Hitler’s Final Solution

promised Germans a better life appealed to young, unemployed and small businessmen Chancellor (1933) a one-party dictatorship. All individual freedoms and rights removed rely on terror and violence to maintain and increase their power..

Head of the SS

To gain support of the German people Headed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, control of all forms of media and communication (newspapers, magazines, books, public meetings, rallies, art, music, movies and radio). burned books (unfit) (Einstein and Freud) Anti-Semitism

“master race” = Aryans (blond, blue-eyed and tall). Improved humanity by limiting the reproduction of people considered to be “inferior”. Forced sterilization on Gypsies, handicapped, mentally ill, deaf, blind, African-German children and the Jews. Teachers began to apply “the principles of racial sciences”.

Physically and mentally ill targeted. Viewed as “useless” members of society Threat to Aryan genetic purity The T-4 program (euthanasia program) German doctors aided the Nazis (medical files) Killed in specially constructed gas chambers. Children – injections or starvation. Bodies burned

Jews in Germany. The largest concentration in Eastern Europe Contrary to German propaganda and prejudice, not all Jews were extremely wealthy. Anti-Semitism was prevalent in Europe prior to the Holocaust. The Catholic Church throughout the Middle Ages taught that the Jews were responsible for Christ’s death even though the Romans had crucified Jesus. blamed for Black Death

Star of David & identification cards The Nuremburg Race Laws (1935) Defined a Jew: Not in religious terms, but in terms of lineage. Complete segregation (adults and children) Pogroms November 9, 1938: Kristallnacht or “the Night of the Broken Glass”. Joseph Goebbels carefully organized the pogroms synagogues burned, Jewish businesses attacked and dozens of Jews were killed. Jewish cemeteries, hospitals, schools and homes looted

Forced to live in marked-off sections of cities (ghettos) Fenced in barbed-wire or walls /guarded entrances Life unbearable. Overcrowded/diseased/filthy/no heat Nazis deliberately tried to starve the residents of the ghettos. There was no sources of heat. Thousands died/many suicides.

Prison camps or concentration were built by the Nazis to imprison Jews, Gypsies, political and religious opponents, resisters, homosexuals and other “enemies of the state”. more than 100 across German-occupied Europe by the end of WWII.

Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people. The goal = genocide (the deliberate, systematic destruction of a racial, ethnic, cultural or political group). First revealed to non-Nazi leaders at Wannsee Conference (Jan. 1942) Many forms of murder: gassing, shootings, random acts of violence, disease and starvation.

Mobile group of SS Followed German armies into the Soviet Union in June 1941 Ordered to kill all Jews, communist leaders and Gypsies. Killed one million Jews. Shot or used gas vans psychologically devastating to the killers (ordinary men) Those who struggled with the murders often used liquor to numb themselves

An Einsatzgruppen D member about to shoot a Jew kneeling at a mass grave in Vinnitsa.

The Nazis systematically deported Jews to six extermination camps In Poland To decrease psychological burden on the killers. The most famous death camp was Auschwitz. These camps were killing centres to achieve Hitler’s goals of genocide

Arrive by train (packed like cattle) sorted by the guards: men from the women and children the sick from the healthy (overseen by SS doctor) Infants, young children, pregnant women, the elderly, the handicapped and the sick usually did not survive this initial selection. Once selected to die: led to the gas chambers. (Told it was a shower to prevent panic) Prisoners forced to carry the bodies to a room where all valuables removed Bodies were burned or buried in mass graves. Also extermination through work.

Soviet soldiers first British, Canadian, American and French troops too Nazis had tried to empty the camps of surviving prisoners/ evidence of their crimes Allied soldiers still found thousands of dead Those alive practically skeletons Many too weak to digest food (1/2 found alive in Auschwitz died in a few days) Mixed reactions of survivors Excitement and guilt

Impossible to return home to a life like it had been before the Holocaust Jewish communities no longer existed in much of Europe. Found that, in many cases, their homes had been looted or taken over by others. Many ended up in displaced persons’ (DP) camps Waited to be admitted to places like the United States or South Africa. On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, announced the formation of the State of Israel.

After the war, some of those responsible for crimes committed during the Holocaust were brought to trial in Nuremburg, Germany in 1945 and Allied judges presided over the hearings of twenty-two major Nazi criminals. Twelve prominent Nazis were sentenced to death. Hitler did not appear at the Nuremburg Trials because he had committed suicide at the end of the war.