign Begins

• January 10, 1933 - Chancellor of Germany– Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in power– Nazi slogan: One People, One Government

Reichstag Burnt

• German legislative building burned– Ordered by Goebbels, Hitler’s

propaganda minister– Communists were blamed

• President Hindenburg declared emergency decree that suspended all civil rights– Anyone suspicious now could be

arrested

Hitler Gains Control

• Abolishes all political parties

• Abolishes all trade unions– Workers wages decrease– business profits increase

• Total control over media

Nazi Party

• Demanded blind discipline

• Nazi party membership essential– Nazi spy on every block– Children main target because responded most

quickly– Most children joined the “Hitler Youth” and

were essentially groomed to be military leaders and ‘ideal’ German citizens

March 22, 1933 - Dachau Concentration Camp opens

• Opened with 200 Communists

April l, 1933

• Boycott of all Jewish Businesses

May 10, 1933• Burning of any democratic literature

A.K.A. book burning

1933• Removed German citizenship from Jewish

immigrants

• “Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring– Legalized sterilization

1935

Nuremberg Laws

Anti-Jewish racial laws enacted• Jews no longer considered German citizens

• Jews could not marry Aryans

• Could not fly German flag

November 9, 1938 Kristallnacht

• Nazis soldiers in plain clothes looted and destroyed Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues

“Night of Broken Glass”

200 synagogues destroyed 7,500 Jewish shops looted 30,000 male Jews sent concentration camps

•November 12, 1938– All Jews transfer businesses to Aryan hands

• November 15, 1938– All Jewish pupils expelled from German schools

• December 12, 1938– German Jews fined one billion marks for the

destruction of property during Kristallnacht

September 1, 1939

• Germany invades Poland

• World War II begins

Hitler’s Plan

• To unit all German people

• To clean Europe of all undesirable people -- the Final Solution

Why Were Jews the Target? Global Beliefs

Eugenics

• A world-wide philosophy • Survival of the fittest• A nation of only the strong, healthy people

• Lead to the legislation ordering sterilization and euthanasia of physically and mentally disabled, and of racially inferior

Some Global Beliefs…

Antisemitism• Definition: prejudice or hatred of Jews • Historic pogroms of state sponsored violence against the Jews• “Christ Killers”• Money changers• Falsely accused of being disloyal citizens

• eg. Blamed for Germany’s loss of WW I

"In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I would then among other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"

Adolf Hitler - January 30, 1939