...Matt Singleton August 6, 2014 HIST 337 Essay 3 The Einsatzgruppen were essentially mobile death squads primarily made up of members of the Gestapo and SS. Their initial role was as a follow on unit to the Blitzkrieg forces. They were to follow behind and round up and locate, detain, and silence any political threats, dissenters, and potential resistance leaders. By 1941, the groups had swelled to strength of four battalions of approximately 700-1,000 men each. After the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen’s mission evolved to include the “liquidation” of certain undesirables, to include Jews, Romani, and communists. Historical estimates credit the Einsatzgruppen with having killed over one million people throughout the war. Many scholars believe that the systematic killing of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union by Einsatzgruppen and Order Police (Ordnungspolizei) battalions was the first step of the "Final Solution," the Nazi program to murder all European Jews. The Final Solution evolved from Hitler’s policies toward Jews. Upon initially taking power, the Nazis adopted a series of legislations that were designed to isolate Jews from German society and urge them to leave Germany. After the invasion of Poland, the policies shifted. Now, Jews were rounded up and forced to live in Ghettos. By moving Jews into centralized locations, Hitler could better control them, which then led to the Final Solution, or the systematic extermination of all Jews...
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...people of Europe. Racial struggle was key element in Adolf Hitler's ideology and meant to him a clearly defined conflict of opposite: the Aryans, creators of human cultural development, against the Jews, parasites who were trying to destroy the Aryans art. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party had a meeting in 1922 and the dictator proclaimed, “ There can be no compromise, there are only two possibilities: either victory of the Jew.” Adolf Hitler later toned down his anti-semitic message when his party sought mass electoral victories, andt-Semitism was a recurring theme in Nazism and resulted in a wave of legislative...
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...recently annexed by Russia in 2014. However the before the conference took place there was tension building up between the Allies and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was an ally with Germany for 2 years when they signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact; “this led the west to believe Stalin was cynical, opportunistic, power hungry, expansionist” (lecture, 1/8/16). It also took the allies a while to open up a western front, and this angered Stalin as the Soviet unions causalities kept on mounting. The conference was attended by the big three, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The leaders agreed to Germanys surrender and to set up spheres in occupied Germany that the three nations plus France would control (lecture 1/8/16). Stalin also agreed to free elections in Eastern Europe, however he fell short on his promise. Berlin Blockade/Airlift The Berlin Blockade was the first physical confrontation between the Soviet Union and the West (lecture 1/8/16). The blockade started on June 1948 to May 1949. The whole idea behind the Blockade was to force the western allies out of “Berlin by blocking all ground access to the city” (lecture, 1/8/16). This was possible because getting into Berlin you had to travel through Soviet occupied East Germany. The allies were able to get around the blockade by airlifting massive amounts of supplies to Berlin (lecture, 1/8/16). This was significant because it showed how the relations between...
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...The Holocaust: Suggested Reading There is a wealth of information about the Holocaust. So much has been written, in fact, that it can be difficult to determine where to start. This reading list is collected from recommendations from other members of The Holocaust History Project. It is not a complete bibliography but represents our opinion as to what are the most useful starting places for research. Since this list concentrates on works that are easily available and useful to a person unacquainted with the history of the Holocaust, many excellent books which are rare or out of print are not listed. Another class of books that are not included is works that are controversial because of their contents or the unusual theories they propose. Some of these are excellent works, others are not. But we feel that the reader for whom this list was compiled would not have the knowledge needed to evaluate these discussions of the legitimate controversies about the Holocaust. Just as a medical student must learn anatomy before he or she is taught surgery, someone studying the Holocaust must know the factual background before some of the more technical studies can be understood. As well as general works we have included books of specialized interest concerning the matters about which we at The Holocaust History Project are most frequently asked. Many of these books deal with more than one subject, but in the interest of brevity we have not cited a book more than once. General history of the...
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...survived the Holocaust. Germany, 1928. — US Holocaust Memorial Museum * VIEW PHOTOGRAPHS * VIEW PERSONAL HISTORIES * VIEW ARTIFACTS * VIEW MAPS * VIEW HISTORICAL FILM FOOTAGE The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community. During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority": Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST? In 1933, the Jewish population of Europestood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and theircollaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the "Final Solution," the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. Although Jews, whom the Nazis deemed a priority danger to Germany, were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims...
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...Holocaust in the 20th century (Grossman, 2014). The Holocaust by far has been the most odious experience that the Jewish community has endured and yet there are many who deny it even took place. The rise of anti-Semitism in early 20th century Germany surely did not begin with Adolf Hitler; however, he was the fulcrum on which it intensified. This hatred for the Jews was not always the case as prior to World War I Jews in Eastern Europe “enjoyed a period of comparative peace, tranquility and the flowering of Jewish religious life” (Jones, 2011). It was after the defeat and subsequent peace settlement at Versailles in 1919, which was followed by a period of depression and burdensome reparations, that nation began to look for a scapegoat. The Jews were seen as the leaders of the parties which had surrendered and ‘stabbed’ Germany in the back by agreeing to the peace accord. Germany slipped into a great depression in the early 1920’s with widespread unemployment and rampant inflation. Hitler and the Nazi party began to capitalize on the unrest and malaise of those most deeply affected the depression and used his deep personal hatred for the Jews as his lynchpin to arouse blame and animosity on which he could rise to power. He and the Nazi party began to spread propaganda blaming the Jews for the awful state of the nation. Additionally, they were part of the failed coup which landed him in prison where...
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... From time to time, Jewish population has experienced deliberate attacks (pogroms) yet have managed to survive as a group and as a religion. * Nazi policy towards the Jews was the most brutal and horrific example of anti-Semitic behaviour in history * Nazis developed a deliberate policy to kill the Hews who lived in Germany — In 1922, 60% of the worl’d’s population of Jews occupied land in German and its area. By 1945, 2/3 of the Jewish population had been killed * By the 19th Century: German-Jews had won greater acceptance in that they made very important contributions to the intellectual, financial, educational and cultural life of the nation. * During WW1, 100 000 Jewish soldiers died during the conflict. * In the Weimar Republic, Jews enjoyed equal rights with all other Germans and some even rose to high positions in the civil service and the government. * Late 19th Century: Jews represented a challenge to the concept of the nationalism, especially when there was a development of the Volkisch movement. * Bt the start of the 20th Century, ideology of the racially pure was being embraced by all, and the Jews were not part of it. * German Historian Heinrich von Treitschke in the 1880’s said that ‘The Jews are our misfortune’ — A quote which was quickly adapted by the Nazis in the 1930s * Hitlers hatred of the Jews was at the heart of his view of the world — an ‘obsession’ that never waned * In Hitlers view, civilisation...
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...extermination of the Jews and the Stalinist extermination of the kulaks but instead looks to compare the industrial exploitation of the atrocities and their unique occurrences. Through a powerful narrative that thoroughly researches the Nazi and Soviet atrocities side by side, Synder shows how the two regimes committed the same kinds of crimes, during the same periods, in the same region which resulted in the mass killings of the bloodlands. The economic transformation put forth by Hitler and Stalin examined in the book, produced immoral consequences of their...
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...people that caused the events were put to trial and charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace. Their trials that brought justice were called the Nuremberg trials. The Nuremberg trials were a series of thirteen trials made by the allies held between 1945-1949 (Holocaust Timeline: Aftermath). In these trials, twenty-two criminals were received their punishment for their abominable crimes (Holocaust Timeline: Aftermath). The trials had taken place in Nuremberg, Germany at the Palace of Justice because Berlin had been to war-damaged (Angela Wood, 168, Jason Skog, 28). The trials were also held in Nuremberg because it is where racial laws were passed (Angela...
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...AS History – Essay on the Persecution of the Jews How accurate is it to say that the persecution of Jews in Germany steadily increased in the years 1933-42? The question of whether or not the persecution of Jewish race has had a steady intensification, relates closely to whether you adopt an intentionalist or structuralist viewpoint on this historical event. An intentionalist will claim that the process of persecuting Jews in Germany is a planned sequence and was outlined by the Nazi Party; they claim that the roots of Hitler’s politics was about eliminating the Jewish race from Germany and the evidence can be found in Mein Kampf. On the other hand, structuralist historians will claim that the persecution of the Jews was never planned and it was improvised all the way through to the Holocaust; furthermore, they will state that the Nazi’s did not come to power based on policies towards the Jews as the electorate was never as enthusiastic as Hitler was about this.Although it increased it was more gradual than steady, It did increase but there were times where it stopped, but it was at a very low key when not much attention was taken towards the situation. However, in 1938 when the Nazi’s had invaded Austria and Sudetenland, there was more of an increase in persecution of Jews. In the year 1933, the Boycott of Jewish businesses and professional offices, the exclusion of Jews from civil service as well as the Quota for non-Aryan students occurred serving the purpose of isolating...
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...prime sites at communication junctions, how to timetable and organise deliveries, how to sell a product and persuade people to do your bidding. During his trial he pretended to be apolitical, but Eichmann came from a strongly German nationalist family. Like many Germans his father lost his wealth during the post-war economic crisis and had the embittering experience of starting all over again. He enrolled his son in the Wandervogel youth movement which, while ostensibly apolitical, was strongly imbued with völkisch ideas about the Heimat (homeland). Later, Eichmann joined the Linz branch of the Heimschutz, a right wing paramilitary association of army veterans. In April 1932, he joined the Nazi party. At the instigation of the local gauleiter, who knew his family, he attended a Nazi rally and was approached...
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...Slide 1 (title) - Huh? That’s what some of you might be saying to yourselves right now. What’s that word? How do you say it? What is Judaism? Well let us talk about Judaism. Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people. Just like some of you may have a certain religion such as Christian, Catholic, Baptist, etc. there are others, including children like you, that practice Judaism and are thus Jews or Jewish. Judaism is the first recorded, meaning first written down, faith or religion that believes in only one God. This makes it the oldest religious tradition still in practice today! Slide 1 (bottom section) - Jews believe in a single God who knows everything, is very, very powerful, and is in all places at all times – no one or nothing can hide from Him. Jewish people also believe that God is always kind and that He created the universe and continues to manage it. This God is fair and forgiving and has no human form or representation. Slide 2 - According to traditional Jewish belief, a Covenant, an agreement between God and the Jewish people was made when God gave his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of the Torah. The Torah has 613 commandments from God which are known as “sacred obligations”. In other words these are all the things the Jewish people have to do to make God happy. These are kind of like instructions given by God to the Jewish people that teach them how to act, think, and understand life and death, as well as God’s...
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...enjoyed up to now came to an end as he entered primary school. Secondly, his father retired on a pension from the Austrian civil service. This meant a double dose of supervision, discipline and regimentation under the watchful eyes of teachers at school and his strict father at home. His father, now 58, had spent most of his life working his way up through the civil service ranks. He was used to giving orders and having them obeyed and also expected this from his children. The Hitler family lived on a small farm outside of Linz, Austria. The children had farm chores to perform along with their school work. Hitler was not popular at school and he made few friends. He was lazy and he rarely excelled at school work. In later years as leader of Germany, he claimed that History had been a strong subject for...
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...in view of the growth of Nazi Germany and its deliberate scrapping of the postwar settlement in the 1930s ---World War II was largely made possible by the failure of Britain and France to oppose strongly flagrant German violations of the Treaty of Versailles A. The Role of Hitler 1. WW II in Europe had its beginnings in the ideas of Adolf Hitler, who believed that only Aryans were capable of building a great civilization 2. Hitler was a firm believer in the doctrine of Lebensraum which stated that a nation’s power depended on the amount and kind of land it occupied 3. Hitler thought that the Russian Revolution created conditions for Germany’s acquisition of land to its “racially inferior Slavic” east (Mein Kampf spelled out Hitler’s desire to expand eastward and to prepare for the inevitable war with the “Bolshevik Jew-led” Soviet Union) 4. Hitler always returned to his basic ideological plans for racial supremacy and empire as keys to the blueprint for achieving his goals 5. Hitler’s desire to create an Aryan empire led to slave labor and even mass extermination on a scale that would have been incomprehensible to previous generations of Germans (or anybody else outside of Uncle Joe’s reach) B. The “Diplomatic Revolution” (1933-1936) 1. between 1933 and 1936, Hitler and Nazi Germany achieved a diplomatic revolution in Europe 2. For Hitler, it was most important that Germany build a large army and seek...
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...aggressive war crimes. These crimes included invading other nations, violating the Treaty of Versailles and most significantly, "crimes against humanity". These crimes were what later became known as the Holocaust, in which millions of innocent victims were deported, enslaved and systematically executed. The victims were primarily Jewish however many other victims suffered at the hands of the Nazis such as: Poles, Gypsies, the handicapped and the elderly. The Nuremberg Charter "defined war crimes as violations of the laws or customs of war"(Rosenbaum p, 30). Including killing of hostages, ill-treatment of civilians, use of forced labor and looting of public and private property and racial persecution. The International Military Tribunal, the prosecutors consisting of lawyers and judges from the United States, France, England and the Soviet Union had countless evidence of these crimes committed by the Nazis, however to serve justice to every individual for their inhumane actions was impossible. The Nuremberg Trials prosecuted twenty one defendants (all of whom were Nazi officers) and six major Nazi organizations. Although three organizations were declared criminal by the Tribunal and the defendants were convicted, justice was not completely served to many other organizations and individuals. Literally thousands of men who willingly participated in massive genocide evaded justice and lived comfortable lives in other countries. The Nuremberg Trials were...
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