HOLOCAUST A NIGHTMARE IN HISTORY

ADOLPH HITLER Average student Finished high school w/out diploma Tried to become an artist Entered politics Evil genius Formed National Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazis)

What drove Hitler? Win territory and power for Germany Set of racial beliefs Read the first bullet as it is He believed Germans were pure-blooded and superior, a master race that should rule the world.

Why read about the Holocaust? Extermination as Official Policy The Weight of Numbers: The Holocaust Balance Sheet The Human Element Understanding the Past Discovering Responsibility This was an official government policy. No other policy by a government has been carried out on such a scale. It is the largest loss of human life ever suffered by any one people. Not only Jews were killed but also Gypsies. The Nazis said the Gypsies were racially inferior and deserved to die. The Slavs, mentally retarded, the insane, the physically deformed and enemies of the German nation were killed as well. Each person was a unique individual with special hopes, wishes, feelings, and needs; with parents, friends and relatives. Scholars who study the Holocaust would like to ensure that nothing like it can happen again. Germany started the most destructive war in history. The German government did all these things and the German people were silent.

No matter what a group, an army or a government may do decisions are made and actions are taken by individuals who then bear the responsibility for them. After World War II, this, above all, was recognized as the message of the Holocaust.

Consolidating Power: Anti-Semitism as a tool Germany was now a dictatorship Concentration camps began being set-up The Nazi Party Using the Law Propaganda The Jews as Scapegoats Racism Anti-semitism (sem’i tiz’ em) against, discrimination toward Jews Same as above – Germany was now a dictatorship Many communist and social democratic officials were “concentrated” and held so that they would no longer be a threat to the German Republic. An organized conspiracy against the state. Hitler had his own goal which was to secure power of the state by one means or another. Hitler had his own private army Sturmabteilung (SA) also known as the Brownshirts. A lot of these were men who were criminals. Hitler had his own secret police – Gestapo. Hitler had his own security force – Schutzstaffel (SS) also known as the Blackshirts. This group was at first Hitler’s bodyguards and became an elite corps in charge of security. Hitler wanted to gain power. He knew he had to do it legally that way none of the moderates or leftists could stop him. Hitler Youth: a movement to teach the young that Nazism was the hope of the future. When he became dictator, he had the textbooks rewritten to say that the Jews were the cause of all Germany’s problems, that all Communists were either Jewish or led astray by Jewish ideas, and that only Nazis could protect Germany. Hitler told the people on the radio what they could say. Hitler’s official minister of propaganda told the news papers what they could write. The press and the government taught the German people that they were the greatest race. They were Pure Aryans – large boned, strong muscled with blond hair and blue eyes. A scapegoat is any person or group of people singled out to bear the blame for others. 1920, half a million Jews lived in Germany. 1/3 lived in the capital of Berlin. The idea of racism is that a race determines human abilities and qualities, making some racial groups inferior and some superior. A belief that Jews were a separate “race”, a group with inherited qualities. A belief that these qualities were wicked, ignorable, and inferior.

Did Hitler believe what he preached? It seems probable that by the end of his life, Hitler came to believe his own propaganda.

Works Cited Chaikin, Miriam. A Nightmare in History: The Holocaust 1933-1945. New York: Clarion Books, 1987 Rossel, Seymour, The Holocaust. Franklin Watts, 1981