RACIAL POLICIES

Question 1

What was the central belief of the Nazi party?

Answer 1

The idea of a ‘racially pure’ state, which meant the exclusion of some people from the Volksgeminschaft.

Question 2

What were those excluded from the Volksgeminshchaft seen as?

Answer 2

‘Biologically inferior’ or sub-human.

Question 3

Why were the racial policies not at the centre of voters beliefs?

Answer 3

Many of those who had voted for the Nazis had not done so because of their racial policies but because of issues such as unemployment or fear of communism.

Question 4

Why did some Germans believe that the Jews deserved to be legally discriminated against?

Answer 4

They accepted some of the Nazis’ arguments that Jews had been to blame for Germany’s defeat in WW1 or that they were making vast profits while ordinary Germans suffered from the Depression.

Question 5

What did Nazi propaganda state about the Jews?

Answer 5

That mixing with sub-humans had weakened the German race and that to achieve racial purity their removal was required.

Question 6

How did violence against Jews begin in the Third Reich?

Answer 6

Violence from members of the SA against individual Jews and their property.

Question 7

In order to control violence between the SA and the Jews, what did Hitler announce?

Answer 7

A one-day boycott of Jewish businesses on 1st April. However, this boycott was not popular.

Question 8

How did Hitler attempt to appease radical anti-semitism in the party at the beginning?

Answer 8

By expelling Jews from the civil service, universities and journalism.

Question 9

What did the Night of the Long Knives do within the party?

Answer 9

Removed some of the radical elements, anti-semitism.

Question 10

What had happened by the summer of 1935?

Answer 10

There was further widespread violence against Jews and local party activists wanted further measures taken against them.

Question 11

What was Hitler concerned about when party members became more radical?

Answer 11

That the regime was losing support at home and that attacks on Jews would negatively affect international opinion.

Question 12

What did Hitler announce in the summer of 1935?

Answer 12

Measures to regularise the status of Jews in Germany by removing citizenship rights.

Question 13

What did the removal of citizenship rights ensure?

Answer 13

That anti-semitism became more embedded in German society and led to Jews being increasingly discriminated against.

Question 14

What and when was the first law against Jews passed?

Answer 14

April 1933.

Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.

Question 15

What was the set of laws passed in September 1935?

Answer 15

The Nuremberg Race Laws.

Question 16

What did Göring want to implement in 1938?

Answer 16

Confiscation of Jewish assets to help pay for rearmament.

Question 17

What growing pressures led up to the Night of Broken Glass?

Answer 17

Growing nationalist feelings within the country encouraged by the Anschluss.
Increasing likelihood of war and the view of the Jews being ‘the enemy within’.

Question 18

When was the Night of Broken glass?

Answer 18

9-10th November 1938.

Question 19

What did the attacks on the Night of Broken Glass result in?

Answer 19

The destruction of Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues. Death of over 100 Jews and 20,000 taken to concentration camps.

Question 20

What can the Night of Broken Glass be seen as?

Answer 20

A turning point in the treatment of Jews.

Question 21

How many Jews left within six months under Adolf Eichmann?

Answer 21

45,000

Question 22

When did the fate of the Jews become clear?

Answer 22

From November 1938.

Question 23

Which other group (excluding the Jews) was a target of Nazi persecution? Why?

Answer 23

Gypsies.

Viewed as outsiders, non-Aryan and work-shy and thus did not fit the Nazi ideal.

Question 24

What happened to gypsies in 1939?

Answer 24

With the outbreak of war, 30,000 were deported to special sites in Poland.

Question 25

What was the name of the sterilisation law passed in 1933? Who did it target?

Answer 25

The Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring. Allowed ‘simple-minded’, ‘chronic alcoholics’ and sufferers of mental and physical health problems.

Question 26

What happened to homosexual men in Nazi Germany?

Answer 26

Homosexuality was already illegal, however, with the establishment of a department within the Gestapo, some 50,000 were arrested.

Question 27

By 1936, which groups had been sent to concentration camps?

Answer 27

The work-shy, tramps, beggars, prostitutes, homosexuals and juvenile delinquents.

Question 28

What campaign was also launched in 1939?

Answer 28

Euthanasia campaign.