The Holocaust: History in an Hour

That many Jews still considered themselves German and integrated in spite of such prejudices is demonstrated by the fact that 100,000 Jews served the Fatherland between 1914 and 1918, with 12,000 dying for their country during the conflict. In the years following the First World War, these statistics were often conveniently forgotten by right-wing nationalists.

Early Warnings (#ufe5688c7-dd84-5d84-9270-da3db646e5f5)

On 11 November 1918, an armistice brought the First World War to a close. In the aftermath of the conflict Germany plunged into an economic depression, partly due to the unfavourable terms of the Versailles peace treaty. Among many politically right-wing Germans, a rumour was propagated that Jews and Bolsheviks were to blame for the loss of the war. In February 1920, the German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or DAP), which would later become the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NSDAP), drew up a programme that included a declaration that Jews should not be citizens of Germany. Among the men who drafted this manifesto was Adolf Hitler.

Hitler, an Austrian by birth, had fought for Germany in the First World War and was bitterly disappointed when his beloved nation did not emerge victorious. His political views verged on the radical and he was a firm believer in the Dolchstosslegende; the ‘stab-in-the-back legend’ that the Jewish population had somehow betrayed the Fatherland in the closing days of the war. He became leader of the NSDAP in 1921.

While in prison in 1924, following a failed attempt to overthrow the government, Hitler began writing Mein Kampf. This autobiographical work, first published in 1925, showcased his obsession with racial purity and outlined his virulent anti-Semitism, with Jews referred to throughout the text in derogatory terms such as vermin and parasites. Whether this was a blueprint for the mass exterminations that took place in the 1940s is debatable, but Hitler’s stance on the Jews was clear: he believed their presence posed a threat to Germany and was a problem to be solved by radical means.

Hitler in Power: The Tide Turns (#ufe5688c7-dd84-5d84-9270-da3db646e5f5)

As the 1920s progressed, Germany slowly began to climb out of the economic depression that had engulfed the nation in the aftermath of the First World War, aided by short-term loans from America. The Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929, however, rendered Germany economically unstable once again, as America halted its financial assistance.

Hitler resumed his role in the NSDAP following his release from prison. The Nazis won just twelve seats in the Reichstag (German parliament) in 1928; however, by 1932 the political environment was significantly more volatile and they gained 230 seats after the summer elections, around 40 per cent of the vote. Six million Germans were unemployed by 1932 and the desperate situations in which they and many others found themselves led to increased support for the NSDAP, who promised major reforms that would return the nation to greatness and prosperity.

On 30 January 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. In August 1934 he named himself Führer, merging the roles of chancellor and president. The title adopted for the German empire and regime under Nazi governance was the Third Reich (the First and Second German Reichs had ended in 1806 and 1918 respectively). While the Nazis had played down their anti-Semitic policies during the election campaigns, within months of Hitler assuming power it became evident that Jews would not be treated favourably within this new system.

Under Hitler’s orders, a nation-wide boycott of Jewish shops and businesses took place on 1 April 1933. The Star of David, a symbol of Judaism, was daubed on windows and doors of Jewish-owned premises and Nazi Storm Troopers (the Sturm Abteilung, or SA) were positioned outside these businesses to discourage shoppers from entering.

Nazi Stormtroopers hold placards that state ‘Germans defend yourselves! Don’t buy from Jews!’ on 1 April 1933

Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-14469 / CC-BY-SA

Many German citizens ignored this boycott, but it was merely the beginning of the Nazi campaign against the Jews. Less than a week later, legislation was passed that forbade Jews from holding positions in the civil service. By the end of April many Jewish doctors and lawyers were also prohibited from working and Jewish children were facing segregation in schools.

It was not only Jews whom the Nazis turned against in 1933. People who were politically opposed to the regime began to be imprisoned in Dachau, the first concentration camp built in the Third Reich. Dachau was administered by the Schutzstaffel (SS), an elite police corps led by Heinrich Himmler. Among those subject to discrimination were Jehovah’s Witnesses, who refused to swear allegiance to Hitler, and homosexuals, who were considered subversive and a threat to a high birth rate.

Literature deemed un-German was destroyed in public book burnings, the biggest of which took place in Berlin on 10 May 1933. Tomes by Jewish authors were among those thrown in the flames, as were socialist, Communist and American works. A nineteenth-century German-Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, wrote in the early 1820s, ‘where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people’. Heine’s work was among that condemned to the bonfires and within the next decade, his cautionary prophecy would prove devastatingly accurate.

The Nuremberg Laws (#ulink_a498784f-dca5-5ed4-ad7d-f3ed4f9cb129)

Progressively more discriminatory legislation was passed against Jews in Germany throughout the first two years of Nazi rule, mainly restricting their public rights. The Nuremberg Laws of September 1935, however, went still further in alienating the Jewish population from mainstream society and even dictated on private matters such as relationships.

Under these laws, a system was devised that defined whether a person was Jewish according to their ancestry, rather than their religious beliefs and practices. Anybody with at least three Jewish grandparents, or with just two Jewish grandparents but who was religious or married to a Jew, was deemed wholly Jewish under Nazi law. Everyone categorized as such was stripped of their citizenship, disenfranchised, and forbidden to marry or to have sexual liaisons with non-Jews.

Chart showing the Nuremberg Laws

The Nuremberg Laws also determined who was a Mischling, or part-Jew. Two Jewish grandparents made you a first degree Mischling, while one Jewish grandparent resulted in a second degree categorization. These definitions meant that over 1.5 million people in Germany were considered either full Jews or Mischlinge in 1935 – approximately 2.3 per cent of the population. Many people who had never practised Judaism and who considered themselves ethnically German were now declared members of a supposedly inferior, non-German racial group.

Racial Propaganda (#ulink_fed65829-1636-5f24-8505-46d82a630126)

Alongside persecutory laws, the Nazis promulgated their hatred of the Jews through numerous propaganda channels, which were utilized to ingrain the idea of a universal Jewish enemy in the minds of gentile Germans.

The underlying anti-Semitism that had increased after the First World War was now nurtured and encouraged by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister. Jews were not only blamed for Germany’s defeat in 1918 but became scapegoats for all the ills that had befallen the nation since the armistice. An international Jewish conspiracy was deemed a perpetual threat to Germany’s status in Europe and the recent financial hardship was linked to Jewish business owners, who, according to the Nazis, cheated their customers.

Derogatory cartoons appeared in newspapers such as Der Stürmer and in school textbooks, with captions that stated ‘Jews are our misfortune’ or ‘Jews are not wanted here’. In stark contrast to this twisted prejudice against Jewry was the emphasis on the supremacy of the pure-blooded, Aryan master race. While propaganda images of Jews depicted furtive-looking caricatures with stereotypically Jewish features, campaigns promoting the racial superiority of ethnic Germans employed pictures of blonde-haired, blue-eyed humans in peak physical fitness.

Anti-Semitic propaganda in Worms, 1933

Bundesarchiv, Bild 133-075 / CC-BY-SA

Such nationalistic pride became intrinsically linked to racism and was also manifested in organizations such as the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls, which became obligatory for young Germans from 1936. All members had to prove their racial purity and were thereafter moulded into fledgling National Socialists. State-controlled education and physical training programmes impressed upon Germany’s youth the superiority of their nation and culture, the importance of upholding Aryan glory, and the inferiority of other races. An entire generation was indoctrinated and mobilized against purported enemies of the state through Nazi youth movements and the propaganda machine.

Anti-Semitic films, including The Eternal Jew (1940), also drew on nationalistic themes, with frequent cuts between footage of Jews and footage of rats enforcing the notion of Jews as societal parasites. Other propaganda films alluded to Darwinism and the ‘survival of the fittest’ theory, showing weaker creatures inevitably being killed by stronger species in the natural struggle for dominance. In one such film a student observes that the animal kingdom has ‘a proper racial policy’. The idea that breeding practices should be extended to humans in order to weed out supposedly degenerate factions was a stalwart of Nazi ideology which would, as the 1930s progressed, lead to violent discrimination against homosexuals and the mentally and physically ill, as well as Jews.

A fleeting reprieve in the negativity directed at the Jewish community came during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, as the Nazis did not want to attract international criticism about the treatment of Jews in the Third Reich. Throughout the Games, anti-Semitic propaganda was minimized, but almost all Jewish athletes were nevertheless prohibited from competing in the German team. Among those unable to represent her country was Gretel Bergmann, who had equalled a German high jump record only one month previously. With the close of the Berlin Olympics, the open tirade against Germany’s Jewish population resumed.

Kristallnacht (#ulink_68c4d8d3-6e22-55d4-b396-92c369ff8c60)

Hitler had never made any secret of his desire for Lebensraum: living space for the German people. Nineteen thirty-six saw the remilitarization of the Rhineland, and in March 1938 the Anschluss (union) of Germany and Austria was announced. Once under Nazi control, it became increasingly difficult for Jews in these territories to lead lives that were not tainted by anti-Semitic persecution.

The Austrian Jewish community was subjected to appalling treatment in the immediate aftermath of the Anschluss. Anti-Semitism was already common in Austria, but discrimination now escalated as many Jews were forced to scrub pavements with toothbrushes, while others were humiliated by being made to crudely hack off their beards. Such public degradation was a forewarning of the suffering that would soon engulf Jews across Europe, and in November 1938 the situation was dramatically exacerbated.

On 7 November in Paris, a young Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan shot and fatally wounded Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat. In retribution for vom Rath’s death, Goebbels instigated an anti-Jewish pogrom across Germany. Such was the ferocity of the pogrom that the night of 9–10 November, on which it took place, became known as Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass.

Nearly two-thirds of Jewish businesses in Germany had been Aryanized (transferred to gentile ownership) by April 1938, but well over 7,000 Jewish-owned stores were nevertheless pillaged throughout Kristallnacht, the shattered glass from their windows covering the streets. One hundred and ninety-one synagogues were destroyed, many burned to the ground, and around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps. Many were only detained temporarily in Dachau, Sachsenhausen or Buchenwald, but the Nazi precedent of rounding up and deporting people en masse had been set.

A synagogue burns on Kristallnacht

The material damage perpetrated on Kristallnacht was enormous, and to add insult to injury the Jewish community was declared liable and ordered to pay a fine of 1 billion Reichsmarks to the treasury. Physical violence was also rife and ninety-one Jews were killed on 9–10 November, although the ultimate death toll was significantly higher: fearing that subsequent persecution on a similar or worse scale was inevitable, many Jews committed suicide in the months following Kristallnacht, thereby becoming indirect victims of the pogrom.

The Approach of War (#ulink_a442e871-2f24-55ac-bf27-d76a329d42c6)

Thousands of Jews had left Germany before Kristallnacht due to increasing intolerance, but the unprecedented violence of 9–10 November prompted another wave of immigration. Some left for neighbouring countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium or France, while those with the good fortune to be permitted entry to America journeyed across the Atlantic. The Nazis had no objections to Jews leaving; indeed, in 1938 Adolf Eichmann established an Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna which ultimately forced 145,000 Austrian Jews to leave the Reich.

Outraged by Kristallnacht, the British Jewish Refugee Committee facilitated the Kindertransport programme, whereby thousands of Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland were evacuated on sealed trains to Britain. These children were among 320,000 Jews who fled Nazi-controlled territories to build new lives elsewhere between January 1933 and September 1939.

For those Jews who did not or could not leave, numerous decrees that had been passed since the Nazis came to power meant they were continuously segregated, restricted and demeaned. All Jewish passports were stamped with a conspicuous red ‘J’, and the middle names ‘Israel’ for men and ‘Sara’ for women had to be adopted as a further mark of identification. Landlords had the legal right to evict Jewish tenants, young Jews could not attend state schools, and places of entertainment such as the theatre and cinema were forbidden. Over 400 decrees that discriminated against Jews in the Third Reich were ultimately passed by the Nazis.

As anti-Semitic persecution in Germany continued, the probability of continued peace in Europe was fading rapidly because of Hitler’s determination to further extend his empire. Already the Führer had pushed his luck, with the Rhineland remilitarization, the Anschluss, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939; but when Nazi troops invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, it was finally a step too far. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany.

With the outbreak of war, the borders closed. Jews could no longer freely leave Nazi-governed countries and the Kindertransport programme came to an end. Around 10,000 Jewish children had arrived safely in Britain, but most of these evacuees would never see their parents or wider families again. Hitler’s territorial ambitions had ignited a conflict that would last until 1945 and that would result in the genocide of millions.

Forced Resettlement (#ulink_209cdc56-071d-5175-babc-b3092be82b3d)

From the late 1930s, senior Nazis had discussed the possibility of completely expelling the Jewish population from Germany, thus ridding the nation of the perceived threat that Jews posed to German hegemony. The Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration, based on Eichmann’s Austrian model, was established to ensure areas of the country became judenfrei: purged of Jews. Where the expelled Jews would go, however, was another matter, one on which the outbreak of war impacted greatly.

One location suggested for Jewish resettlement was Madagascar, which was under French colonial rule. Although France fell to Nazi Germany in the summer of 1940, continued fighting with Britain rendered the African island an impossible option on which to establish a Jewish colony. Some German Jews had emigrated to Palestine during the 1930s, but the ongoing conflict now made further emigration impractical.

Instead, attention turned to Poland, home to over 3 million Jews who, following the invasion, were under Nazi control in the west and Soviet control in the east. These Jews were generally more Orthodox and less assimilated than those in Germany, as they often spoke Yiddish and wore traditional dress.

Large parts of north and west Poland were immediately incorporated into the Third Reich after the outbreak of war, forming a greater Germany. Huge numbers of Jews and Poles from these areas were then forcibly moved from their homes so that Lebensraum would become available for ethnic Germans from other parts of the Reich. The Slavic peoples of Poland and Eastern Europe were, like Jews, considered Untermenschen by the Nazis: racially inferior subhumans.

Arrest and transport of Jews in Poland, September 1939

Bundesarchiv, Bild 101l-380-0069-33 / Lifta / CC-BY-SA

The initial destination of these displaced people was the Generalgouvernement, an area under civil administration situated in central and southern Poland, between the Soviet and Nazi occupied zones. The Nazis transferred an estimated 1 million people to the Generalgouvernement in the early years of the Second World War. From 1 December 1939, all Jews over the age of 10 who lived in this area had to wear a white armband bearing a blue Star of David, making them immediately identifiable. While Poles relocated to the Generalgouvernement were often subsequently assigned labour tasks, Jews were increasingly crowded into designated areas of towns and cities where they were segregated from non-Jewish society: ghettos.