Racial State Part 1: Policies Towards The Untermensch Flashcards
What were the three distinct phases in the development of the Nazi regime?
- Phase one: The legal revolution, 1933-34. Hitler depended on political allies. Hitler could not completely prevent the radical SA’s violence. He consolidated his power by legal means.
- Phase two: Creating the New Germany, 1934-37. By August 1934 the regime was secure, but Hitler still do not have a free hand. He worried about public opinion both at home and abroad. One example of this was the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936. Before and during the Games, Nazi anti-Semitism was put under wraps while Nazi propaganda projected the image of Germany as a civilised society. Between 1934 and 1937, Hitler avoided confronting powerful groups like the army or the Churches. He also knew that Germany was not ready for war.
- Phase three: The radicalisation of the State, 1938-39. By the end of 1937, the Nazi Regime was far stronger than in 1933. The economy had recovered. The SS completely controlled the police system. Hitler felt Germany was militarily ready for war. In 1938 and 1939, therefore, the Nazis took bold steps they would not have dared to take earlier. Hitler took control of the army, sacking its two most important commanders, Bloomberg and Fritsch. He also let loose radical persecution of his ‘radical enemies’.
What was Social Darwinism?
Social Darwinists adapted Darwin’s scientific principals of natural biological selection to rather unscientific theories about human society in order to justify ideas of racial superiority and the theory of eugenics. In late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Social Darwinists put forward theories designed to justify European imperialism, by arguing that ‘advanced’ Europeans had the right to rule over ‘inferior’ or ‘backward’ colonial peoples.
How was Social Darwinism implemented into Nazi policy?
In Sweden, there was an influential group of scientists seeking to eliminate disabilities through population planning and birth control.
Hitler’s obsession with this ‘biological struggle’ between races easily fitted with his view of the Jews. He viewed humanity as a hierarchy of races: the Jews, black people and the Slavs were inferior races, while the Herrenvolk (master race) was the Aryan peoples of North Europe.
There was a need to ‘purify’ the stronger races by eliminating the ‘germs’ that threatened to poison them through inter-marriage with so called ‘degenerate’ races. Hitler believed that it was destiny of Aryans to rule over the inferior races. It was vital for Aryans to maintain their racial purity. The disease of the Jewish race were a minority but deadly to a healthy organism.
What was Hitler’s own concept of Social Darwinism?
There could be no compromises and no exceptions. Conversion to Christianity could make no difference, nor could medals won in the First World War. The germ had to be eliminated. This is how Himmler later justified the killing of Jewish women and children as well as men.
What was the origin of the Volksgemeinschaft (‘people’s community’)?
Volksgemeinschaft’s origins lied within German nationalism and the separation of the German people due to the Treaty of Versailles.
What was the Volksgemeinschaft?
The Volksgemeinschaft was the ‘people’s community’. To qualify as a member of the Volk it was essential to be a true German, both in terms of loyalty and of racial purity. Membership of the Volksgemeinschaft was reserved for those of Aryan race, members of which were expected to be genetically healthy, socially efficient and politically reliable.
To protect the Volk, it was essential to ruthlessly eliminate all un-German elements, especially the Jews. So the best way of defining the Volk came through identifying the racial enemies to be excluded from it, rather than the people who naturally belonged to it.
What was the origin of Lebensraum?
Pre-Nazis. Living space. Many European thinkers proposed it. Imperial, growing their Empire.
What was Lebensraum?
In Germany, there was widespread support for the idea that the country was already over-populated and that industrious German farmers needed more land. Many argued that Germany’s destiny lay in the east, conquering the supposedly inferior Slav peoples of Poland and the former Russian Empire to gain access to fertile farmland and raw materials.
Nazi ideology fitted in smoothly with these ideas about Germany’s destiny to expand eastwards, but Hitler’s concept of Lebenseraum had a particular focus on race. Lebensraum would not only allow for the ‘Germanisation’ of the eastern land and bringing the ‘Lost Germans’ back to the Reich. More importantly it would provide the battleground for a war of racial annihilation, wiping out the inferior Slav races and smashing Bolshevism in Russia.
Did Nazis immediately start killing Jews in 1933?
The Nazis did not immediately start murdering all of the Jews in Europe in 1933, but they did begin to enact other racial policies towards other groups. This was because the Nazis were not in a strong enough position to do so at that time. They worked towards the ‘Final Solution’ by degrees, often reacting to events. In this sense it could be argued that persecution was not systematic.
What were the “untermensch”?
Degenerate or untermensch or asocial = someone who was considered to not contribute to society. They were considered as subhuman.
What were Nazi reasons for excluding the disabled?
They were considered to be “biological outsiders” and an “unproductive burden”. The loss of men in WW1 combined with the medicine prolonging the life of people with hereditary conditions raised concern another the long term health of the nation.
What was the Nazi policy of sterilisation and when was it introduced?
Sterilisation: In July 1933, they introduced the Law for Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Progeny (Sterilisation Law) which introduced compulsory sterilisation for certain categories of ‘inferiors’. This law specified the ‘hereditary diseases’ that sterilisation was to be applied to: congenital feeble-mindedness; schizophrenia; manic-depressives illness; epilepsy; chronic alcoholism; hereditary blindness and degrees; severe physical malformation (if proven to be hereditary ). Later amendments permitted sterilisation of children over 10 years, and the use of force to carry it out after 14 years, with no right to legal representation.
How was the law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Progeny amended two years later?
Two years later, the law as amended to permit abortions in cases where those deemed suitable for sterilisation were already pregnant. In 1936, x-ray sterilisation of women over 38 years was introduced (due to the greater risk of offspring with mental and physical disabilities). In the opposite direction, there was a ban on abortion and contraception for Aryan women and girls in an attempt to increase the birth rate.
How were the sterilised decided?
Most of the judges were strongly in favour of the sterilisation policy. The decision process often took only 10 mins. The operation took place, by force if necessary, within two weeks. 60% of those sterilised were ‘feebleminded’ categorised as suffering from idiocy. The idea of ‘moral insanity’ was also sued as a basis for sterilisation. This was often merely an excuse to prevent births among the ‘criminal underclass’ or ‘anti-socials’.
How many people were sterilised during the Third Reich?
400,00 people were sterilised.
