Religion And Persecution Of Minorities/the Jews Flashcards
What was religion like in Nazi Germany?
- Hitler + leading Nazis disliked Christianity, e.g. the idea that all men were created equal contradicted their racial beliefs.
- Some initial Church support for the Nazis - I.e. Nazis defeated Communists who wanted to shut down churches.
What was the concordat of 1933?
- Concordat of 1933 was signed between Hitler and the Catholic Church - Hitler agreed to leave Catholic Church alone if church stayed out of politics, but Hitler then banned Catholic youths and Catholic schools.
- 400 priests out in Dachau Concentration Camps: Catholic Church hardly ever oppose Hitler.
What is an example of a religious group who opposed Hitler?
- Some Protestants opposed Hitler and set up their own church, called the Confessing Church.
- It’s leaders, Niemoller and Bonhoeffer were put in camps.
What was the Nazi religion?
-The Nazis set up their own Christian Church called the Reich Church - not a great success.
What was the aim of the Nazis persecuting the minorities?
-Nazis wanted to remove all people with physical or social defects to prevent the weakening of the German Aryan ‘Master-Race’.
How did the Nazis persecute the minorities?
- Physically and mentally handicapped - Sterilised by the law of 1933. Euthanasia programme established. By 1941, 100,000 mentally ill people had been killed.
- Gypsies - prevented from marrying ‘pure’ Germans; rounded up and sent to concentration camps; 500,000 murdered by 1945.
- Homosexuals - racial enemies of the state for not producing children; 15,000 homosexuals sent to camps.
- Prostitutes/alcoholics/beggars - sterilised and used as cheap labour.
What was the Nazis’ aim in persecuting the Jews?
-Hitler regarded the Jews as an inferior race who had infected the Aryan ‘Master-Race’ and caused Germany many problems (e.g. losing World War One, the Depression of 1930-2). He wanted to remove this threat.
How did the Nazis persecute the Jews?
- 1933 - any Jews who were civil servants/teachers - sacked. SA posted outside Jewish shops to prevent people shopping there.
- 1935 - Nuremberg laws - made it illegal for Jews to marry/have sex with ‘Aryan’ Germans. Jews lost their rights as German citizens. Jews were banned from public places (e.g. swimming pools, parks and restaurants).
- 9-10th November 1938 - Kristallnacht/Night of the Broken Glass - thousands of Jewish shops/synagogues destroyed; 40,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps. Jews beaten to death on the streets and other people were forced to watch happen. The trigger was the shooting of a Nazi in Paris by a Jewish man. This was just an excuse to increase persecution of Jewish people following the Nuremberg Laws as some said the Nazis had been waiting/contemplating a planned outbreak of violence against Jews.
- 1939-1945 - Jews were put in camps and Einsatzgrüppe (Killing squads) were formed.
- 1942-1945 - ‘Final Solution’ - Systematic killing of 6 million Jews in extermination maps, e.g. Auschwitz and Treblinka.
What was the final solution?
- As more countries came under German occupation during the Second World War, the Nazis realised their methods of solving the ‘Jewish Problem’ (killing Jews) with the Einsatzgrüppen + use of ghettos = inefficient.
- In 1942 - at Wannsee Conference - top Nazi leaders decided to build special camps to do this.
- This would be the ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘Jewish Problem’.
Where were the camps built?
-The Nazis built camps in Germany + other occupied countries - Treblinka + Auschwitz = two of the most well-known death camps.
How did the Nazis do the Final Solution?
- When the Nazis took over a country, they drew up a lost of Jews and then transported them to camps.
- On arrival, Nazi doctors decided who was fit enough to work and who was to go straight to the gas chambers.
- Up to 2000 people at once could be killed in a gas chamber.
What was the outcome of the Final Solution?
-At the end of the Second World War, the Nazis had murdered around 6 million Jews and other minorities and around 4 million Russian prisoners.
