chapter nineteen Flashcards
Anschluss with Austria was banned under
treaty of versailles
when was Anschluss achieved
march 1938
Anschluss was a
’ bloodless victory ‘
was welcomed by Austrians
by 9138 what was hitler growing confidence in
that germany was ready for war
what was hitlers next target after austria
Czechoslovakia
march 1939 achieved
success in occupation of Czechoslovakia
august 1939 Nazi Germany and ussr signed the
nazi-soviet pact
ussr agreed to not oppose the invasion of Poland
when was the invanison of Poland
1st September 1939
what did the invasion of Poland lead to
war between germany and Britain and france two days later
by late 1937 the four year plan was beginning to
improve the economic and military situation in gemrnay
schacht - economic policy
Blomberg and Fritsch - military
what happened to schacht and Blomberg and Fritsch
swept aside and the balance of power in the regime shifted towards more radical elements in the nazi party
schacht had argued strongly against radical anti semitism in the economic field as
he did not want to alienate foreign economic investors
Goring in charge of the four year plan did not care about foreign opinion and was determined to
removed Jews from business as soon as possible
the occupation of Austria in march 1938 led to a rapid acceleration of the economic campaign against jews as the nazis in Austria were
allowed to act against jews with our constraint
- prompting goring to make more radical action in germnay itself
in April 1938 the decree of registration of jewish property provided for the
consification of all jewish owned property worth more than 5000 marks
this decree was the starting point for the
aryansiation of jewish property and business
in April 1938 there were roughly 40,000 jewish owned business in germany , a year later only around
8000 had avoided being closed down or aryanised
further legislation banned Jews from work as travelling salesmen , security guards , travel agents and estate agents
around x jewish travelling salesman lost their jobs
30,000
from October 1938 the passports of German jews had to be
stamped with a large ‘ J’
the increasing number of unemployed and poor jews depended completley on the
charities set up by the jewish community such as the central institution for jewish economic aid
the drive to make jews easily identifiable and at the same time strip them of their individuality led to a new law in 1939 compelling
all jewish men to adopt the additional first name of ‘Israel’ all jewish women took the additional first name ‘Sarah’
At this stage Hitler turned down the suggestion of making all jews wear a yellow star in public - this did not come into practice until
1941
between 1933 and 1938 jews in germany were subjected to increasing
pressure of persecution through anti semetic legislation propaganda and the growing power of the police state
for many jews they could still carry on a normal existence however this was changed on
Reichkristallnacht 9-10 November 1938
in Reichkristallnacht Jewish homes and businesses were looted and vandalised , further more
synagogues were set on fire and thousands of jews week arrested beaten uo and killed
the Reichkristallnacht program can be viewed as an
uncontrolled outpouring of anti semetic feeling amongst radical elements of the nazi party supported by German public opinion
propganda portrayed Reichkristallnacht sd
” the national soul has boiled over “
In the days after the program goring was given a co ordinating role of
’ sorting otu ‘
Reichkristallnaht was orchestrated by the Nazi leadership and the majority of those involved in the violence and vandalism were
SA and SS men who had been instructed not to wear uniforms
Nazis seized the opportunity to act out based on the premise that
Ernst Vom Rath on 9th Nov was killed
Rath was a minor German official in Paris who was killed by Grynzspan a young polish Jew angry at the regimes treatment of his parents
the chief instigator of the program was Goebbels he gave institutions to nazi officials in the regions to organise the violence and vanaldism but was
careful to make it appear that it was not orchestrated by the nazi party
the fifteenth anniversary of the 1923 Munich putsch was on the 9th November and Goebbes hoped to
please hitler by making the occasion with a spectacular event
in the violence 91 jews were killed and thousands injured , there was
looting of cash , silver , jewellery and works of art
damage to shops and businesses amounted to millions of marks
much of the vandalism was destructive not for gain
orders from the SS directed the police not to intervene against the demonstrators they were ordered instead to place
20,000-30,000 Jews in preventive detention
the firebridgades watched and did nothing only concern was to stop fire from
spreading to other buildings
the anti jewish violence of November 1938 was not received with universal approval in gemrnay , some ordinary citizens joined in
the violence looking alongside the SA thugs who were equipped with crowbars hammers axes and petrol bombs
many germans were horrified by the destruction in Leipzig the American consul reported that
silent crowds of local people were ‘benumbed and aghast’ at the sight of the burned out synagogues and the looted shops the next morning
in Hamburg a young mother witnessed similar crowds with murmours of “ schlimm,schlimm” (terrible)
a British official in berlin claimed
’ he had not met a single German from any walk of life who does not dissaprove to some degree of what has occured’
from the early days of the nazi movement hitler had spoke of making
Germany Judenfrei
or jew free
from the late 1938 until the autumn of 1941 emigration was seen as the
’ solution to the jewish problem ‘ by the nazi leadership
in 1933 , 37,00 Jews voluntarily left Germany including many
leading scientists and cultral figures such as Albert Einstein
Einstein described the German people as having
” psychic illness of the masses “
overall between march 1933 and November 1938 x amount of jews left germany voluntarily
150,000
the situation was made more agonising as Jews debated leaving germany but also faced
the threat of confiscation of their assets
the nazis were also willing to encourage zionists to emigrate to Palestine however
it was under British rule , majority of German jews were not zionsists and did not choose this option
most German jews , particularly the older generation , felt thoroughly German and wanted to stay , many jews believed that
nazi persecution was just another example of a surge of anti semitism
hitlers aim of making German jew feee was not striaghtforward as it was hard to find countries that were
willing to accept large numbers of jews
even Palestine could only receive limited numbers of jews as many had begun to raise their limit on jewish immigration
many jews after Reichkristalnact desperatley sought safe refuge from the obvious dangers they faced in germnay , jewish parents were particularly keen to get their children to safe countries ie
9000 jewish children were sent to Britain in 1938-9
after Anschluss in 1938 Heydrich used Austria as a laboratory for developing SS policy , the central office for jewish emmigration was set up with the task if promoting
emmigration ‘ by every possible means ‘
goring claims to have jurisdiction over jewish affairs were bypassed , the SD set about amalgamating all jewish organisations into a single
’ reich association of the jews in germany ‘
the reich association of jews in germany was modelled on methods used in
Austria by the SS emigration expert Eichmann in 1938
this system suited the nazis because organisational difficulties had to be dealt with by the jews themselves
the situation changed with the outbreak of the war in sept 1939 , the German conquest of
western Poland provided the regime with new terrortories in which jews could be settled , also Brough many more jews under regimes control
the emphasis moved away from forced emigration to deportations and the
‘resettlement of jews’
from sept 1939 nazi policies were shaped by war , anti semitism had become more blatant and extreme by 1938 but it was the war that
brought about the final radicalisation of race policies
war provided the regime with
- a national emergency enabling dictatorial power and in greater secrecy
- a propaganda machine to whip up patriotism and hatred of germanys enemies
- a way for the germanisation of the occupied terrortoies in Poland and a jew free nazi empire
the conquest of Poland carved the county up into three separate ares
eastern Poland occupied by ussr , in accordance with nazi-soviet pact august 1939
western parts of Poland incorporated into the German reich and in control of nazi vaulters
area in between designated ‘ general government ; of Poland under a nazi governor Hans Frank
the nazi master plan was to create
Lebensraum for ethnic germans by deriving poles and jews out of west Prussia and the Warthegau so that the ‘ empty lands’ could be completely germanised
however the conquest of Poland also increased the number of jews under nazi control , according to the census in Poland in 1931 there were
3,115,000 jews in Poland of whim 1,901,000 (61%) were in the territory occupied by germnay at the end of 1939
polish jews were diffrent from assimilated jews in germnay they were in the main poor and more orthodox , in appearance they fitted the
nazi stereotype of racially inferior untermenschen
the nazis intended to use the general government district as a dumping ground for poles and jews displaced from
areas that were to be colonised by ethnic Germans
at the end of septebmeber hitler informed Rosenberg his minster for the eastern occupied terrorise that all jews including those from the reich were to be moved
to the area between the river Vistula and the river bug
on the same day Hedrick reported that
” in the ares between Warsaw and Lublin “ a reservation of a reich ghetto was established to contain the deported poles and jews
the nazi deliberately intended conditions in such reservation to be so bad that
most of the people moved their would die
in October 1939 the gestapo chief Muller instructed Eichmann to arrange the deportation of
70,000 - 80,000 Jews from the district of Katowice in Germanised Poland Eichmamn quickly expanded this to include Czech Jews from the Reich protectorate off Bohemia-Moravia
Hitler further demanded the deportation of 300,000 Jews from Germnay and the removal of
all jews from Vienna
The idea of removing Europes jews to the island of Madagascar was first proposed by
French anti semites in late 1930’s
between November 1939 and February 1940 the SS attempted to deport
one million people eastwards
550,000 were jews
- transported to general government where they faced terrible conditions
foreign ministrys department for internal German affairs proposed that the island of Madagascar should be taken away from france to become
a German mandate
Vichy France would be responsible for resettling the French population there of approx 25,000 so as to make Madagascar avaiable for
a ‘ solution to the ‘ jewish question ‘
the nazis planned to send 4 million Jews to Madagascar , in the first phase farmers construction workers and artisans up to the age of 45 would be send out
to get the island ready for the first mass influx of jews
- the sale of jewish property would cover the first cost
since 1936 SS experts at the Reich security head office led by Eichmann had been working on schemes for Mac emigration go jews to
palestine
Huge practical problems about Palestine :
it was a small territory
under British rule
practalcities of Madagascar compared to Palestine :
larger territory
far away
no political problems
in the late summer and early autumn of 1940 when the Madagascar plan seemed viable ; germanys failure to end the war with Britain either by military victory or peace meant that
the British Royal Navy would be able to disrupt the mass transportation of jews by sea to madagscar
by October 1940 germnay was planning for operation Barbarossa thus
the Madagascar plan was shelved in favour of the plan to send Europes jews into Siberia ‘ East of Urals’ once the conquest of the USSR was complete
the Madagscar plan arguably shows the regimes plans to exterminate all jews was not yet apparent however
it also arguable the sending of jews to Madagascar was to inevitably kill them through bad conditions
