Nazi racial policy__the_holocaust

Nazi Racial Policy

A children’s book, The Poisonous Mushroom.

Martin Niemollen, 1945 When the Nazis came for the Communists I was silent, I was not a Communist.

When the Nazis came for the Social Democrats I was silent, I was not a Social Democrat.

When the Nazis came for the Jews I was silent, I was not a Jew.

When the Nazis came for me there was nobody left to protest.

Nazi Racial Policy

Pursuit of the master race:

• Related to Eugenics and the concepts of Social Darwinism, This is Hitler’s idea of creating a superior Aryan race through selective breeding.

• Hitler’s views on this were no secret, he had spelled them out from the beginning in Mein Kampf

Nazi racial policy can be broken into several different areas. The first is:

Nazi Racial Policy• The persecution of Hitler’s ‘undesirables’ in Germany extended

prior to the outbreak of WWII and incorporated more groups than just the Jewish. For example:

• Mischinge (People who were part Jewish)• Communists• Gypsies• Anti-Nazi groups• Non-heterosexuals• Vagrants• Alchoholics• Trade unionists• Handicapped people• The mentally disabled• The aged• Freemasons

The Holocaust• We know that both the Russian’s and Chinese lost more civilians to

racially based genocide during WWII so why then is the holocaust such an important case study? Here’s some theories… – Partially Racial – Jewish people represented a significant and

politically vocal minority group in America post WWII– Partly political – Of the three key genocides only one was

perpetrated on civilians who weren’t either already or about to become communist nations during the cold war era. Also consider that Japan had essentially become an American ‘colony’ post WWII thus many of their atrocities have been subject to “historical interpretation”…

– Partly due to the nature of the motivation behind the extermination of the Jews. Both the Russians and the Chinese can in part be explained along traditional motivations of conflict but the Jews represent a unique example.

A racial chart taken from a Nazi Propaganda Booklet. Who has German Blood? Who belongs to the Jewish race? Who is mixed?

Nazi marriage chart

Measuring

noses

And eyes

Racial Discrimination

Remember! – For the purposes of the holocaust and racial policy Jews ARE NOT the only group we consider.

• Nazi extermination policy was for ALL non Aryans For example:• Disabled People: The 1933 sterilisation law affected 350,000

Germans. The definition of ‘handicapped’ was very loose and applied to prostitutes, alcoholics and people with parkinson’s disease.

• In 1939 the T4 program saw the “mercy killing” to reduce the burden of these unproductive people, 72,000 were killed.

• Homosexuals, beggars and tramps were also sent to camps• GYPSIES!! 212,000 of the 872,000 gypsies were killed

throughout Europe• Did someone make the Gypsies tears joke yet…

The second and more malicious element… Discrimination, segregation and extermination.

Caption: Does the same soul dwell in these differing bodies?

Taken from a pamphlet outlining German racial policies, intended for the SS

Slide taken from a Nazi propaganda filmstrip, promoting "euthanasia," prepared for the Hitler Youth. The caption says: "Mentally ill Negro (English) 16 years in an institution costing 35,000 RM [Reichsmarks]." Place and date uncertain.

Lódz January 1942. In January 1942 about 10,000 Jews were deported from the Lódz ghetto to the death camp in Chelmno. Another 34,074 were deported between February and April.

A “Side effect” of the evictions and exterminations… Plundered goods!

Poland: sign says “Jews not allowed

to walk on this side of the street”

In January 1939, Hitler openly threatened the Jews when he said:

“If the international Jewish financiers.. . succeed in

plunging the nations into a world war. . . then the result

will (be).. The annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.”

Final Solution

Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing squads made up of Nazi (SS) units and police. They killed Jews in mass shooting actions throughout eastern Poland and the western Soviet Union.

View of the ravine at Babi Yar circa 1944. On September 29-30, 1941, more than 33,000 Jewish residents of Kiev were marched to this site and systematically gunned down over the edge of the ravine by members of the Sonderkommando

Concentration camps

Auschwitz

Auschwitz

Roll call at Auschwitz, drawn by Ella Liebermann, a prisoner

iDachau: prisoners were often ordered to stand

without moving for hours

Russian troops liberating a camp

Camp inmates

greeting US liberators

Bales of human hair found by liberators