How were minorities treated from 1933 to 1939?
B aim – to explain how minorities were treated in this period, why they were treated like this and
what this suggests about the holocaust
A/A* aim – to explain how minorities were treated in this period, why they were treated like this,
who was to blame and what this suggests about who was to blame for the holocaust
• Get your timeline out on the treatment of
Jews in Nazi Germany which you should have
completed for homework
– How did the treatment of Jews change over time?
– Why do you think this treatment of Jews changed
over time?
– Who do you think was to blame for this
treatment?
– Use pp. 342-343 to help you in addition to this
• Abwehr
• Up to 1943 the Abwehr, was the military
intelligence part of the army. In March 1943
they tried to kill Hitler in Operation Flash.
The Gestapo discovered it, arrested the
conspirators and disbanded the Abwehr.
Why did the slaughter of minorities
happen and who was to blame?
• A question
• Treatment of minorities 1933-1939 (Jews, gypsies,
mentally ill, physically and mentally disabled, criminals,
homosexuals, political opponents, religious sects)
• Treatment of Jews during WWII
• Causes of the final solution and who was to blame
• Treatment of gypsies during WWII
• Treatment of homosexuals, mentally ill and others
during WWII
How were minorities treated from 1933-1939?
General
Homosexuals
Gypsies
Religious
groups
Criminal
s
Mentally and
physically
disabled and
unwell
Jews
History of Anti-Semitism in Europe
• Anti-Semitism was nothing new – religious base
–
–
–
–
Write two sentences
about the History of
Anti-Semitism in Europe
to the left of your
timeline.
Excluded from England 1290
Russian pogroms in the 19th C
Permeated European culture
During the occupation in WWII a lot of French and Polish people helped the
Nazis persecute Jews
• From 1920 Hitler stated that Jews would not be a member of the people
and used them as scapegoats.
• Traditionally thought that anti-Semitism played a limited role in the Nazi
seizure of power, but this was revised in the 1970s to show that the Nazis
used anti-Jewish propaganda in places with high levels of anti-Semitism to
target their propaganda effectively
• Hitler was the product of a prejudiced society not the creator of AntiSemitism
• However, most voted for him out of desperation in the early 1930s
• Anti-Semitism was a gradualist policy
Do you think this subject should be
taught in schools?
Propaganda
• Posters
• Education – eugenics and
textbooks
• Jews not wanted her signs
• Der Sturmer was very antiSemitic
• Der Jude (the eternal Jew)
• http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=CIQp31Oyn70&sa
fe=active
Label where there was
propaganda and what
kind of propaganda
there was on your
timeline
Exclusion of Jews from society
• Using the timeline from pp. 342-343 highlight where Jews were excluded
from society
• Promoting Aryans
• Lost jobs from 1933 – Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil
Service
• Berlin Olympics – toned down – removed ‘no Jews’ signs.
• After the Olympics increased by making businesses register so that they
could then dismiss any Jewish workers and managers, and then Jewish
businesses were taken over and bought for bargain prices by aryan
Germans. Jewish doctors were not allowed to treat non-Jews and Jewish
lawyers were not permitted to practice law. Everyone had to carry an
identification document in Nazi Germany – but Jews had to have it
stamped with a J and given new Jewish middle names, Israel or Sara if they
didn’t have Jewish sounding first names
• Culture
• 1933 – 1 day boycott – enforced by the SA but not universally accepted
Add to your timeline
Jews – Nuremberg Laws
•
•
•
•
•
Add to your timeline
Problem of not being able to identify Jews.
To try to reconcile anti-Semitic SA vs. Moderate Schacht. There had been a decree in August 1935 telling
people to stop assaulting Jews, they continued, Frick threatened harsh penalties against those who
ignored this order
SEPTEMBER 15, 1935
NUREMBERG LAWS ARE INSTITUTED
At their annual party rally, the Nazis announce new laws that revoke Reich citizenship for Jews and prohibit
Jews from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." "Racial infamy,"
as this becomes known, is made a criminal offense. The Nuremberg Laws define a "Jew" as someone with
three or four Jewish grandparents. Consequently, the Nazis classify as Jews thousands of people who had
converted from Judaism to another religion, among them even Roman Catholic priests and nuns and
Protestant ministers whose grandparents were Jewish.
OCTOBER 18, 1935
NEW MARRIAGE REQUIREMENTS INSTITUTED
The "Law for the Protection of the Hereditary Health of the German People" requires all prospective
marriage partners to obtain from the public health authorities a certificate of fitness to marry. Such
certificates are refused to those suffering from "hereditary illnesses" and contagious diseases and those
attempting to marry in violation of the Nuremberg Laws.
NOVEMBER 14, 1935
NUREMBERG LAW EXTENDED TO OTHER GROUPS
The first supplemental decree of the Nuremberg Laws extends the prohibition on marriage or sexual
relations between people who could produce "racially suspect" offspring. A week later, the minister of the
interior interprets this to mean relations between "those of German or related blood" and Roma
(Gypsies), blacks, or their offspring.
Add to your timeline
Jews – Kristallnacht – Nov
1938
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/kristallnacht/3278.html
• March 1938 – Anschluss. 200,000 Jews attacked in Vienna.
• November 1938 - Herschel Grynszapn shot a German diplomat in Paris on
the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch
• Goebbels encouraged escalation to Kristallnacht – when SA and the Hitler
Youth started to attack Jews without direction Heydrich was worried a riot
could break out. Heydrich sent a telegram telling SA leaders where to
attack to control the situation.
• 30,000 Jews arrested, 267 synagogues attacked, 7,500 Jewish owned
businesses looted
– Escalation of anti-Semitic policy
– Why did it escalate here?
– Does this show the treatment of Jews was planned or improvised?
Add to your timeline
• 1937 – Schacht slowed down anti-Semitic policies due to the
impact they may have on the economy
• Further excluded – encouraged emigration. Many left
voluntarily for Palestine, Britain and the USA – most famously
Einsten for the US. From 1938 this was foeced, this started in
Vienna where the Central Office for Jewish Emigration was
formed. Jewish poperty was confiscated to finance the
emigration. Within 6 months 45,000 had left Vienna. Goring
was so pleased with this he set up a Central Office for Jewish
Emigration in Berlin. Around half the Jewish population left.
Many who left ended up in countries which were later
occupied.
Add to your timeline
Mentally ill
• Pp. 356-337 pink
• ‘burdnes on the community’, ‘life withou life, worthless life’,
‘unworthy of life’
• Compulsory sterilisation of hereditarily ill 1933
• Considered euthanasia but it was only in 1939 that this was
enforced when a father asked for his son to be euthanised. A
special unit, the T4 unit, was set up to kill the children. By
1944 200,000 had been murdered. Relatives were informed
by letter and sent urns with the ashes in. The techniques
learnt were later used in the Holocaust. Released proEuthanasia films to help.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fORUgqpvmg&safe=activ
e
Add to your timeline
•
•
•
Pp. 338-339 pink
Nazis believed needed to be removed in the interests of the community
Asocials defined as anyone who didn’t fit into Volksgemeinschact and were vagabonds (petty
criminals and unwilling to work), gypsies, beggars, prostitutes, alcoholics, eccentrics,
workshy, juvenile delinquents)
–
–
–
•
Asocials, homosexuals, Christian
branches, gypsies
1933 rounded up half a million vagrants, the ordlerly were given work and the disorderly were imprisoned , some died
here. Unemployment seen as an issue for the police.
1936 Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion established, Himmler tried to establish a
resgiter. 1937 ordered that homosexual SS officers should be sent to concentration camps and ‘shot while attempting
to escape’. 10,000-15,000 homosexuals arrests and sent to camps. Some were castrated and endured medical
experiments. Lesbians weren’t pursuedas it was felt that they weren’t a threat.
Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to join the army and to swear allegiance. Whole families arrested. 1/3 of Germany’s
Jehovah’s Witnesses died in concentration camps died. Christian Scientists and Seventh Day Adventists suffered a
similar fate.
19th and 20th C tried to integrate Gypsies into ‘ordinary’ German society. 1933 Law for the
Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring sterilised Gypsies, part-Gypsies and Gypsies in
mixed marriages. Under the "Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals" of November 1933,
the police arrested many Gypsies along with others the Nazis viewed as "asocials", and "work
shy", including prostitutes, beggars, chronic alcoholics, and homeless vagrants, and
imprisoned them in concentration camps
–
–
–
1938 Himmler issued a ‘Decree for the struggle against the gypsy plague’
1939 sent to camps before being expelled to Poland
1942 – sent to Auschwitz where there was a speical gypsy camp. Most German gypsies died.
How were minorities treated from 1933 to 1939?
B aim – to explain how minorities were treated in this period, why they were treated like this and
whether it was haphazard or improvised
A/A* aim – to explain how minorities were treated in this period, why they were treated like this,
whether it was haphazard or improvised and what this suggests about blame for the mass killings
during WWII
• Does the increasing anti-Semitism seem planned to
you or haphazard and improvised? Give a reason for
your answer.
• How were minorities treated in this period and did it
change?
• Why were minorities treated like this?
• What does the treatment of minorities from 1933 to
1939 suggest about who was to blame for the mass
killings during WWII?
Homework – Due Monday
• Find an account of someone from a minority group in
Nazi Germany
• Make a timeline of how they were treated. Compare
this with your timeline from the lessons and label
where a policy is being applied.
• ‘To what extent was opposition a serious threat to
the Nazis during WWII?’ 30 marks. (include
opposition types and suppression – make sure you
analyse your information by answering the question
at the end of every paragraph)