Nazism and the Rise of Hitler part3 Flashcards
explain hitler’s worldview
Nazi ideology was synonymous with Hitler’s worldview. According
to this there was no equality between people, but only a racial
hierarchy. In this view blond, blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryans
were at the top, while Jews were located at the lowest rung. They
came to be regarded as an anti-race, the arch-enemies of the Aryans.
All other coloured people were placed in between depending upon
their external features. Hitler’s racism borrowed from thinkers like
Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Darwin was a natural scientist
who tried to explain the creation of plants and animals through the
concept of evolution and natural selection. Herbert Spencer later
added the idea of survival of the fittest. According to this idea, only
those species survived on earth that could adapt themselves to
changing climatic conditions. We should bear in mind that Darwin
never advocated human intervention in what he thought was a purely
natural process of selection. However, his ideas were used by racist
thinkers and politicians to justify imperial rule over conquered
peoples. The Nazi argument was simple: the strongest race would
survive and the weak ones would perish. The Aryan race was the
finest. It had to retain its purity, become stronger and dominate the
world.
explain the concept of lebensraum
The other aspect of Hitler’s ideology related to the geopolitical
concept of Lebensraum, or living space. He believed that new territories
had to be acquired for settlement. This would enhance the area of
the mother country, while enabling the settlers on new lands to retain
an intimate link with the place of their origin. It would also enhance
the material resources and power of the German nation.
describe desriable and undesirables in germany
Once in power, the Nazis quickly began to implement their dream
of creating an exclusive racial community of pure Germans by
physically eliminating all those who were seen as ‘undesirable’ in the extended empire. Nazis wanted only a society of ‘pure and healthy
Nordic Aryans’. They alone were considered ‘desirable’. Only they
were seen as worthy of prospering and multiplying against all others
who were classed as ‘undesirable’. This meant that even those Germans
who were seen as impure or abnormal had no right to exist. Under
the Euthanasia Programme, Helmuth’s father along with other Nazi
officials had condemned to death many Germans who were considered
mentally or physically unfit.
who all were seen as undesirable
Jews were not the only community classified as ‘undesirable’. There
were others. Many Gypsies and blacks living in Nazi Germany were
considered as racial ‘inferiors’ who threatened the biological purity
of the ‘superior Aryan’ race. They were widely persecuted. Even
Russians and Poles were considered subhuman, and hence undeserving
of any humanity. When Germany occupied Poland and parts of
Russia, captured civilians were forced to work as slave labour. Many
of them died simply through hard work and starvation.
explain the situation of poland
Under the shadow of war, the Nazis proceeded to realise their
murderous, racial ideal. Occupied Poland was divided up. Much of north-western
Poland was annexed to Germany. Poles were forced to leave their
homes and properties behind to be occupied by ethnic Germans
brought in from occupied Europe. Poles were then herded likecattle in the other part called the General Government, the
destination of all ‘undesirables’ of the empire. Members of the Polish
intelligentsia were murdered in large numbers in order to keep the
entire people intellectually and spiritually servile. Polish children
who looked like Aryans were forcibly snatched from their mothers
and examined by ‘race experts’. If they passed the race tests they
were raised in German families and if not, they were deposited in
orphanages where most perished. With some of the largest ghettos
and gas chambers, the General Government also served as the killing
fields for the Jews.
Jews remained the worst sufferers in Nazi Germany. explain
Nazi hatred of
Jews had a precursor in the traditional Christian hostility towards
Jews. They had been stereotyped as killers of Christ and
usurers.Until medieval times Jews were barred from owning land.
They survived mainly through trade and moneylending. They lived
in separately marked areas called ghettos. They were often persecuted
through periodic organised violence, and expulsion from the land.
However, Hitler’s hatred of Jews was based on pseudoscientific
theories of race, which held that conversion was no solution to
‘the Jewish problem’. It could be solved only through their
total elimination.
From 1933 to 1938 the Nazis terrorised, pauperised and segregated
the Jews, compelling them to leave the country. The next phase,
1939-1945, aimed at concentrating them in certain areas and eventually
killing them in gas chambers in Poland
