1. Holocaust History

2. Hitler Comes to Power
In the early 1930s, the mood in Germany was grim. Economic depression had hit the country especially hard, and millions of people were out of work. Nearly 40% unemployment.
The German government was weakened by the defeat during WWI fifteen years earlier.
These conditions provided the chance for the rise of a new leader, Adolf Hitler, and his party, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi party for short.

4. Hitler Comes to Power
Hitler was a powerful and charismatic speaker who attracted many Germans who were desperate for change.
He promised a better life and a new and glorious Germany.
The Nazis appealed to the unemployed, young people, and members of the lower middle class (small store owners, office employees, craftsmen, and farmers).

6. Hitler Comes to Power
In January 1933 Hitler was appointed chancellor, the head of the German government, and many Germans believed that they had found a savior for their nation
Hitler moved quickly to turn Germany into a one-party dictatorship and to organize the police power necessary to enforce Nazi policies.

7. Nazi Rule Reichstag passes Enabling Act (legally for five years)
Under the new Nazi rule:
Reichstag passes Enabling Act (legally for five years)
Hitler put an end individual freedoms, including freedom of press, speech, and assembly.
Individuals lost the right to privacy, which meant that officials could read people's mail, listen in on telephone conversations, and search private homes without a warrant.
An important tool of Nazi terror was the Protective Squad (Schutzstaffel), or SS, which began as a special guard for Adolf Hitler and other party leaders. 

9. Nazi Rule
By 1934 Hitler became a dictator with the death of the president Hindenburg.
SS chief Heinrich Himmler also turned the regular (nonparty) police forces into an instrument of terror
Secret State Police or Gestapo; these non- uniformed police used ruthless and cruel methods throughout Germany to identify and arrest political opponents and others who refused to obey laws and policies of the Nazi regime.

12. Hitler’s Goals Create a master race Aryan
Create a thousand year empire(Third Reich)
Expand territory
Hitler used methods of terror and spectacle SS (Schutzstaffeln)
began massive rearmament program
Reduced unemployment to less than 500,000

17. The Holocaust Began soon after Hitler took power
Jews were main targets
Nuremberg laws (1935) (defining who was Jewish)
Jews were encouraged to leave Germany

18. The Holocaust
After the invasion of the Soviet Union, mass exterminations of “undesirables” began to take place
Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Units)
Followed behind army in Russia and would line up people and shoot them into mass graves.
Reinhard Heydrich- one of the architects of the Concentration Camp/ Holocaust System
(SS Final Solution Coordinator)
Probably killed one million people this way

27. Concentration Camps
After Einsatzgruppen squads proved too slow, SS decides on more efficient method
Death/work camps
Millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, mentally ill, disabled, homosexuals, and others were rounded up were either killed or sent to camps
At these camps, victims were worked and died or were immediately killed

28. Concentration Camps These camps became giant death factories
Large gas chambers and crematoriums
Sometimes large pit fires were used
Victims were also used for medical experimentation
In the end, 11,000,000 victims
6,000,000 were Jews

29. Concentration Camps
After Einsatzgruppen squads proved too slow, SS decides on more efficient method
Death/work camps
Millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, mentally ill, disabled, homosexuals, and others were rounded up
Either killed or sent to camps
At these camps, victims were worked and died or were immediately killed

30. Concentration Camps These camps became giant death factories
Large gas chambers and crematoriums
Sometimes large pit fires were used
Victims were also used for medical experimentation
In the end, 11,000,000 victims
6,000,000 were Jews

49. ZYKLON B