Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

The Rise of National Socialism and the Mass Genocide of Jewish People

Curtis Harrington

Composition 102-110

Larry Neuberger

7 April 2011
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Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel famously wrote, “There may be times

when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to

protest.” (Wiesel). His contention was that more important than the prevention of criminal

injustice was the ability and willingness to protest. Far from our modern era of technology and

instant communication, the events of what would come to be known as the Holocaust were

shrouded in mystery and deception. The Jewish people were discriminated against, in sometimes

violent moderation, by German authorities for almost a decade with virtually no assistance from

neighboring nations. Arguably one of the most significant lessons to be learned from the

Holocaust tragedy is the significance of magnanimous intervention. From being confined to

impoverished ghettos prior to their transportation to concentration camps, to their ultimate fate at

the hands of Nazi authorities, the Jewish population of Germany was subjected to one of the

worst periods of ethnic cleansing in human history.

Hitler speaking at a beer hall in Munich.

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The German Workers’ Party and the rise of Adolf Hitler to power.

In 1920, Hitler was named the head of propaganda for the German Workers’ Party (DAP)

and his perspective and ideology began to change the direction of the party. It was not long until
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the DAP decided to add the words “National Socialist” to its name and was then on more

commonly referred to as the Nazi Party. Hitler began lecturing at the beer halls of Munich and

his speeches were already being investigated and recorded by the German police force. It was

during these lectures and subsequent meetings that Hitler’s fierce denouncement of Judaism

became clear to the public. (Heiden 9-14) The failure of Germany’s central government to

protect its own supremacy and reputation greatly angered Hitler. His anti-Semitic attitude and

the incendiary tone of his revolutionary speeches gave hope and motivation for a subjugated

working class population. The idea of overthrowing the government came to fruition in the form

the “Beer Hall Putsch”. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s famous March on Rome was a

guideline for the coup d’état. Several of the Weimar Republic’s leader were attending a speech

in a popular Munich beer hall when Hitler and 600 members of the Storm Detachment (SA)

encircled the building to prevent anyone from escaping. Ultimately, however, the putsch came

dwindled to an anti-climactic halt; despite their organization, they made no real progress to

overthrowing the government and Hitler eventually tried to flee from the beer hall. In the days

following, Hitler was arrested and charged with high treason. (Harris 20) The Nazi Party’s

paper, The People’s Observer, was subsequently banned following a raid of the Nazi

headquarters. While all of this seemed like definite failure, Hitler only seemed to notice its

potential for notoriety and propaganda, so he used his time in the courtroom to spread his

ideologies to the general public. Not only was his message published in every major German

newspaper, but he continuously impressed the courtroom and judges enough to reduce his

sentence to a mere eight months. (Waite 210-13).

The Nazi Party would not at all be slowed down by their defeat, much like being

imprisoned did not slow Hitler’s efforts down. A few years after his release, the Nazi Party had
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become the second-largest party in Germany, soon to be the largest. Despite losing a majority of

seats in Reichstag in 1932, the Nazi Party continued to be the most popular party in Germany.

President Hindenburg held Hitler in relatively high regard and eventually appointed him

Chancellor of a coalition government. The severity of the action would be realized soon after

when the organized destruction of the Reichstag would lead to Hitler’s granting of dictatorial

emergency power. Shortly thereafter, the Enabling Act would be passed which consolidated

lawmaking power to the Nazi Party. It is this act which identifies a sort of beginning of the end

for civilized existence among the Jewish population of Germany. (Tonge 14-16).

The German Gestapo in action.

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The German Gestapo and the Nuremberg Laws.

The official secret police of the Nazi Party was the Gestapo. A law was passed in 1936

that approved of the Gestapo’s ability to operate without fear of criminal penalty or judicial

regulation. Political prisoners would often disappear under the watch of the Gestapo. Among

the various laws passed with the intention of aiding the Gestapo, an important one was the ability

create and operate concentration camps. The Gestapo would play a tremendous role in the

persecution and eventual attempted extermination of the Jewish people. The Gestapo were also a

key factor in the enforcement of the Nuremberg Laws that would begin to systematically remove
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peoples of Jewish heritage from German society. Something that began as a Nazi-backed

boycott of Jewish businesses escalated to deprivation of basic human rights and the eventual

genocide of more than six million human beings. (Dawidowicz 35-53). The anti-Semitic

campaign carried out by Hitler and the Nazi Party wasn’t strictly limited to Germany. As British

historian Martin Gilbert recounts in his book The Holocaust: a history of the Jews of Europe

during the Second World War:

The year 1936 saw outbreaks of anti-Jewish activity in several states beyond the

borders of Germany. In Rumania, in the city of Timisoara, members of

the Iron Guard organization attacked the audience at a Jewish theatre: a

bomb was thrown, and two Jews were killed. Elsewhere in Rumania, anti-

Jewish riots broke out, including Kishinev, scene of one of the worst pogroms in

Tsarist times, and in Bucharest, the Rumanian capital. In Lithuania, in an

attempt to establish restrictions on the percentage of Jewish students, not a

single Jewish medical student was given a place in the medical faculty of

Kovno University. (23-41).

The restrictions placed ranged from first denying Jewish citizens the right to hold public office

and the ability to vote, to ruling it mandatory to wear a yellow badge in an attempt to more easily

distinguish between the Jews and other German citizens. As the Nazi empire grew, these laws

were expounded and ordered to apply to all the neighboring countries that Hitler’s regime would

gain control over.

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A prisoner reenacts a torture pose in the

Dachau concentration camp.
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Dachau and the integration of the first concentration camps.

Dachau was home to the first of many concentration camps to be employed by the Nazi

Party. When the Nazis initially took over Dachau, local businessmen were optimistic about the

positive impact that a concentration camp in their town would create. Despite the support of the

financial sector, the turnaround expected never arrived; Dachau continued to have the lowest per

capita revenue of all Bavaria and a investigation revealed that their situation was calamitous.

The German public generally believed in the prospect of concentration camps and the camps

themselves presented as “clean” through constant inspection and maintenance overseen by

Theodor Eicke. The entire system of concentration camps saw a tremendous turn in usefulness

and activity following the “Night of Broken Glass” on June 30, 1934. (Marcuse 47-72)

Jews being arrested as a result of the “Night of Broken

Glass”.
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The “Night of Broken Glass” and violent anti-Semitism.

The “Night of Broken Glass” was a calculated ransacking of Jewish homes and

businesses. It resulted in the death of ninety-one Jews and the imprisonment and shipment of

30,000 more to concentration camps. After Hitler’s induction as chancellor and then dictator of

Germany, the Nazi Party continuously attempted to frame, with much success, the Jewish

population as the source for most or all of the problems of the German people. Jews were named

by common Nazi propaganda as the dominant reason for Germany’s loss in World War I and the

succeeding collapse of its economic system. The actual events were launched after the

assassination of Germany embassy official Ernst Vom Roth by a young Polish Jew named

Herschel Grynszpan. Many historians, however, have indicated that the Nazi Party had been

planning a systematic attack against Jewish citizens for sometimes and were merely waiting for

some kind of event such as Vom Roth’s assassination to justify their violent actions. The actions

were carried out by a series of strategically located riots. Jewish synagogues and businesses

were destroyed as their owners and patrons were mostly imprisoned or sometimes killed.

(Martin, 23-41).

Site of the 1942 Wannsee Conference.

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The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution.

The Nazi leadership began to consider a “solution” to the “Jewish question” following a

then-successful invasion of the Soviet Union. Their ultimate idea was to remove all of the

remaining current Jewish citizens entirely from Germany and have them sent to concentration

camps, which were now in abundance. When the outlook of Germany’s war with the Soviet

Union turned from a concise invasion to an enduring war, the evacuation of the Jews was

abandoned and their extermination was decided. The German empire had become too large for

their food stocks and this greatly factored in the decision to exterminate an entire race of people.

The logistical challenges of transported the estimated 11,000,000 Jews required careful planning.

Despite the seemingly clear nature of the Nazi Party’s intentions, a majority of soldiers were

initially unclear of the ultimate direction. English historian Mark Roseman briefly describes how

this could be possible:

Whatever instructions the group and local commanders had initially received,

therefore, had been susceptible to narrower or broader interpretation. This

suggests that the initial orders were not clearly genocidal but that their

definition of the Jewish elite was so loose that I t enabled something quite

close to genocide—namely, the elimination of all Jewish men of

working age. Once killings on that scale had been carried out, it often seemed

but a small step to widen the scope of murder. The widows and children of

the murdered men did not look like an economically viable community,

particularly in view of the intensifying food shortages.

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While this certainly does not alleviate any of those soldiers of responsibility, it certainly helps to

provide insight into answering the question of how something so atrocious and malicious could

be carried out in what was thought of as a civilized society. (Roseman, 102-140)

Jews lined up against a wall in the Warsaw ghetto.

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Warsaw and Jewish ghettos.

Before their inevitable deportation to concentration camps, Jews were rounded up and

herded into neighborhood known as “ghettos”. A wall would be constructed surrounding the

ghettos that would be topped with barbed wire to not only keep the Jews inside, but it also

concealed the atrocities from the rest of the world. Disease and starvation became rampant and

excruciatingly common among the inhabitants of the ghettos. With nowhere to bury the dead,

bodies would be dragged and carried into the streets and left to decompose in the open. Despite

immense hardships, however, the resilience of the Jewish community could be measured in their

persistence to create orphanages, makeshift hospitals, and, albeit illegally, educate children in

schools disguised as soup kitchens. While their conditions would never truly improve, the

resistance of their spirit against the most tyrannical and disastrous of scenarios was astounding.
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A famous picture taken during the destruction of the

Warsaw Ghetto, following the uprising.
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The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Although the Jewish people are well known for their seemingly passive resistance to the

Nazi regime, to say they went quietly would be misleading. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was

the single largest revolt performed by the Jews during the Holocaust. Small weapons would be

smuggled into the ghetto that allowed them to perform an attempt at salvation. It was ultimately

unsuccessful, resulting in 13,000 casualties from fighting, and several thousands more who died

from smoke inhalation or being burnt alive. They had support on the outside of the ghetto, but

their lack of sophisticated weaponry was too great, despite a small number of German

causalities. The inhabitants of the ghetto faced tremendous punishment for their actions.

Regarding the aftermath of the uprising, Israel Gutman, a Holocaust survivor, wrote that, “On the

last days, there was mass slaughter. In a hail of bullets the Nazis murdered a thousand Jews in

the streets of the ghetto in apparent retaliation for the fact that the ghetto was no longer silent and

submissive.” (Gutman, 184).

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Liberation of the Dachau concentration camp.

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The liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.

Beginning in 1945, the concentration camps were liberated consecutively, starting with

the Soviet liberation of Auschwitz. Often this was too late as many prisoners of concentration

camps were forced on what would come to be known as “death marches”, which involved

forcing them to walk westward, ultimately to their death. As a result, the Soviet soldiers often

arrived to only several thousand prisoners, a small fraction of the original number taken prisoner.

The United States of America interceded soon after the Soviets and liberated death camps such

as the ones located in Dachau and Mauthausen. Piles after piles of unburied corpses awaited the

liberating soldiers, a small glimpse into the vast scope of the atrocities that would soon be

uncovered. Many camps would have to be burned down to simply avoid the risk of spreading

disease, in hopes of avoiding further epidemics. On the anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation,

Polish Culture minister Waldemar Dabrowski said, “Let us remember that we are on the site of

the most gigantic cemetery in the world, a cemetery where there are no graves, no stones, but

where the ashes of more than one million people lie.” It would seem to be difficult to ever truly

grasp the weight of the crimes committed during this period in Germany’s history, but through

reverence and reflection, there is much hope for future prevention of ethnic cleansing on such a

tremendous scale.
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Two holocaust survivors embrace.

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Jewish life following the Holocaust.

In an attempt to bring justice to the few that survived the unspeakable events of the

Holocaust, the Nuremberg Trials commenced between 1945 and 1946. A majority of the

defendants would plead guilty and many of them would be sentenced to death. There were also

quite a few perpetrators that escaped entirely and were never sentenced or similarly brought to

justice. The Nuremberg Trials impact on history wouldn’t end with the Holocaust, and would go

on to create the International Criminal Court that would specialize in crimes against humanity

such as ethnic cleansing and genocides.

Rebuilding the lives of the Jewish people that survived the Holocaust. While conventional

wisdom might suggest that the survivors become very outspoken and rightfully bombastic, a immense

majority would choose to remain mostly quiet and pedantic. Survivors share their stories

independently and free from profit or notoriety. For the most part, they see their testimony as a

civil service, authenticating the events of the Holocaust as undeserved and terrifying. Holocaust

survivor Zigi Shipper spoke with the British news organization “The Guardian” and revealed

some honest feelings regarding his status as a Holocaust survivor by saying, “I feel [like] the
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luckiest person alive. I survived concentration camps, I jumped out of a lorry without being

seen.” (Jeffries).

Survivors forever have to live with the vivid memories of the atrocities of the Holocaust,

and their harrowing stories serve as a testimony to triumph in the face of darkness and ultimate

evil. It would seem foolish or naïve to believe that something as devastating and severe as the

Holocaust could be altogether avoidable. The stories told by the survivors, though, should assure

that if that is true, that something like this could happen in present day, we can feel relatively

assured that appropriate actions could be taken. The stories of the Holocaust also serve as a

reminder that history often does tend to repeat itself. Humans can now review history more

carefully and with a more skeptical eye and begin to uncover the truth of nationalization and

hegemony; nations and empires are often constructed on the backs of the weak or poor, no

amount of preparation and education could stop its presence but could certainly hasten our

response.
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Citations

Dawidowicz, Lucy S. A Holocaust Reader. West Orange, NJ: Behrman House, INC, 1976. 35-

53. Print.

Harris, Nathaniel. The Rise of Hitler. Chicago, Il: Heinemann Library, 2004. 20. Print.

Heiden, Konrad. A History of National Socialism. 2. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 1934. 9-14.

Print.

Gutman, Israel. The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943: ghetto, underground, revolt. Indiana

University Press, 1982. 62-118. Print.

Gilbert, Martin. Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction. Great Britain: Perennial, 2007. 23-41.

Print.

Jeffries, Stuart. "Memories of the Holocaust: Zigi Shipper." Guardian 27 Jan 2010. Web.

27 Feb 2011.

Marcuse, Harold. Legacies of Dachau: the uses and abuses of a concentration camp, 1933-2001.

United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 47-72. Print.

Roseman, Mark. The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration. United

States of America: Picador USA, 2003. 102-140. Print.

Tonge, Neil. The Rise of the Nazis. New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group, INC, 2009.

14-16. Print.

Waite, Robert G.L. . The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler. New York, NY: Da Capo Press, INC.,

1977. 210-13. Print.

Wiesel, Elie. "Hope, Despair and Memory." Nobel Lecture. The Nobel Foundation. 11 DEC

1986. Address.