HSC Core Study: Power and Authority in the Modern World

Minorities

You have already looked at Nazi ideology and their racial theory in previous syllabus points. This view of racial superiority affected minorities in Germany significantly. The Holocaust, which you should already be familiar with, was a result of Nazi policies against the Jews, but does not fall within this area of study, which ends at 1939. Other minorities were also impacted by the Nazi regime because they were seen as inferior or “untermenschen”.

Jews

Despite being less than 1% of the German population at the time of the Nazis’ rise to power, Jews were particularly hated by Hitler who he blamed for all of Germany’s problems as well as being the source behind Communism

The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. Anti-Semitic laws were passed, Jews were stripped of their rights and citizenship, and violence became more common. Boycotts of Jewish stores occurred, and in 1938 a violent and destructive night would see synagogues burn and Jewish owned windows smashed. Finally, in the last few years of Hitler’s rule, the policies of persecution would change to extermination.

Dozens of laws were passed, each designed to remove Jews from everyday German life, and actions were taking by Hitler’s thugs, the SA to intimidate them.

In 1933 the SA encouraged boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses. Jewish stores were painted with anti-Semitic slogans.

Source 1

View more Nazi anti-semetic photos here: https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/the-eternal-jew/QQZobW1A

In 1935 two new laws were passed

•The Reich Citizenship Law which stated no Jew could be a German

•The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour. This defined a Jew as a person with either three or four Jewish grandparents. Marriages or sex between Jews and Aryans was forbidden.

Between 1935 and 1940 life for Jews in Germany were increasingly restricted

Banned from working in the Army, as Veterinarians, Tax Advisors, in government schools, as auctioneers, as doctors for Aryans, or being a student or a lecturer at university.
No longer allowed to change their surname and had to add either “Israel” or “Sara” to their given names, and must have a large ‘J’ stamped on their passports.
Prohibited from owning gun stores or weapons, moving around Germany without permission, having carrier pigeons, owning a car or a driver’s license, having a telephone or a radio banned from health spas and resorts, forbidden from buying lottery tickets.

In November 1938, after a German diplomat had been shot by a Jew in Paris, people were encouraged to form mobs, and led by the SA a night of vandalism, violence, and murder occurred, almost 100 Jews died. Synagogues were burnt down all over Germany. Shop windows of Jewish businesses were smashed and because of this it became known as the night of broken glass, or Kristallnacht.

Source 2- Passport Stamped with Jewish "J"

Further reading about Anti-Semitic Laws in Germany

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/anti-jewish-legislation-in-prewar-germany

Other "Unfit or "Undesirables"

Other minorities including homosexuals, the disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Roma people were also targeted by the Nazis for being either inferior or undesirable. Many would end up in concentration camps, some were forcibly sterilised, and the Nazis implemented a euthanasia program for disabled children in 1939.

Source 3

During the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial 1946-1947, Karl Brandt, a Doctor on trial, said the following about the case of "Child K", a suspected first case of child “mercy killing:

“I personally know of a petition that was sent to the Führer in 1939 via his adjutant's office [Adjutantur]. The case was about the father of a malformed child who applied to the Führer asking that the life of this child or this creature would be taken. At the time, Hitler ordered me to address this matter and to go to Leipzig immediately - it had happened in Leipzig - in order to confirm on the spot what had been asserted. I found that there was a child who had been born blind, appeared imbecilic and who was also missing a leg and part of the arm. [...] He [Hitler] had given me the task, to discuss with the doctors in whose care the child was, to determine whether the disclosure of the father was correct. In the event that he was right, I was to tell the doctors, in his [Hitler's] name, that they could carry out euthanasia. In doing so, it was important that it should be done in such a way that the parents could not feel at any later stage that they themselves were burdened by the euthanasia [of their child]. In other words, that these parents should not have the impression that they themselves were responsible for the death of the child. It was further beholden on me to say that if these doctors themselves were involved in any legal proceedings as a result of these measures, carried out on behalf of Hitler, these proceedings would be quashed. Martin Bormann was then tasked, to notify this accordingly to the then Minister of Justice, Gürtner, in respect of this case in Leipzig. [...] The doctors were of the opinion that preserving the life of such a child was not actually justified. It was pointed out that it is quite normal that in maternity hospitals under certain circumstances for euthanasia to be administered by the doctors themselves in such a case, without calling it such, any more precise term is not used.

Source 4

Identifying labels from a 1936 concentration camp, followed by a translation of some of the badge names

Minorities

Jews

Other "Unfit or "Undesirables"

Discussion Question: To what extent did the Nazis reshape German family and community life between 1933 and 1939?

Question to focus on for your timeline- Use sources 1 & 2 and evidence from your own study to explain Nazi treatment of Jews to 1939.