Jewish policy 1938-40

Question 1

Anschluss

Answer 1

-union w/ Austria
-1933-38 Hitler encouraged Nazi groups in Austria to demand union
-March 1938 Austrian govt called a plebiscite to show opposition to union
-March 1938: Ger annexed Austria w/ little opposition from abroad
-April 1938 Anschluss confirmed by another plebiscite

Question 2

Impact of anschluss on Jews

Answer 2

-10% of population had civil rights removed
-harassment of Jews in vienna started one day after the annexation
-Nuremburg Laws applied by May 1938
-500 Jews committed suicide April-May 1938
-over 1500 sent to concentration camps

Question 3

Sudetenland

Answer 3

-Czechoslovakia
-Sept 1938: Hitler demanded that Sudetenland be handed to Ger
-March 1939: Nazis occupied rest of Czechoslovakia

Question 4

Decree of registration of Jewish property

Answer 4

-April 1938
-enabled confiscation of all Jewish property worth more than 5000 marks
-1938 there were 40,000 Jewish business- only 8k by 1939
-further legislation banned jews from being travel agents etc

Question 5

When did passports have to be stamped with a ‘J’?

Answer 5

Oct 1938

Question 6

cause of Reich Kristallnacht

Answer 6

-28th Oct 1938: 17,000 Jews arrested by SS threatened with deportation to Poland
-Jewish 17 year old boy’s parents were affected and he shot someone in German embassy in Paris
-this was used as an excuse for violent attacks against the jews- organised by Goebbels

Question 7

Reich Kristallnacht

Answer 7

-9-10th November 1938
-violence across Germany and Austria, killing hundreds, home and business vandalised, synagogues burned
-1000s sent to camps

Question 8

reaction to Reich Kristallnacht

Answer 8

-voluntary immigration e.g. Albert Einstein
-to: USA, UK (9000 children), Palestine
-countries unwilling to accept them (July 1938- Evian Conference)
-150k voluntarily left Ger 1933-38

Question 9

Controlled emigration

Answer 9

-Central Office for Jewish Emigration set up (Jan 1939)- 45k Austrian jews forced to emigrate
-1939 Heydrich took control of Reich Office for Jewish Emigration
-amalgamated into a single ‘Reich Association of the Jews in Germany’

Question 10

Nazi- Soviet Pact

Answer 10

-Ribbentrop (Ger foreign minister) & Molotov (Russian foreign minister)
-21st August 1939
-allowed Hitler and Stalin to divide up Poland between them
-pragmatic pact

Question 11

invasion of Poland

Answer 11

-1st September 1939
-added 2 mill polish- jews to the Reich
-racial policies became more blatant
-Br/ Fr declared war 3rd sept 1939

Question 12

4 reasons war provided for a radicalisation of racial policy

Answer 12

-1= national emergency
-2= propaganda to increase hatred
-3= new territories under control of SS bureaucracy
-4= excuse for Germanisation of Poland and a ‘jew-free’ reich

Question 13

Jewish policy in Poland

Answer 13

-General Govt Area: controlled by Hans Frank, area for Jews from areas colonised
-‘Reich Ghetto’
-Nov 1939- Feb 1940= SS tried to deport 1 mill Jews eastwards but GGA couldn’t cope

Question 14

Madagascar plan

Answer 14

-send Jews to Madagascar
-Conquest of France (May-June 1940) meant Madagascar under Ger control
-4 mill Jews to be sent
-eventual elimination of Jews by ‘natural wastage’
-Plan shelved after Ger didn’t defeat Br so Royal Navy could disrupt transportation
-Siberia plan created