Section 5. The Racial State 1933-41

Question 1

What was the first Nazi policy against the Jews?

Answer 1

The boycott of Jewish shops

Question 2

What were the Nuremberg laws?

Answer 2

-In 1935, the Nazi regime extended the anti semitic legislation through the Nuremberg laws, so called because they were announced at the annual party rally at Nuremberg
-By 1935, many fanatical anti semites in the Nazi movement were restless because they believed Nazi persecution of the Jews had not gone far enough. They urged Hitler to move further and faster. These radicals became the driving force behind the demands for anti Jewish legislation. At the Nuremberg party rally in 1935, Hitler announced that the that the communist international had declared war on Nazism and that it was time to ‘deal once and for all with Jewish-Bolshevism’

Question 3

What were the 3 distinct phases in the development of the Nazi regime?

Answer 3

1. The legal revolution, 1933-34. When Hitler came to power in 1933, he depended on political allies. Hitler could not completely prevent the radical SA’s violence, but he controlled it as much as he could. He consolidated his power by legal means
2. Creating the New Germany, 1934-37. By August 1934, the Nazi regime was secure, but Hitler still 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 yet ready for a war, whatever the propaganda said
3. 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 that Germany was militarily ready for war. In 1938 and 1939, therefore, the Nazis took control of the army, sacking it’s 2 most important commanders, Bloomberg and Fritsch. He also let loose radical persecution of his ‘racial enemies’

Question 4

What is social Darwinism and race theory?

Answer 4

-Social Darwinism was a theory that was widely discussed in nineteenth century Europe. Social Darwinists adapted Darwin’s scientific principles 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 the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many social Darwinists put forward theories designed to justify European imperialism, by arguing that ‘advanced’ Europeans had the right and responsibility to rule over ‘inferior’ or ‘backward’ colonial peoples.
-In Sweden, there was an influential group of scientists seeking to eliminate disabilities through population planning and birth control. Many of these ideas were incorporated into Nazi ideology

Question 5

What was Hitler’s obsession with ‘biological struggle’?

Answer 5

-Hitler’s obsession with this ‘biological struggle’ between different races easily fitted with his view of the Jews. He viewed humanity as consisting of a hierarchy of races: the Jews, black people and the Slavs were inferior races, while the the ‘Herrenvolk’ (master race) was the Aryan peoples of Northern Europe
-Another key Nazi idea was the 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 the destiny of Aryans to rule over the inferior races
-In order to ensure their success in this racial struggle, it was vital for Aryans to maintain their racial purity

Question 6

What were the Nazi principles of ‘racial hygiene’?

Answer 6

-The nazi principles of ‘racial hygiene’ justified the sterilisation (or eliminating altogether’ of the mentally and physically disabled, the Roma and other ‘racial undesirables’ such as homosexuals, pacifists and Jehovah’s witnesses
-This theme of removing racial enemies ran through much of the more extreme Nazi propaganda of the 1920s

Question 7

What was the Volksgemeinschaft?

Answer 7

-Hitler’s concept of Volksgemeinschaft (‘peoples community) was not inclusive of all people living in Germany. In a way that was typical of many other aspects of Nazi ideology: the concept of the national community was twisted by anti semitism and racial thinking. The key word was the ‘volk’.
-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
-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
-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

Question 8

What was Lebensraum?

Answer 8

-The nazi ideal of Lebensraum (living space) was yet another example of an ideological concept being twisted by anti semitism. Like social Darwinism, the idea of Lebensraum was not new, nor originated by Hitler and the Nazi’s
-In the later nineteenth century, many European thinkers had proposed opening up space for the expanding populations of the superior white race
-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’d concept of Lebensraum had a particular focus on race
-Lebensraum would not only allow for the ‘Germanisation’ of the eastern lands 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

Question 9

What were the different policies towards disabled people between 1933-41?

Answer 9

-Sterilisation
-Euthanasia

Question 10

What was the policy of sterilisation towards disabled people?

Answer 10

-Even before the Nazis came to power, the state government of Prussia had drawn up a draft law to allow the voluntary sterilisation of those with hereditary conditions. In July 1933, the Nazis took this further by introducing 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 etc
-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
-2 years later, the law was 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 higher risk of children being born with 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

Question 11

Who made decisions about sterilisation?

Answer 11

-Decisions about sterilisation were made at hereditary health courts. Most of the judges were strongly in favour of the sterilisation policy. The decision process often took only 10 minutes. The operation took place, by force if necessary, within 2 weeks
-60% of those sterilised were ‘feeble-minded’, categorised as suffering from idiocy or imbecility
-The idea of ‘moral insanity’ was also used as a basis for sterilisation
-This was often merely an excuse to prevent births among the ‘criminal underclass’ or ‘anti socials’
-During the third Reich 400,000 people were sterilised

Question 12

What was the policy of euthanasia towards disabled people?

Answer 12

-The Nazi desire to create their ‘master race’ did not stop at sterilisation and banning sexual relationships between aryans and Jews. By October 1939, the regime had authorised so called ‘euthanasia’ for people with mental health conditions, learning disabilities and physical disabilities and physical disabilities, regarded by the Nazis as an ‘unproductive burden’ on Germany’s resources and as a threat to ‘racial hygeine’ and the ‘biological strength of the volk’
-The openly stated ‘solution’ was to pass new legislation allowing mentally and physically disabled children to be ‘mercifully’ put to death and so ‘relieve the burden on the national community’.

Question 13

What was the first ‘euthanasia programme’?

Answer 13

-The first so-called ‘euthanasia programme’ for disabled children originated from one specific case of a badly disabled child early in 1939. The child’s father wrote a personal letter to Hitler asking for his child, ‘this creature’ as he called him, to be put to sleep
-Dr Philip’s Bouhler, made sure the letter was brought to Hitler’s attention
-Hitler sent a senior SS doctor, Karl Brandt, to examine the baby
-Brandt’s report advised ‘euthanasia’ for the child
-Hitler approved the report and issued a directive announcing that he would personally protect from prosecution the doctors who carried out ‘mercy killings’
-This one case was the catalyst for the whole so-called ‘euthanasia programme’. Hitler gave Philipp Boulher authority to decide on similar cases in the future
-All petitions were to go through the ‘chancellory of the Fuhrer’
-Hitler also made it clear any such actions were to be kept secret.
-The technical and administrative methods used to kill more than 5000 innocent children, deemed by the Nazis to be ‘incurable’ and worthless to society, would be applied later to Jewish people in occupied Europe.

Question 14

What was the T4 programme?

Answer 14

-From October 1939, the programme was rapidly extended and later moved to new, larger headquarters in Berlin, Tiergarten 4. It was from this address that the name by which the so-called ‘euthanasia programme’ is best known, Aktion T4, originated
-The basis of T4 was bureaucracy and paperwork. Forms about patients were to be filled in at clinics and asylums, and passed on to assessors, who were paid on a piecework basis to encourage them to process as many patients as possible
-Those who made judgements of life and death did so without having to look the patients in the eyes, but rather simply looked at forms. Some doctors took part because they were careerists. Several doctors and nurses complained about the programme, but their objections were ignored

Question 15

What happened with the end of the T4 programme?

Answer 15

-By 1941, rumours about the policy of euthanasia were spreading widely and aroused opposition. One public official filed a complaint with the Reich justice ministry and also an accusation of murder against Philipp boulher.
-These proceedings got nowhere, but they worried the regime. From July 1940, there was also a groundswell of protests from the churches. Protestant Pastor Braune wrote a long memorandum on July 1940, protesting about the T4 programme
-On 12th August, Braune was arrested by the Gestapo. An official statement from Rome on 2nd December 1940 pronounced that the direct killing of people with hereditary conditions was against ‘the natural and positive law of God’
-On 3rd august 1941, catholic archbishop Galen of Munster preached a sermon making an emotive attack on the programme, backed by specific evidence provided by local congregation members
-On 24th august Hitler halted the programme after backlash
-However this was a rare occurrence and in many respects, the so called ‘euthanasia programme’ provided the techniques, the trained personnel and the administrative experience for the coming ‘final solution’

Question 16

What were the Nazi policies towards Asocials?

Answer 16

-In September 1933, the regime began a mass round up of ‘tramps and beggars’, many of whom were young homeless, unemployed people. Since the Nazis did not have enough space in concentration camps to house all of these people, they began to differentiate between the ‘orderly’ and the ‘disorderly’ homeless. The ‘orderly’, who were fit, willing to work for their accommodation. The ‘disorderly’ were considered to be habitual criminals and sent to concentration camps
-In 1936, before the Olympic Games were held in Berlin, the police rounded up large numbers of ‘tramps and beggars’ from the streets of the capital in order to protect an image of hard working and dynamic society to the world.
-In 1936, an ‘asocial colony’ was set up, known as Hashude, in northern Germany. The aim of the colony was to re educate the Asocials so that they could be integrated into society
-In 1938, there was an even bigger round up of ‘beggars, tramps, pimps and gypsies’. Most of these were sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, where few survived the harsh treatment

Question 17

What were the polices towards homosexuals?

Answer 17

-In 1934, the Gestapo began to compile lists of gay people. In that same year, the ss eliminated Rohm and other leaders of the Nazi SA who were homosexuals
-The law on homosexuality was amended in 1935 to widen the definition of homosexuality and to impose harsher penalties for those convicted. After the law was changed, over 22,000 men were arrested and imprisoned between 1936 and 38
-In 1936, Himmler created the Reich office for the combatting of homosexuality and abortion
-Overall, some 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality, of whom about 50,000 were convicted. Even when the men were arrested had served their sentences, they were immediately re arrested by the Gestapo or SS and held in concentration camps under ‘preventive custody’
-In the camps, they had to wear a pink triangle to distinguish them from other prisoners and they were subjected to particularly brutal treatment by the guards
-Many of those imprisoned were subjected to ‘voluntary castration’ to ‘cure’ them of their ‘perversion’
-Gay men who would not agree to abandon their sexual orientation were sent to concentration camps were they were subjected to unusually harsh treatment. Many were beaten to death. It has been estimated that about 60% of gay prisoner died in the camps
-Lesbians did not suffer the same degree of persecution as they were considered to be ‘asocial’ rather than degenerate

Question 18

What was the reason for exclusion of Religous sects?

Answer 18

Aroused nazi suspicions about loyalties

Question 19

What were the policies towards religious sects?

Answer 19

Where sects were allowed to continue gestapo agents attended and reported on their services

Question 20

How did the policies against religious sects help achieve Volksgemeinschaft?

Answer 20

Ensures everyone loyal towards nazis and not anything else

Question 21

What were the consequences of polices towards religious sects?

Answer 21

By 1945 around 10,000 Jehovah’s witnesses had been imprisoned and many had died

Question 22

What was the reason for exclusion of the Roma and the sinti?

Answer 22

They provided a threat to Aryan racial purity

Question 23

What were the policies towards the Roma and the sinti?

Answer 23

Nuremberg laws applied to gypsies and in 1936 the same set up a new reich central office for the fight against the gypsy nuisance

Question 24

What were the consequences of policies towards Roma and the sinti?

Answer 24

After war broke out in September 1939, gypsies were deported from Germany to Poland

Question 25

What happened with the boycott of Jewish shops?

Answer 25

• On 1st April 1933 the Nazis carried out their first national planned action against Jews.
• This was because German and other Jews were supposedly criticizing Nazi Germany in the press worldwide.
• The SA stood outside Jewish businesses to intimidate and to discourage people from buying from Jewish shops. Jewish professionals were also targeted

Question 26

What was the impact of the boycott of Jewish shops?

Answer 26

-The boycott made a big public impact and featured prominently in news coverage both in Germany and in foreign countries, but it was not an unqualified success. It was unclear in many cases what a ‘Jewish’ business and what wasn’t.
-Many businesses were half Jewish or half German in ownership; many others were controlled by foreign creditors or German in ownership; many others were controlled by foreign creditors or German banks
-A number of German citizens defiantly used Jewish shops to show their disapproval of Nazi polices. The boycott was abandoned after only one day even though the SA hoped it wojld last indefinetely.

Question 27

What were the civil service laws in 1933?

Answer 27

-In April 1933, the Nazi regime introduced the law for the restoration of the professional civil service, requiring Jews to be dismissed from the civil service
-This was not as straightforward as the Nazis had hoped. There was no objective, scientific definition of who was racially Jewish according to physical characteristics or blood group
-Under the 1933 law, people were considered ‘non aryan’ if either of their parents or either of their grandparents were Jewish
-Another difficulty was that president Hindenburg insisted on exemptions for German Jews who had served in the First World War and for those whose fathers had been killed in the war
-Hitler reluctantly accepted this as a political necessity and the exemption was kept in place until after Hindenburg’s death in 1934
-The exemptions amendment lessened the laws impact because it applied to us to 2 thirds of Jews in the civil service

Question 28

What was the impact of the civil service laws?

Answer 28

-The civil service law had a devastating economic and psychological impact on the middle class Jews in Germany and contributed to the increasing levels of Jewish emigration
-In 1933, 37,000 Jews left Germany. Most Jews, however, stayed behind. At that time, they could not know how much worse the persecution would become

Question 29

What was the anti semitic legislation in the legal profession?

Answer 29

-Jewish lawyers made up about 16% of Germany’s legal profession often working in family firms. Of the non-Aryan lawyers practising in 1933, 60% were able to continue working despite the new regulations
-In the years that followed, the regime introduced stricter regulations to try to close these ‘loopholes’
-The exclusion of lawyers was a gradual process over several years

Question 30

What was the anti Semitic legislation for doctors?

Answer 30

-More than 10% of German doctors were Jews. They were attacked by Nazi propaganda as ‘a danger to German society’. Nazi officials at local government level and in private associations initiated their own anti semitic measures
-Some local authorities started removing Jewish doctors from their posts. Anti semitic propaganda against Jewish doctors treating Aryans was laced with lurid stores about inappropriate and malicious actions supposedly carried out by Jewish doctors.
-The regime announced a ban on Jewish doctors in April 1933
-In theory, Jewish doctors could now treat only Jewish patients, but many Jewish doctors carried on their normal practice for several years after 1933

Question 31

What was the anti Semitic legislation in education?

Answer 31

-In April 1933, the law against overcrowding of German schools and universities restricted the number of Jewish children who could attend state schools and universities. It was promoted on the basis that Aryan students would receive more resources and attention, instead of wasting time and money on pupils who would ‘grow up to be enemies of Germany’
-Nazi propaganda stressed the danger that a well educated Jew would be a greater threat to Germany than an uneducated one. German children were being told that their former friends and classmates were unworthy of being in the same schools as them and that they were a burden and threat to Germany
-Not all Jewish children were forced out of state schools at this point. The process was not completed until 1938. Jewish children could also still attend private education and Jewish schools.
-These schools had many problems in gaining funding and maintaining academic standards, but Jewish children were not yet completely denied an education
-The key aim of Nazis, of course, was the segregation of Jewish children from Aryan children
-In the universities, many Jewish professors came under pressure from students and local government officials. Many lost their jobs. German academics willingly seized the opportunity to replace them

Question 32

What was the anti Semitic legislation in the press?

Answer 32

-In October 1933, the reich press law enabled the regime to apply strict censorship and to close down publications they disliked. Jews had had a prominent role in journalism and publishing in Weimar Germany, and the press law effecfively silenced the large number of Jewish journalists and editors, many of whom were forced to leave the country
-The closing down of the free press was not only a matter of laws and regulations; there were also many instances of violence and intimidation

Question 33

What happened when the Nuremberg laws were introduced?

Answer 33

-The reich citizenship law meant that someone could be a German citizen only if they had purely German blood. Jews and other non aryans were now classified as subjects and had fewer rights than citizens
-The law for protection of German blood and honour outlawed marriage between Aryans and non aryans. It was made illegal for German citizens to marry Jews. It was also illegal for German citizens to marry Jews. It was also illegal for Jews to have any sexual relations with a German citizen

Question 34

What was the effect of the Anschluss with Austria, March 1938?

Answer 34

-Although the Anschluss (union) with Austria was banned under the treaty of Versailles, it was a long term ambition of German nationalists and was achieved in March 1938
-The German takeover of Austria was achieved without a shot being fired and German troops were welcomed enthusiastically by the Austrian people
-This ‘bloodless victory’ further emboldened Hitler and the Nazi leadership to pursue their ambitions in foreign policy and to adopt more radical racial policies in the greater Germany they had created

Question 35

How would Anschulness impact Austrian Jews?

Answer 35

-180,000 Jews were living in Austria at the time
• All of the laws discriminating against Jews in Germany were now in
force in Austria
• 45,000 Austrian Jews emigrated, 1500 were sent to concentration camps and over 500 had killed themselves

Question 36

What were the anti semitic decrees, April to November 1938?

Answer 36

-In April 1938, the decree of registration of Jewish property provided for the confiscation of all Jewish owned property worth more than 5000 marks
-This was the starting point for the Aryanisation of Jewish property and businesses
-In April 1938, there were roughly 40,000 Jewish owned businesses in Germany; a year later only around 8000 had avoided being closed down or ‘aryanised’
-Further legislation banned Jews from work as travelling salesmen, security guards, travel agents and estate agents- 30,000 Jewish travelling salesmen lost their jobs
-In 1938, Jews also lost their entitlement to public welfare. The increasing number of unemployed and poor Jews depended completely on the charities set up by the Jewish community, such as the central institution for Jewish economic aid
-From October 1938, the passports of German Jews had to be stamped with a large ‘J’. The drive to make Jews easily identifiable and, at the same time, strip them of their individuality led to a new law in 1939- Jews that were deemed to have non-Jewish names had to change them
-Jewish women had to take the name ‘Sarah’ and Jewish men had to take the name ‘Israel’. At this stage, Hitler turned down the suggestion of making all Jews wear a yellow star in public- this did not come into practice within the reich until 1941

Question 37

What happened on Reichkristallnacht, 9-10 November 1938?

Answer 37

-Jewish homes and businesses were looted and vandalised, synagogues were set ablaze and thousands of Jews were arrested, beaten up and killed.
-The Reichkristallnacht pogrom can be viewed as an uncontrolled outpouring b of anti Semitic feeling amongst radical elements of the Nazi movement, partly supported by German public opinion.
-Certainly this was the view put out by Nazi propaganda, which announced that ‘the national soul had boiled over’.
-It is also true that some people in the Nazi hierarchy were concerned about the violence running out of control. In the days after the pogrom, Hitler gave Hermann Goering a coordinating role to ‘sort things out’
-From this point of view, it might appear that the situation in November 1938 was similar to that of April 1933, when the regime had to rein in the SA boycott

Question 38

Who orchestrated Reichkristallnacht?

Answer 38

-In reality, Reichkristallnacht was orchestrated by the Nazi leadership and the majority of those involved in the violence and vandalism were SA and SS men who had been instructed not to wear uniforms.
-The Nazis seized the opportunity presented by the murder of Ernst Vom Rath on 9th November. Rath was a minor German official in Paris who was killed by Herschel Grynszpan, a young polish Jew angry at the treatment of his parents by the Nazi regime
-The killing of Vom Rath was more an excuse for unleashing anti Jew terror than the real cause
-The chief instigator of the pogrom was Joseph Goebells. He gave instructions to the nazi officials in the regions to organise the violence and vandalism, but to be careful to make it appear that it was not orchestrated by the Nazi party
-The fifteenth anniversary of the 1923 munich putsch was on 9th November and Goebells hoped to please Hitler by marking the occasion with a spectacular event

Question 39

What were the effects of Kristallnacht?

Answer 39

-In the violence, 91 Jews were killed and thousands injured. There was looting of cash, silver, jewellery and works of art. Damage to shops and businesses amounted to millions of marks
-Much of the vandalism was purely destructive, not for gain. Orders from the SS directed the police not to intervene against the demonstrators; they were ordered to place 20,000-30,000 Jews in ‘preventive’ detention
-The fire brigades watched and did nothing as synagogues burned to the ground; their only concern was to stop the fires spreading to other buildings

Question 40

What did Kristallnacht mean for Jews in Germany?

Answer 40

-The events of the night of 9-10 November 1938 were a watershed for Jews in Nazi germany. Hermann Goering pronounced, ‘Now the gloves are off’
-In the aftermath of Reichkristallnacht, Goering moved quickly to prevent insurance companies from paying out compensation to Jewish victims
-The ‘decree for the restoration of the street scene’ in relation to Jewish business premises meant that the Jews had to pick up the cost of repairs
-The Jewish community was also made to make a 1 billion Reichsmark contribution in compensation for the disruption to the economy
-The decree excluding Jews from German economic life was issued on 12th November and the Aryanisation of Jewish businesses was accelerated

Question 41

What happened with voluntary emigration in Germany?

Answer 41

-The nazi regime allowed for Jewish emigration, but strictly controlled it. In 1933, 37,000 Jews left Germany, including many leading scientists and cultural figures. Perhaps the most prominent was Albert Einstein.
-Overall, 150,000 Jews voluntarily left Germany between March 1933 and November 1938
-This was a tough decision for Jews living in Germany and the option was split between them
-Making the Reich ‘Jew free’ through emigration was not straightforward. It was difficult to find foreign countries willing to accept large numbers of Jews, as many countries had begun to raise barriers to limit Jewish immigration
-Even Palestine could only receive a limited number, partly because the British, who controlled it, were worried about Arab hostility to mass Jewish immigration
-The situation became more urgent after kristallnacht. Many Jews now desperately sought safe refuge from the obvious dangers they faced in Germany.
-Jewish parents were particularly keen to get their children out of Germany and to safe countries
-For example, 9000 Jewish children were sent to Britain in 1938-39

Question 42

What was controlled emigration?

Answer 42

-Cpntrolling emigration was a key policy aim of the nazi regime, not least because it enabled massive economic exploitation. After the Anschluss in March 1938, Reinhard Heydrich used Austria as a laboratory for developing SS policy
-The central office for Jewish emigration was set up; 45,000 of Austria’s 180,000 Jews had been forced to emigrate. The illegal seizure of Jewish property was used to fund the emigration of poorer Jews
-In January 1939, Heydrich took charge of the Reich office for Jewish emigration, with the task of promoting the emigration of Jews ‘by every possible means’. Goering’s claims to have jurisdiction over Jewish affairs were bypassed. The SD set about amalgamating all Jewish organisations into a single ‘Reich association of the Jews in Germany’
-The organisation was modelled on methods used in Austria by the SS emigration expert Adolf Eichmann in 1938
-This system suited the Nazis because organisational difficulties had to be dealt with by the Jews themselves

Question 43

What was the impact of the war against Poland?

Answer 43

-The situation changed with the outbreak of war in September 1939. The German conquest of western Poland provided the regime with new territories in which Jews could be settled. It also brought many more Jews under Nazi rule
-The emphasis moved away from forced emigration to deportations and the ‘resettlement’ of Jews. From September 1939, Nazi race policies were shaped by war. Nazi anti semitism had already become more blatant name extreme by 1938, but it was war that brought about the final radicalisation of race policies. War provided the regime with:
-A national emergency that enabled them to act with more dictatorial power and in greater secrecy
-A propaganda machine to whip up patriotism and hatred of Germany’s enemies
-A way for the Germanisation of the occupied territories in Poland and a ‘Jew free’ Nazi empire

Question 44

What areas was Poland split into during the war?

Answer 44

-The conquest of Poland carved the country up into 3 separate areas. Eastern Poland was occupied by the USSR, in accordance with the Nazi soviet pact of August 1939.
-The western parts of Poland were incorporated into the German Reich and placed under the rule of Nazi Gauleiters.
-The area in between was designated the ‘general government’ of Poland, under a Nazi Governor, Hans Frank. The Nazi master plan was to create Lebensraum for ethnic Germans by driving Poles and Jews out of West Prussia and the Warthegau so that the ‘empty’ lands could be completely ‘Germanised’

Question 45

What did the conquest of Poland also increase?

Answer 45

-It enormously increased the number of Jews under Nazi control. According to the official census in Poland in 1931, there were, 3,115,000 Jews in Poland, of whom, 1,901,000 (61%) were in the territory occupied by Germany at the end of 1939
-These polish Jews were different from assimilated Jews in Germany. They were in the main poor and more orthodox. In appearance they fitted the Nazi stereotype of racially inferior untermenshchen. Their sheer numbers posed difficult strategic problems for the Nazi regime

Question 46

What happened in October 1939 in the war with Poland?

Answer 46

-In October 1939, the Gestapo chief Heinrich muller instructed Adolf Eichmann, the head of the central agency for Jewish emigration, to arrange the deportation of 70,000-80,000 jews from the district of Katowice in Germanised Poland
-Eichmann quickly expanded this to include Czech Jews from the Reich protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia. On top of this, Hitler demanded the deportation of 300,000 Jews from Germany and the removal of all Jews from Vienna
-Although these orders were given, it would prove to be impossible to implement them because the problems of dealing with jews already in Poland was so pressing

Question 47

What then happened between Nov 1939 and Feb 1940?

Answer 47

-The SS attempted to deport one million people eastwards- 550,000 were Jews. They were transported to the general government where they faced terrible conditions. The fact that so many people were entering this area meant that the authorities there could not possibly cope with mass deportations of western Jews from Germany and Austria at the same time
-Governor Hans Frank complained vigorously to his superiors in Berlin that the General government could not take any more Jews

Question 48

What was the Madagascar plan?

Answer 48

-The idea of removing Europe’s Jews to the island of Madagascar was first promoted by French anti semites in the late 1930s. At that time, it was merely a wild idea with little or no prospect of becoming a reality
-The rapid conquest of France by German armies during May to June 1940 changed the situation. The foreign ministry’s department for internal German affairs proposed that the island of Madagascar should be taken away from France to become a German mandate
-Vichy France would be responsible for resettling the French population there of approximately 25,000 so as to make Madagascar available for a ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish question’
-The Nazis planned to send 4 million Jews to Madagascar. In the first phase, farmers, construction workers and artisans up to the age of 45 would be sent out to get the island ready to receive the mass influx of Jews

Question 49

What happened with the spreading war and the development of anti semitic policy between 1940-41?

Answer 49

-Invading Poland caused Britain and France to go to war, but this did not save Poland. In October 1940, Hitler won a series of Blitzkrieg victories in the west, defeating France and leaving Britain isolated. France came under a Nazi puppet regime ruled from the town of Vichy
-Hitler seemed to have a free hand to fulfill his aim of Lebensraum in the east. In august 1939, Hitler and Stalin, had concluded the Nazi soviet pact, which guaranteed the USSR would not intervene if Germany invaded Poland
-In June 1941 Hitler launched operation Barbarossa. German armies swept across the ussr, occupying vast territories in eastern Poland, the Baltic states, western Russia and Ukraine. Complete victory seemed almost certain.

Question 50

What was opartion Barbarossa?

Answer 50

The German code name for the invasion of the ussr; the operation was named after Fredrick Barbarossa (Redbeard), a medieval German king who invaded russia

Question 51

What happened with the German invasion deep into western parts of the ussr?

Answer 51

-The German invasion deep into western parts of the ussr in 1941 immediately brought more than 3 million soviet Jews under German rule. The war was especially brutal. Before the invasion had even been launched, Hitler issued the instruction to ‘eliminate’ the ‘Bolshevik- Jewish intelligentsia’
-The Nazis made it clear in numerous directives that the war was to be one of ‘extermination’ of Germany’s racial enemies
-There was no explicit Hitler order in June 1941 to kill all the Jews of the Soviet Union. There was, however, an atmosphere in which troops saw killing as part of the overall mission
-This was made clear in July 1941 when Goering issued a general order to kill communist commissars and Jewish sympathisers

Question 52

What series of measures had further isolated Jews from German society by late 1941?

Answer 52

-Radio sets were confiscated from Jews. In November 1939 Jews were banned from buying radios. A month later, they were banned from buying chocolate.
-In 1940, Jews were excluded from the wartime rationing allowances for clothing and shoes. In July, an order limited them to entering shops at restricted times only- in Berlin it was from 4-5pm
-In 1941, regulations were tightened up to require Jews to have a police permit to travel. An order in December 1941 compelled Jews in Germany to wear the yellow Star of David, as was already the case with Jews in occupied territory

Question 53

What happened with deportations and ghettoisation?

Answer 53

-In Feb 1940, the first ghetto was set up in Łodz. About 320,000 jews were living in the city. The Nazis considered their ‘immediate evacuation’ to be impossible. The majority of jews were accommodated in a closed ghetto, set up in a single day by barricades- layer the jews had to build a surrounding wall. The remaining jews were formed into labour gangs, accommodated in barrack blocks and kept under guard
-The Jewish council of elders was given responsibility for food, health, finance, security, accommodation and registration

Question 54

What happened to jews sent to ghettos?

Answer 54

-Jews sent to the ghettos had their homes confiscated. Most jews had to sell their valuables to survive. There was further economic exploitation in the form of forced labour. The Nazis massively restricted the amount of food, medical supplies and other goods that entered the overcrowded ghettos.
-Conditions in the ghetto were terrible. 6 people shared an average room; 15 people lived in an average apartment. Few homes had running water. With no economic links to the outside world, basic necessities such as food and fuel were scarce
-There were terrible lice infestations and diseases spread rapidly, including spotted fever, typhus, typhoid and tuberculosis

Question 55

What is the Einsatzgruppen (‘special groups’)

Answer 55

-As German forces overran the western territories of the ussr in June and July 1941, the Einsatzgruppen, were sent to eliminate communist officials, Red army commissars, partisans and the ‘Jewish Bolshevik intelligentsia’. The activities of the Einsatzgruppen went far beyond their original remit
-They carried out numerous mass killings of soviet Jews in the second half of 1941. Possibly half a million soviet Jews were killed by the Einsatzgruppenn in June and July 1941
-Special groups were used extensively in support of military operations in the invasion of Poland in 1939, when they were involved in ‘special actions’ against Jews and many Poles, especially communists and the ‘intelligenstia’.
-The Einsatzgruppen played an important role in the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the territories in western Poland that were incorporated into greater Germany
-Key responsibilities of the Einsatzgruppen included mass shootings of Jews and forcing Jews into ghettos in the cities
-It is estimated that 7000 Jews were killed in Poland in 1939 and, in total, it is believed that the Einsatzgruppen in Poland killed 15,000 people including Jews and members of the ‘intelligentsia’

Question 56

What happened with the Einsatzgruppen in the Soviet Union.

Answer 56

-Four Einsatzgruppen, of between 600 and 1000 men, followed behind the first wave of the German army as it swept into the Soviet Union. ‘Special group A’ led the way, followed by a ‘second sweep’ by special groups B,C and D as more areas deeper into the ussr were overrun
-The Einsatzgruppen were supported by police reserve units. Police battalion 309 carried out a massacre in Bialystok in eastern Poland on 27th June 1941
-The police battalions included many ‘ordinary men’ conscripted into the police instead of the regular Army. The total number of men involved in the mass killing of Jews and communist party officials now rose to 40,000
-Some groups restricted their killing of Jews to the ‘intelligentsia’ and partisans. In other areas, the Einsatzgruppen and local volunteers set about killing as many Jews as possible. In the Baltic states, special group a shot 250,000 Jews in 1941. In the same period, special group b shot 45,000