Why did the Nazis want to kill off the Jews? One can see why an
oppressive regime might want to kill off its political opponents. I'm
not saying that it is acceptable that it should, just that one can see
why. One can see why an oppressive regime might want to kill off mental
or physical defectives. Again, I'm not saying that it is acceptable
that it should, just that one can see why. But why seek to kill off the Jews?
Dave Smith wrote:
Hitler [...]
blamed the Jews for the revolution to overthrow the German monarchy in
1918
That's interesting. Was he justified in blaming them?
Hitler [...]
blamed the Jews for the revolution to overthrow the German monarchy in
1918
Dave Smith wrote:
Hitler [...]
blamed the Jews for the revolution to overthrow the German monarchy in
1918
That's interesting. Was he justified in blaming them?
Why did the Nazis want to kill off the Jews? One can see why an
oppressive regime might want to kill off its political opponents. I'm
not saying that it is acceptable that it should, just that one can see
why. One can see why an oppressive regime might want to kill off mental
or physical defectives. Again, I'm not saying that it is acceptable
that it should, just that one can see why. But why seek to kill off the Jews?
Perhaps it should be pointed out that a ship loaded with more than 900
Jewish refugees not allowed to land at Canada, Cuba or the US.
Why did the Nazis want to kill off the Jews?
It just the Jews who were targeted. Germans considered themselves to be
a master race and ranked other races below themselves.They also went
after Gypsies
and homosexuals.
Why did the Nazis want to kill off the Jews? One can see why an
oppressive regime might want to kill off its political opponents. I'm
not saying that it is acceptable that it should, just that one can see
why. One can see why an oppressive regime might want to kill off mental
or physical defectives. Again, I'm not saying that it is acceptable
that it should, just that one can see why. But why seek to kill off the Jews?
It was the confluence of several influences...
Among most antisemites, the causes were the usual mixture of ignorance, >arrogance, and bigotry. These feelings were common, not only against
Jews, but against Africans, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Slavs, and
others - though most of the other groups that were discriminated against
were not nearly as numerous or as visible as Jews or occupied similar >positions in the social milieu as Germany.
On 01/21/2017 12:58 AM, Rich Rostrom wrote:
It was the confluence of several influences...
I think all of Rich Rostrom's points are well taken and explain a lot of
what happened. I will add just a few more observations.
While antisemitism was rife in Germany, Europe at large, and even in the U.S.A. in the 1930's, genocide was not what most antisemites had in mind.
Among most antisemites, the causes were the usual mixture of ignorance, arrogance, and bigotry. These feelings were common, not only against
Jews, but against Africans, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Slavs, and
others - though most of the other groups that were discriminated against
were not nearly as numerous or as visible as Jews or occupied similar positions in the social milieu as Germany.
I think that what was new in Nazism was the personality and power of
Hitler himself. The man was brilliant in some ways, but quite insane in others. Hatred of Jews was a mania with him. If he had been told in
1939 that starting the war would result in the death of millions of Jews
but also millions of Germans and even the flattening of Berlin and other German cities, I'm not sure he wouldn't have gone ahead with the war
anyway.
So why did the people follow him? How did antisemitism and
discrimination against Jews turn into mass murder?
Those are harder questions. I'll offer the following possible
explanations. Maybe others can improve on what I say.
First of all, every society contains some percentage of people with very limited moral feelings. Pushing them into criminal acts isn't hard and,
if all restraints are removed, they turn to criminality easily and with
no push needed at all. These are the bullies of the Gestapo, the S.A.,
the S.S., and the Hitler Youth.
Hitler removed all the restraints. He made it, not only permissible,
but actually desirable, to be a racist, an antisemite, and a violent
thug. He drew people around him like Goering and Himmler who were
borderline criminals before their rise to power and crossed all borders afterward. They in turn recruited their thugs and bullies, who
recruited theirs - with the most sociopathic people rising to the top of
most of the institutions in society.
But what about the others? What about the people who, even if vaguely
or not so vaguely antisemitic, would never have countenanced murder? The answers regarding them are simple. In the first place they were
terrorized. They knew that even verbal resistance was not only futile,
but dangerous. Protecting Jews or even speaking up for them would bring themselves to the attention of the Gestapo and condemn them without
trial or appeal to a concentration camp. In addition, the Nazis learned
that it was a mistake to perform actual murder openly, in Germany.
Everybody knew what was happening, but they were allowed to pretend that
they didn't know. That was a refuge for many non-Nazi Germans. If they shut-up and retreated into their personal lives, they could at least
continue to live - or at least continue to live unless and until the war consumed them.
Finally, I'd argue that a planned process of brutalization occurred. Men
who would not have committed crimes in civilian life were turned into criminals by what they were forced to do during the war. It was not
just the killing of Jews, but the massacre of prisoners of war, of
French or Czech or Russian civilians as punishment for acts of partisans
who had nothing to do with the people who were killed.
There's an excellent book by Christopher Browning _Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland_. I recommend it
as a well documented account of how ordinary men, non-criminals, are
turned into killers.
Alan
So why did the people follow him? How did
antisemitism and discrimination against Jews turn
into mass murder?
Now you are getting to the question that nags me!
(And if my OP wasn't quite clear, my apologies.)
Alan Meyer wrote:
So why did the people follow him? How did antisemitism and
discrimination against Jews turn into mass murder?
Now you are getting to the question that nags me! (And if my OP wasn't
quite clear, my apologies.)
So too, the Nazis with the Jews, though in their
thinking it was not a matter of circumstances as
inherently bad character (as asserted by traditional
anti-semitic propaganda). And Jews were linked
together internationally. Thus Jews anywhere in the
world were enemies to be annihilated.
The Nazis didn't see that Catholics are much more
internationally linked than Jews... there isn't a Jew Pope...
The Nazis didn't see that Catholics are much more
internationally linked than Jews... there isn't a Jew Pope...
One common trope of revolutionaries was the "medical"
or "surgical" metaphor. A surgeon does dreadful things
to a patient - cutting him open, spilling his blood,
slicing up his internal organs, carving out parts of
his body. But all this is justified, because the parts
removed are diseased or defective, or have to be
rearranged.
So too, the Nazis with the Jews, though in their
thinking it was not a matter of circumstances as
inherently bad character (as asserted by traditional
anti-semitic propaganda). And Jews were linked
together internationally. Thus Jews anywhere in the
world were enemies to be annihilated.
Essentially the large scale killings started in Poland after the war had begun . . .
"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@froggy.com.au> wrote in message news:Br2dne4AgIYAOw3FnZ2dnUU7-THNnZ2d@westnet.com.au...
Essentially the large scale killings started in Poland after the war had
begun . . .
Some historians disagree about "essentially."
German culture is
highly legalistic, viz. respectful of statute law and scientific
authority. The "racial science" of the early 20th century was
eugenic, i.e. envisaged the planned improvement of the
race (however defined) by public control of births and deaths
(e.g. forcible sterilization of people deemed "unfit" by current
science, cf. "Three generations of imbeciles is enough.")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4 summarizes the first
(secret) Nazi government action to kill off the unfit, viz. mental
hospital patients (nearly all non-Jewish, totalling 70,000 killed
in the first two years, cited sources total.)
This was a huge
legal precedent (some historians judge) -- the first time any
modern European government agreed simply to kill
by administrative decision a subset of their own citizens.
The ultra-secrecy of this "euthanasia" programme suggests
Nazi officials understood its significance as a precedent.
When information reached London and Washington some
years later, most right-thinking people simply could not
believe any modern government would do this.
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