Nuremberg Laws, 1935

 

 

Nazi policy towards the Jews

• The 25 point plan was published by the Nazis in 1920, where party members declared that they wanted to segregate Jews from the Aryan race. During the 1st 6 years of Hitler's reign, the Jews felt the effect of 400 decrees both at regional and national level. No corner of Germany was untouched.
• Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service - The decree of April 7 1933 were politically unreliable according to the Nazis, in which they were to be excluded from state service. 
• April 1933 - Jews were to be restricted from some German schools and Universities, and also Jewish doctors in Munich could not treat German people. 
• May 10th 1933 - Public book burning of non-Aryan nature. 
• Also in 1933, Jewish civilian workers were fired from the army and imposed a 1.5% quota on admissions to non-Aryan schools and Unis.
• Nuremberg Laws 1935 - The laws that were stated at the Nazi annual party, saw Jews being removed of their citizenship and were unable to marry those of German blood. This law did not identify a Jew for their beliefs, but for those with who had 3/4 Jewish grandparents. These laws sparked a new wave of Anti Semitism, which in an overview stated that Jews were outsiders in Germany.

• 1936 - During the Summer and Winter Olympics, the Nazis toned down its anti-Jewish laws and other activities. Hitler did not want international criticism of his government as well as the removal of the Olympic games. Also, other leaders did not want international tourism to stop bringing in revenue.
• 1937-1938 - These years saw the return of anti-Jewish legislation. The government began to set out to remove the Jews from German economy by requiring them to register their property. 
• Kristallnacht - A Nazi 'diplomat' was shot in Paris by a Jew. This saw Hitler order 7 days of organised terror, where 10,000 shops owned by the Jews were destroyed with their contents stolen. Homes and Synagogues were set on fire, and left to burn by the firefighters. The Jews were also forced to clean the streets and pay up to 1 billion marks for it. 

• Madagascar Plan - This plan saw the resettlement of Jews to create a fee of Jew Europe. However, following 1941 ands the Wannsee Conference this plan was scrapped, and alongside the loss of the Battle of Madagascar to the British, this plan was looking even more unlikely.
• WW2 - The breakout of war saw Hitler gain more freedom to bring destruction to the Jews of Europe. Nazis began to deport Jews to ghettos in occupied areas of Poland and Russia meaning areas were to be free of Jews. The Soviet invasion of 1941 saw the Einzatgruppen follow up the frontline in killing the Jews, with 1.5 million being counted. The inefficiency of this killing lead to the creation of death camps, where Jews were sent. In total, over 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis in death camps, and by the Einzatgruppen.  
  
  
  

Nazi policy to 'undesirables'

Asocials

• There behavior was seen to go against what was expected from the Nazis. 
• Homeless people and beggars were rounded up due to the threat that they posed to public order.
• Disorderly people were becoming sterilized. In 1936, 10 people were sent for experimentation which was accepted by the people of Germany. This was a sign that people were possibly going to accept the Holocaust as a way of removing those who were socially inadequate.
• Only the end of the Nazi regime in 1945 ended possible compulsory sterilization and forced labour.   

Gypsies

• Gypsies in the Third Reich were treated harder than asocial. Their look and constant unemployment saw them being focused upon by the Nazis in policies and repression. 
• By the Propaganda Ministry, gypsies were branded as thieves and beggars. They were also involved in the Nuremberg Laws of 1935,where they were researched by racial experts. 
• December 1938 saw further repression of the group, with Himmler passing the 'decree for the struggle against the Gypsy Plague'. This saw them stop mixing with Aryan people and different coloured papers depending on their race. 
• Himmler admired the pure gypsies, and wanted them to live a traditional life to see it as a 'museum'. Hitler and Bormann overused this and sent them to Auschwitz by 1942. Only 5 thousand of 30 thousand survived the war. 

Mentally and Physically Handicapped

• Eugenics became more and more important in German society due to declining BR and economic depression.
• The economic depression led to a change in thought to feeding useless mouths, leading to other views that the German race was deteriorating.
• 1929 saw importance in sterilization with it going through draft legislation. Then, in 1932 Prussia set out voluntary sterilization for their disabled population with a year later a Sterilization Law, which was made not voluntary due to pressures NOT from Hitler.
• Between 1934-45, 320,000 to 350,000 were sterilizer within Germany.   

Lebansraum

• They worked with Eugenics to find racial credentials. This lead to the SS taking Children and Families to labour camps as they weren't part of the Aryan Race. 

Euthanasia ( Op T4) 

• This policy was against those who were not curable. 
• 1939 saw the Law granted, but occurred before the passage as parents wrote to the Nazis to kill their son as part of 'mercy'. Hitler and the Chancellery of the Fuhrer agreed to his death, and that's when it all started. 
• Deaths would be reported by midwives in cases of:

• Idiocy and Mongolism (Bind/Death)
• Having a small skull. 
• A large skull due to fluid inside
• Paralysis  
• Deformities of any kind

•  5000 died of injections/malnutrition, which was reported by nurses as 'measles'. This was later expanded to adults who were gassed without choice as asked by Hitler himself.
• August 1941 saw the Catholic church grow with unease. Hitler went out and stated it was not occurring, to which it happened in secret. Between 41-43, 72,000 died with 50,000 being from gas. 

25 point plan

25 Point Programme

• These points were the  manifesto of the NSDAP, what the Nazis used to be known as. This was presented by Hitler in 1920, to just over 2000 people in Munich. 
• This programme became the official backbone of policies within the Nazi Party, to which they carried throughout their time. 
• As you can tell by point four, the Nazis disliked the Jews very early on in their campaign towards power, and was very much supportive of the aryan race. This nationalist view towards the glorification of the German people was very appealing to the working class and those who fell into the depression. 

The Final Solution // Holocaust

What did it entail?

• The Holocaust was the persecution of 6 million Jews by the Nazis and it's collaborators from 1933-45. They saw the German people as superior to the Jews who to them were inferior. 
• All the way throughout the reign of the Nazis, they were always trying to isolate the Jewish people and drive them out of the country including legislation, economic boycotts and Kristallnacht.
• However, it wasn't till 1939 when Ghettos were introduced to house outcast Jews, where they lived in poor and cramped conditions.
• The Wannsee Conference in Spring 1942 saw the idea of the Final Solution brought up by Heydrich and Eichmann, in which other Nazi officials accepted, leading to the start of this mass killing operation. The SS estimated the annihilation of 11 million Jewish people, including those in unoccupied countries.  
• However mass killing started to occur in 1941, where the SS squad the Einzatgruppen began to murder Jewish people following the invasion of the Soviet Union. This was followed by the creation of Death Camps in December 1941 in Chlemno. They were to be killed in gas vans while those in 5 other camps including Belzec were to use carbon monoxide. 
• The SS and Nazi co-operators killed almost 6 million Jewish people in shootings or gas chambers put in death camps. About half of the Jews died in death camps, while the others were murdered by the firing squads in the Einzatgruppen.
• The term was made to cover up what the Nazis were actually supposedly talking about - the murder of millions of Jewish people in Europe. 
• Many people in the late 30's knew of the annihilation of the Jews, as shown in cinemas and news reels across the world. However, a large sum of those in Germany may not of known anything about the Holocaust. 

Who was involved and who wasn't?

Himmler - The head of terror within the Nazi state

Heydrich - The had of the SS and Wannsee Conference 

Eichmann - Sat alongside Heydrich at the Wannsee Conference and was Head Office in the resettlement of Jews.
Globocnik - Played a roke in Op Reinhard, which saw the extermination of over a million Polish Jews during the Holocaust.

Hitler - Head of the Nazi party and Furher of Germany during the Holocaust, may have authorised killings based on if Intentionalist or Structuralist view.  

Hoss - Commandment of Auschwitz
Eicke - Commandment of Dachau
Wirth - Inspector of euthanasia campaign and helped build Gas chambers at Belzec and Sobibor

Goebbels  - Propaganda's chief put out the negativity the Jews were having and the Nazi message of which was being made about the group. 

Why was it done?

• The Nazis did not see the Final Solution as always inevitable. This can be seen in the transportation scheme in which they would of been located to Madagascar. 
• However, due to the numerous laws such as the Nuremburg Laws against the Jews liberties and actions that happened and did not happen made the final solution occur. 
• Also, from victories in both the east and the west, some historians see the huge number of Jews taken from the countries as a way to force them into annihilation. They did try to store the Jews in ghettos such as Warsaw's, but once the number got out of hand, they had to find a solution and that was the mass killing of them.

How was it carried out?

• The Holocaust all started from 1933 when the Nazis gained power of Germany as Hitler became Furher. The Nuremburg Laws were passed meaning Jews couldn't access some parks, sports centres and German Schools. 
• This then lead to 1938, when Kristallnacht occurred, where Nazis and German people raided Jewish businesses.
• But, after 1939 is when it got real bad for the Jews of Europe. Genocide was adopted, and many handicapped Germans were killed. 1941 saw the invasion of the Soviet Union, where the Einzatgruppen began to shoot Jews from all ages. However, the inefficiency of this lead to the formation of death camps, where they were killed in gas chambers. 
• Even though the main priority was Jews, other 'undesireables' were killed in the camps in gas chambers to get them out of society. 

Table for the sources

German Victories in WW2

Operation White: Poland

• The attack on Poland occurred on 1st September 1939, in which Germany used Blitzkrieg to tear through the Polish defenses seeing Poland surrender by the end of the month.
• The new German mentality and tactics helped them win many battles during the war, due to countries like Poland maintain a WW1 mentality.
• Following and during the campaign in Poland, the Einzatgruppen killed over 1.3 million Jews, which followed the 2 million Jews already obtained by the invasion. 
• Ghettos were built in places such as Warsaw to contain the Jews, in which conditions were terrible leading to disease, starvation and death. 

The Soviet-German War

• The war which was meant to last a few months but eventually became a few years, saw the death of 27 million Soviet men.
• In 1940, the German felt confident in their previous victories leading to Operation Barbarossa taking place ahead of schedule.
• The decision by Hitler to go to war with the Soviet Union was down the fact that it was the heart of Communist and Jewish power. In the following weeks after invasion, the firing squad of the SS had killed over 500,000 people. At this time, there were Jews starving in ghettos in Poland and other areas and alongside victories in the West, the Germans obtained a lot more Jews. In May-June 1940, the German army conquered France and most of western Europe, bringing more Jews under the control of the Nazis.However, the fall of France offered a new solution in the eyes of the Madagascar Plan, where they would deport the Jews to the island off the coast of Eastern Africa.Eichmann grew this by including all the Jews in Europe.
• This was a radical new step, based on a barbaric vision of uprooting millions of people and sending them off to an island under the control of the SS. This was almost another version of genocide. In the end, no one was sent off to the island due to the control of the seas from the British, leading to a newer plan to be made.
• In the Autumn of 1941, the first death camp was formed in Belzec. This was followed by the gas vans that were created for the further annihilation of the Jewish colony in Europe.