Oppression in Nazi Germany

Question 1

when and where were the Nuremburg laws announced?

Answer 1

at the Nazi Party annual rally in Nuremberg in late 1935

Question 2

what was the aim of the Nuremburg laws?

Answer 2

to racially cleanse and protect German people of true ‘Aryan’ descent - marked an escalation in the persecution of the Jews.

Question 3

what was the Reich Citizenship Law?

Answer 3

Nuremburg law stating only ‘ Aryans ’ were Reich citizens. As Jews were considered non-‘Aryan’, this law stripped them of their German citizenship and made them stateless in their own country.

Question 4

who did the Nazis class as ‘jews’? what impact did this have?

Answer 4

• anyone with Jewish ancestors as Jews, even if someone who only had one grandparent who had converted from Judaism to Christianity as a child
• made lots of people who had previously thought not thought of themselves as Jewish, or those who no longer practiced Judaism, potential targets of persecution.

Question 5

what was the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour?

Answer 5

Nuremburg law stating which banned marriages and sexual intercourse between Jews and ‘Aryans’ and forbid employment of ‘Aryan’ women under the age of 45 in Jewish households.

Question 6

when was Kristallnacht?

Answer 6

9– 10 November 1938.

Question 7

what was Kristallnacht?

Answer 7

series of violent anti-Semitic attacks

Question 8

between 1933-38 how many antisemitic laws and decrees were passed?

Answer 8

Over 400

Question 9

why did Kristallnacht start?

Answer 9

in response to the murder of Ernst vom Rath (German official in Paris) who was shot by Herschel Grynszpan (17-year-old Jewish teenager) on 7 November 1938 as the German press widely reported on the attack and vom Rath’s injuries.

Question 10

why and when did Grynszpan shoot vom Rath?

Answer 10

7th November 1938 - to bring the world’s attention to the plight of his family and other Jews affected during the Polen-aktion

Question 11

what was the Polen-aktion?

Answer 11

movement of thousands of Jews in October 1938 by the SS and German police who had been born in Poland but were living in Germany, back to Poland. When the Polish Jews arrived in Poland, Polish guards sent them back to Germany, and they were then stuck between the two borders without food or shelter in difficult conditions

Question 12

when was the Polen-aktion?

Answer 12

october 1938

Question 13

During Kristallnacht, how many businesses had their windows smashed by the SA and Hitler Youth?

Answer 13

Over 7,500

Question 14

as part of Kristallnacht, between 10-16 November how many men were sent to concentration camps?

Answer 14

over 25,000 men were arrested and sent to concentration camps

Question 15

how did Kristallnacht start?

Answer 15

9 Nov - Nazi Party leadership met in a Beer Hall to observe the anniversary of Munich Putsch, Goebbels ordered that all Jewish businesses and synagogues should be destroyed in response to vom Rath’s death and that police should stay away and not interfere with the attacks.

Question 16

what was the response to Kristallnacht?

Answer 16

• very few countries made practical steps to increase their quotas for refugees
• Kindertransport scheme
• large amount of the Jews in Germany became even more desperate to leave, relentlessly attempting to be granted visas to any safe country - some families successful in this despite the tough conditions they faced.
• ~120,000 Jews left Germany between Kristallnacht and WWII, which made escape almost impossible, shutting down most legitimate methods of emigration.

Question 17

what was the kindertransport scheme?

Answer 17

Quaker and Jewish community in Britain secured visas for 10,000 child refugees which was financed privately and not by the British government.

Question 18

why were the Roma persecuted in Nazi Germany?

Answer 18

Nazis believed Roma were ‘non-Aryan’ and an inferior race which had genetically inherited criminal qualities.

Question 19

when was the Reich Central Office for Combating the Gypsy Nuisance est. and who by?

Answer 19

16 May 1938, Himmler

Question 20

what was the function of the Reich Central Office for Combating the Gypsy Nuisance?

Answer 20

centralised efforts to persecute Roma living in the Third Reich.

Question 21

when was the Decree for Combating the Gypsy Plague issued, and who by?

Answer 21

8 December 1938, Himmler

Question 22

what did the Decree for Combating the Gypsy Plague say?

Answer 22

ordered the creation of a nationwide database of all Roma living in the Third Reich which would later be used to round up Roma and put them in forced labour and concentration camps.

Question 23

how were ‘holding camps’ initially explained to the public?

Answer 23

• initially portrayed as a move to clean up inner cities and remove any unauthorised dwellings in municipal areas, which often attracted complaints.

Question 24

what were ‘holding camps’ like?

Answer 24

• most had limited sanitation and were guarded by a police or SS officer
• At this stage, most people were free to enter and leave the camps for work or leisure
• after wwii - rules became stricter, with increased supervision, curfews, and daily head counts of the occupants.
• October 1939, a decree was issued banning the movement of Roma. People in the camps also became subject to compulsory labour.

Question 25

when was the Decree for the Resettlement of the Gypsies issued, and who by?

Answer 25

27 April 1940, Heydrich

Question 26

what was the aim of the Decree for the Resettlement of the Gypsies?

Answer 26

to deport all German Roma from the Reich within one year

Question 27

what happened as a result of the Decree for the Resettlement of the Gypsies?

Answer 27

2500 people deported to the General Government in Poland, before it was suspended in September 1940.

Question 28

in September 1941, what happened to the Austrian Roma who were deported to the Łódź Ghetto?

Answer 28

5000 - many of them died from infection or were murdered.

Question 29

what is the estimated total number of Roma murdered by Nazis?

Answer 29

~200,000-500,000 people

Question 30

why did the nazis believe disabled people couldn’t be part of the volk?

Answer 30

genetically ‘impure’, and a financial burden on the state

Question 31

when was the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring?

Answer 31

14 July 1933

Question 32

what did the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring say?

Answer 32

named 9 disabilities (ranged from severe physical deformity to epilepsy, to chronic alcoholism.) and forced anyone with them to be sterilised

Question 33

how did the Nazis justify the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring?

Answer 33

by saying it would allow Germany to achieve racial purity by limiting future disabled generations - they based this view on eugenic research - In the 1930s, eugenics was widely believed to be a legitimate science, which was popular across the world - helped to legitimise the Nazis’ view.

Question 34

why were gay people persecuted by the nazis?

Answer 34

seen as ‘ a-social ’ – an enemy of the master ‘Aryan’ race - attraction to same gender meant they were not producing children for the Volksgemeinschaft .

Question 35

how did lesbian culture change under the nazis, in contrast to the weimar?

Answer 35

Under Weimar , lesbian culture had flourished, particularly in Berlin with regular lesbian publications (eg Frauenliebe (Women’s Love) & Die Freundin (The Girlfriend)) as well as societies and clubs
- all publications, societies, and clubs of this kind were banned as Goebbels established his Chamber of Culture.

Question 36

how did the lives of lesbians change under the nazis?

Answer 36

• some were either denounced by neighbours or friends or caught by Nazis - arrested and often sent to concentration camps, where they were listed as a-social or political prisoners.
• most lesbians, if willing to conform to the Nazi ideas about women, were able to survive the Nazi period and avoid persecution but were not able to live freely, and were actively subjected to the oppression of their sexuality under the Nazis.

Question 37

how were gay men treated by nazis?

Answer 37

• closed down large majority of the homosexual bars, and shut down any homosexual publications
• arrested gay men and tortured them, forcing them to give up their address books and names of partners in an attempt to create a register of all gay men in Germany.

Question 38

when was Paragraph 175 revised?

Answer 38

28th June 1935

Question 39

what was Paragraph 175?

Answer 39

section of the German Criminal Code which banned homosexual contact

Question 40

what did the revision of Paragraph 175 do?

Answer 40

extended to the concept of ‘criminally indecent activities between men’, which meant that the authorities could then arrest any male suspected on limited or no evidence

Question 41

when were black children in Austria excluded from attending school?

Answer 41

JUNE 1939

Question 42

when were all black children banned from school?

Answer 42

22nd March 1941

Question 43

when was the mass sterilisation of Rhineland children?

Answer 43

1937

Question 44

what was the mass sterilisation of Rhineland children?

Answer 44

• 600-800 children who were the offspring of German women and black French soldiers who had occupied the Rhineland following Germany’s defeat in the First World War.
• seen by the Nazis as a particular biological threat to the German ‘Aryan’ race due to their mixed heritage
• 385 children secretly sterilised, shortly before most of them reached adulthood.