Anti Semitism 1919-1930

Question 1

Hopes for assimilation

Answer 1

• Jews felt that they had a good future to look forward to
• Liberal democracy provided greater legal protections
• Jews would be able to play an influential role
• Economical and social success
• Believed that the next generation would do better.
• Economic prosperity and political stability

Question 2

Fears of assimilation

Answer 2

• Suicide and divorce rates doubles- so was the incidence of clinical depression
• Uncertainty about how to respond to anti-semitism
• Zionists tried to fight back by emphasising Jewish cultural traditions
• Anti-Semitism remained of the fringes of society and politics
• Economic depression was blamed on Jews

Question 3

Zionist opinion on assimilation

Answer 3

Zionists and the Ultra- Orthodox were strongly opposed to assimilation

Question 4

Social Darwinism

Answer 4

• Based on Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection.
• Incorporated in to Nazi ideology

Question 5

Who was Houston Stewart Chamberlain?

Answer 5

• English author

- Argued that Jews were a degenerate, evil race conspiring world domination

Question 6

Joseph Gobineau

Answer 6

• Argued that various races were physically and psychologically different
• Rise and fall of civilisation was determined racially
• All of the high cultures in the world were the work of the Aryan race

Question 7

The Volkish Movement

Answer 7

• Nationalism
• Believed that Germans were the master race
• Hostile to other races

Question 8

Jewish influences

Answer 8

• 1% of the German population was Jewish
  ART AND ARCHITECTURE
• Erich Mendelsohn- Einstein building - most iconic buildings of the Weimar era
• Bauhaus school
• Associated with modernism and expressionism
  PRESS
• 4 Jewish newspapers in Berlin
• 1.8 million in circulation 1930
  FILM
• 1931 over 60% of German films were produced by Jews
• 82% of German film scrips were written by Jews
• Roaring 20s
  BANKING
• Half of all German banks were owned by Jews In the 1920s- this decreased over the years
  PROFESSIONS
• 16% of Lawyers were Jewish
• 11% of doctors were Jewish
• traditionally valued education highly
• mainly upper middle class

Question 9

Assimilation

Answer 9

• Integrating in to German society rather than remaining separate
• Adopting the language, culture and values of mainstream society

Question 10

Jewish Bolshevism

Answer 10

Term used by anti Semites to imply that Jews and communists were closely associated and represented a danger to German values

Question 11

The Sparacus Uprising 1918

Jews and communism

Answer 11

• Communist revolutionary group
• Leaders were Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
• In direct contact with Lenin’s Bolshevik regime in Russia
• Right wingers saw the uprising as ‘Jewish-Bolshevism’ partly because Rosa Luxemburg was Jewish

Question 12

The Freikorps

Answer 12

• Represented a powerful and dangerous military force since the Treaty of Versailles restricted the official German army to 100,00 men
• Large numbers of ex-soldiers kept their weapons and remained together as armed gangs
• No help at all from saving the Republic from right wing threats
• Heavily involved in the Kapp Putsch that tried to overthrow democracy in 1920
• Eventually disbanded as political stability returned
• Many members of the Freikorps drifted in to the Black Reichswehr or the SA

Question 13

Economic Collapse and targeting Jewish politicians and financiers

Answer 13

• World Jewry- Jews wanted to dominate the world
• collapse would allow the communists to come in and take over
• Jews were used as a scapegoat

Question 14

25 point programme of the NSDAP

Answer 14

• Designed to be temporary
• Advertising the Nazi Party
• Established, merely, to increase the discontent of the masses and ensure the continued existence of the party

Question 15

Reichstag elections 1919-1924

Answer 15

• Political developments showed that democratic parties seemed to be struggling to govern Germany effectively
• Anti- republican parties were in a position to do a lot of damage politically
• There was so much political instability that there were two elections in 1924
• No agreement- Government collapsed

Question 16

Reichstag elections of 1928 and 1930

Answer 16

• Nazi party was well established as a national organisation
• NSDAP membership was increasing steadily:- 27,000 in 1925, 49,000 in 1926 and 72,000 in 1927.
• There were legal bans against Hitler speaking in public
• By 1928, Hitler, Strasser and Göbbels had become skilful propagandists.
• Nazi propaganda was striking and colourful
• Nazis were slick in tailoring their message to suit a specific class or area of the country

Question 17

The origins of Hitlers views

Answer 17

• Catholic upbringing in Upper Austria
• Failed artist in Vienna
• Experiences as a soldier during post war years and failed Munich Pustch in 1923
• Mein Kampf 1925, explaining that it was the Munich phase that moulded Hitlers Anti Jewish Obsession
• Recovery of authority as leader of NSDAP after his release from prison
• Political campaign leading to the Nazis making an electoral breakthrough in the Reichstag elections in September 1930

Question 18

25 point party programme of the NSDAP

Answer 18

• Only 2 of the points were specify anti-Jewish
• Point 4 directly demanded the exclusion of all Jews from German citizenship in the grounds of race
• In 1920, these elements were overshadowed by the rest of the revolutionary parts
• By 1930, they had become the core aims of the Nazi movement