Holocaust Background
Anne Frank Unit
Hitler’s Rise to Power
• World War I (1914-1918) is a disaster for
Germany
• They enter the war as the strongest nation in the
world; at the end they lose everything.
• Germans though the war was lost due to internal
treason because the government hid the truth
about the war.
• 80% of all men in Germany between the ages of
18-30 were killed, maimed, or “shell-shocked”
during WWI
Treaty of Versailles
• Treaty of Versailles- the peace treaty that ends
WWI
1. Limit army- German army can not have more
than 100,000 men.
2. No manufacture of items needed for war
(tanks, guns, etc.)
3. Germany must make reparation payments.
Results of Treaty
• Germans hated this treaty because it blamed
Germany for WWI.
• Treaty resulted in anger, revolts, and Germany
felt humiliated
Postwar Conditions in Germany
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High Inflation
Unemployment
Great political unrest and rioting
Jewish people were blamed for Treaty of
Versailles (scapegoats)
Adolf Hitler
• Born April 20,1889 in
Austria
• Austrians speak German
• Not a German citizen until
1930
• Dropped out of school at
age 16
• Wants to be an artist-fails
entry exam at Vienna
Academy of Fine Arts
Adolf Hitler
• Did not hold a
permanent job
• Joined German army in
WWI and served as a
message runner (a
dangerous position)
• Wounded twice during
the war
• Reached rank of
corporal
1919
• National Socialist German Workers Party =
NAZI
Anti-democratic
Racist against Jews
Nationalistic- believe their country is the best
• Nazi party was formed by 7 members who
met in beer halls
1920-Hitler joins to find meaning in his life
1924
• Beer Hall Putsch (takeover)
• Met in beer hall, planned armed rebellion to
take over Germany and put in their own
president
• Hitler goes to prison for treason for 5 years
• Used the publicity of the trial to preach Nazi
ideas and compromises
Mein Kampf
• While in prison Hitler
writes Mein Kampf, or “my
struggle,” about his life
and Nazi philosophy
• Introduces the idea of a
master race
• Sells millions of copies
• By 1933 it outsells all
books except the Bible
• December 20- Yuletide
Amnesty- all prisoners set
free
• Hitler only serves 10
months of a 5 year term
1925-1929
o 1925- only 27,000 dues-paying members in Nazi party
• 1928- 4 times that number even though government banned
the party because of Beer Hall Putsch
• 1929-Great Depression in USA caused depression in Germany
o 1930: 30% of Germans unemployed
20% of Germans under-employed
• Hitler tells people they were betrayed by Jewish bankers and
moneylenders
The Depression was the single greatest reason for Hitler’s
rise to power (people were vulnerable and fearful)
Hitler set up soup kitchens, hired his own troops, and bought a
national newspaper
1933
• January 20- Hitler is elected Chancellor (vicepresident) of Germany under Hindenburg
• Tears up the Treaty of Versailles
• February 27- Reichstag Fire-claims
Communists are attacking the government
(inspires fear into the German people)
• March 24- Enabling Act- gave Hitler legal
dictatorship; allows him to pass laws without
legislature
• People lose freedom of speech, press, and civil
rights; can only agree with Nazi ideas
1933
• Ignores Treaty of Versailles
• Hitler creates jobs and brings people out of the
depression
• Because he is able to restore the economy, people
love him
• Two powerful weapons: appeal to Anti-Semitism and
charismatic personality, great speaker
• Dachau- builds first concentration camp for political
prisoners (people who break Nazi laws)
• Begins removing rights: people need to register as
Jews, boycott of Jewish shops
1934
• August 2- President Paul von
Hindenburg dies; Hitler takes
over powers of presidency
• Office of presidency is now
eliminated; Hitler becomes
dictator of Germany
• Army swears allegiance to
him
• Germany is now a police
state
• Begins murdering mentally
challenged and the ill
Nuremberg Laws
• Nuremberg Laws- laws of race and citizenship
against the Jews
No Jew could be a citizen
No Jew could marry a non-Jew
No Jew could hold position or job in military,
universities, or government
Not welcome to see doctors or lawyers
Could only shop in Jewish stores
1937
• Hitler goes to war
• Hitler invades Austria on basis that all
German-speaking countries were one country.
• Hitler’s expansion could have stopped at this
point if Britain, France, and the USA had
intervened because Hitler did not have the
military power to pull it off.
1938
• (July) Evian Conference- 42 countries met abut
Jewish immigrants. They waited for the U.S. to
decide to take Jews in- only 26,000 Jews were
allowed in.
• Munich Pact- signed September 30, 1938
• Meeting held between Hitler (Germany),
Mussolini (Italy), Neville Chamberlain (England),
and Daladier (France): agreed to give the
German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia to
Germany
• Tried to appease Hitler and avoid war
1938- Kristallnacht
• November 7= Kristallnacht ( Night of Broken
Glass)
• An organized pogrom against Jews (mass
violence, homes and businesses destroyed,
synagogues destroyed, Jews beaten)
• Turning point in the extermination of the Jews
Images of Kristallnacht
1939
• Jews were forced to carry ID cards, they were
rounded up and sent to ghettos
• August 23- Germany and Russia sign a nonaggression pact- they will divide Poland
between them
• September 1- Invade Poland, which has a large
Jewish population and no army
• WWII begins
World War II
Allies
• England (never conquered)
• France (conquered in 1940)
Axis
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Germany
Japan (fights in Pacific)
Italy
Russia
1939
• Basis for “Final Solution” begins
• Hitler issues sterilization laws
• Practiced gassing in vans- people learned to
be desensitized to this type of killing and were
brain-washed into believing they were doing
the right thing
• Hitler called this a “scientifically clean,
productive way of killing”
• Targeted victims included political leaders and
religious leaders of opposing groups
1940 “Final Solution”
• Hitler conquers Holland, Belgium, and France
• “Final Solution” begins to get rid of all Jews
• Concentration camps were created (considered
labor camps as opposed to death camps, but food
and living conditions were inhumane and people,
of course, did die
• 6 specific death camps created- all in Poland, did
not want them in Germany because of task of
burying the dead, too much bloodshed, and
growing of new crops might be affected
Concentration Camps (Poland)
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1. Auschwitz- Birkenau
2. Belzec
3. Chelmno
4. Maidanek
5. Sobibor
6. Treblinka
1941
• June 21, 1941: Germany invades the Soviet
Union
• Hitler saw the non-aggression pact with the
Soviet Union as a temporary, tactical maneuver
• Nazi troops annihilate entire villages of Russian
Jews
• Stalin (Russian leader) joins the Allies in the war
(only country to fight for both sides)
Pearl Harbor
• December 7, 1941
• Day of Infamy
• Japanese attack Pearl
Harbor
• Lasts 10 minutes 7:558:05 am
• December 7- USA
declares war on Japan
• December 11- US
declares war on
Germany (last country
to enter the war
Wannsee Conference
• January 20, 1942
• Meeting between the SS and the German
government agencies
• Come up with “Final Solution” to murder 11
million Jews, even in non-occupied countries
of Ireland, Sweden, Turkey, and Great Britain
• Plan to murder them all in death camps
• German resources are depleted from war
effort; German citizens suffering and starving
D-Day
• June 6, 1944
• USA and Allies land in
Europe on Normandy
Beach (France)
• Known as D-Day
• Major step in the defeat
of the Axis powers
1945
• Hitler and close officers had been holed up in
underground bunkers in Berlin
• April 30- Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide
together- bodies burned to prevent
recognition
• Hitler was 56
• Russians secretly had bodies exhumed
VE Day
• May 7- VE day- Victory in Europe- when
Germany surrendered and WWII ended in
Europe!
• August 6 and 9- USA drops the first atomic
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan
• August 14- Japan surrenders and WAR IS
OVER!!!!
Important Leaders during WWII
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England- Winston Churchill
USA- Franklin Roosevelt (through most of WWII)
USA- Harry Truman (at the end of WWII)
Italy- Benito Mussolini
Russia- Joseph Stalin
Japan- Emperor Hirohito
Germany- Adolf Hitler