With this police infrastructure in place, opponents of the Nazis were terrorized, beaten, or sent to one of the concentration camps the Germans built to incarcerate them. The Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS (S.D., Security Service of the SS) functioned as the Nazis’ intelligence service, uncovering enemies and keeping them under surveillance. The Schutzstaffel (SS, Protection Squad) served as Hitler’s personal bodyguard and eventually controlled the concentration camps and the Gestapo.
#When was the holocaust professional#
The Gestapo ( Geheime Staatspolizei, Secret State Police), a force recruited from professional police officers, was given complete freedom to arrest anyone after February 28. The Sturmabteilung (S.A., Storm Troopers), a grassroots organization, helped Hitler undermine the German democracy. They also developed a sophisticated police and military force. The Nazis marshaled their formidable propaganda machine to silence their critics. It sanctioned Hitler’s dictatorial efforts and legally enabled him to pursue them further. On March 23, the Enabling Act was passed. The Nazis moved swiftly to consolidate their power into a dictatorship. When the elections were held on March 5, the Nazis received nearly 44 percent of the vote, and with 8 percent offered by the Conservatives, won a majority in the government. On the next day, the government, under the pretense of controlling the Communists, abolished individual rights and protections: freedom of the press, assembly, and expression were nullified, as well as the right to privacy. The fire signaled the demise of German democracy. Although many suspected the Nazis were ultimately responsible for the act, the Nazis managed to blame the Communists, thus turning more votes their way. A Dutchman named Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested for the crime, and he swore he had acted alone. Then, in the midst of the election campaign, on February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building burned. They arrested their leaders and banned their political meetings. The Nazis used the government apparatus to terrorize the other parties.
#When was the holocaust full#
Soon after he became chancellor, Hitler called for new elections in an effort to get full control of the Reichstag, the German parliament, for the Nazis. The influence of the newspaper was far-reaching: by 1938 about a half million copies were distributed weekly. At the bottom of the front page of each issue, in bold letters, the paper proclaimed, “The Jews are our misfortune!” Der Stürmer also regularly featured cartoons of Jews in which they were caricatured as hooked-nosed and ape-like. Propaganda: “The Jews Are Our Misfortune”Ī major tool of the Nazis’ propaganda assault was the weekly Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer (The Attacker).
The Nazis incited clashes with the communists and conducted a vicious propaganda campaign against its political opponents – the weak Weimar government and the Jews whom the Nazis blamed for Germany’s ills. The Nazi Party had taken advantage of the political unrest in Germany to gain an electoral foothold. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party, was named chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg after the Nazi party won a significant percentage of the vote in the elections of 1932. Massive inflation followed by very high unemployment heightened existing class and political differences and began to undermine the government. The republic suffered from economic instability, which grew worse during the worldwide depression after the New York stock market crash in 1929. With the German Empire destroyed, a new parliamentary government called the Weimar Republic was formed. BackgroundĪfter its defeat in World War I, Germany was humiliated by the Versailles Treaty, which reduced its prewar territory, drastically reduced its armed forces, demanded the recognition of its guilt for the war, and stipulated it pay reparations to the allied powers. Rather, they were the victims of Germany’s deliberate and systematic attempt to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe, a plan Hitler called the “Final Solution” ( Endlosung). The Jews who died were not casualties of the fighting that ravaged Europe during World War II. These deaths represented two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of all world Jewry. During this time, Jews in Europe were subjected to progressively harsher persecution that ultimately led to the murder of 6,000,000 Jews (1.5 million of these being children) and the destruction of 5,000 Jewish communities.
The Holocaust (also called Ha-Shoah in Hebrew) refers to the period from Januwhen Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany - to May 8, 1945, when the war in Europe officially ended. Propaganda: “The Jews Are Our Misfortune” The Holocaust: Table of Contents| Glossary of Terms| What Makes this Tragedy Unique?
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