Rise of fascism under Nazi Germany with special reference to the atrocities on Jews during Holocaust
Introduction:
“A holocaust is an incident in which a large amount of property is destroyed and a large number of people are affected, usually as a result of violence. The term "Holocaust" refers to the mass murder of civilians of Jews by the Nazi regime during World War”.
We may describe fascism as a particular ideology that consists of or combines racism, self - determination and self, military adventurism, and other elements. It was a kind of insanely power. This ideology always put the nation first. Germany, a strong empire in the early twentieth century, fought side by side the Austrian empire and against Allies in the First World War (1914-1918: England, France and Russia.) All jumped into the war with zeal, expecting to benefit from a swift victory. They had no idea that the war would drag on for years, stripping Europe of all its wealth. By occupying France and Belgium, Germany gained an early advantage. The Allies, bolstered by the United States' entry in 1917, eventually triumphed, crushing Germany and the Central Powers in November 1918.
The war had a severe psychological and financial effect on the entire continent. Europe went from being a continent of creditors to one of debtors. The impact of the First World War on European society and politics was profound. Soldiers began to be prioritised over civilians. Politicians and public relations experts emphasised the importance of men being violent, heavy, and masculine. The media portrayed trench life as glamorous. Soldiers, on the other hand, lived wretched lives in these pits, surrounded by rats feasting on corpses. They were exposed to mustard gas and enemy shelling, and their numbers were increasingly dwindling. The German economy took the brunt of the economic downturn. People were filled with anxiety and uncertainty as a result of the economic crisis. When the currency lost value, the middle classes, especially salaried workers and retirees, saw their savings dwindle. Small business owners, self-employed individuals, and retailers all suffered losses as their businesses were destroyed.
Hitler's Ascension to Power
A downturn in the market, politics, and society surrounded Hitler's seizure of power. Hitler, who was born in Austria in 1889, grew up in poverty. He enlisted in the army when the First World War broke out, served as a front-line interpreter, rose through the ranks to corporal, and was awarded medals for bravery. He joined the German Workers Party, a tiny organisation, in 1919. He then took over the party and renamed it the Nationalist Socialist German Communist Party. The Nazi Party was the name given to this group. The popular Enabling Act was passed on March 3, 1933, and it was used to destroy democracy. In Germany, dictatorship was created as a result of this Act. It gave Hitler complete control over the country, allowing him to ignore Parliament and rule by decree. Both major parties and organised labour were banned, with exception of the Nazi Party as well as its associates. The government took total control of the economy, media, army, and judiciary.
The Nazi Way of Thinking
Nazi ideology was linked to Hitler's philosophy. As a result, there was no justice between individuals, just a class dominance. Nordic German Aryans with blond hair and blue eyes were at the top of the social ladder, while Jews were all at the edge. Those who became regarded as an anti-race as well as arch-enemies of the Aryans. The other coloured people were grouped in the middle based on their external characteristics. However, colonial theorists and politicians used his theories to justify imperial power over conquered nations. The Nazi logic was straightforward: only the strongest races would prosper, while the weaker races would die. The Aryan people were the most advanced. It needed to maintain its purity while also being stronger and gaining control of the world. When they came to power, the Nazis took great pleasure in putting their vision of establishing the exclusive ethnic group of pure Germans towards action, literally removing those they deemed unfit from the kingdom. Only a community of clean and balanced Nordic Aryans was desired by the Nazis. They were regarded as desirable in and of themselves.
The Jewish group was not the only one labelled as undesirable. There were some as well. Captured people are being forced to serve as slave labour when Germany invaded Poland and parts of Russia. Many of them died as a result of their toil and hunger. In Nazi Germany, Jews were the worst victims. Orthodox Christian anti-Semitism served as a forerunner of Nazi anti-Semitism. They were portrayed as Christ's assassins and usurers. Jews were prohibited from owning land until the Middle Ages. They primarily made a living through trade and lending practices. They resided in ghettos, which were segregated areas. They were often persecuted and expelled from the land as a result of violent repression. Hitler's anti-Semitism, on the other hand, was founded on pseudoscientific race theories that claimed that conversion was not a remedy to the Jewish crisis. It could only be resolved by completely eliminating them. The Nazis terrorised, impoverished, and segregated Jews from 1933 to 1938, forcing them to flee the country. The following process, from 1939 to 1945, aimed to concentrate them in specific areas before killing them in gas chambers in Poland.
Nazi Germany's youth
Hitler was a zealous supporter of the country's youths. He believed that the only way to build a strong Nazi society was to teach Nazi ideology to children. This necessitated maintaining control over the child both within and without the classroom. In 1922, the Nazi Youth League was established. It was changed Hitler Youth four years later. All the other youth organisations were gradually disbanded and eventually outlawed in order to unify the youth movement under Nazi rule. Boys learned to be violent, rugged, and steel-hearted, while females were encouraged to be responsible parents and grow pure-blooded Aryan kids. Girls were expected to uphold the race's purity, keep their distance from Jews, care for their homes, and instil Nazi values in their children. They had to be the heirs to the Aryan race and history.
In several incidents, the Nazi government used terminology and the media with care, and to better heights. Not only are the words they coined to describe their different behaviours misleading. They're terrifying. In official Nazi messages, the words "kill" and "murder" were never used. Special care, final solution (for the Jews), euthanasia (for the disabled), variety, and disinfections were all terms used to describe mass killings. People were deported to gas chambers during evacuation.
Ordinary People and Human Rights Violations
The common people really believed that Nazism would bring wealth and a better quality of life. However, not all Germans were Nazis. Many organised vigorous opposition to Nazism, risking persecution and death at the hands of the police. The vast majority of Germans, on the other hand, were oblivious spectators and apathetic observers. They were afraid to speak up, to disagree, to complain. They tended to turn their heads away.
Stages of the Holocaust:
The coming to prominence of the Nazis in Germany the month of April, 1933. The Nazi movement was one of many anti-democratic revolutions prominent in Europe and particularly Germany between the two world wars, some of which were antisemitic. The creation and operation of a system of concentration camps for political dissidents and others was the culmination of this action.
Propaganda for Nazi Germany
The Nazis took complete control of the media and used it widely to spread their agenda through a specialized government propaganda department. The German public education system was used to transmit Nazi cultural messages to the young generation; schools and youth organisations disseminated Nazi ideas. The Nazis enlisted the help of Germany's cultural and art centres to represent Nazi symbols and symbolism.
Those who have been displaced
Tens of thousands of Jews fled Germany in the first year after Nazi rule, the majority on their own effort and without the assistance of any organisation. The steadily worsening condition of German Jewry increased the pressure to emigrate, and as a result, Jewish organisations provided comprehensive assistance to the emigrants. Huge Jewish resettlement from Germany and Austria has become an overt goal of Nazi policy toward the end of this era, especially in the second half of 1938. Rather than becoming emigrants who wanted to leave Germany of their own free will and choose their own destination, the Jews were refugees who were forced to flee their homeland.
Ghettoization and isolation
Jews in Central and Western Europe saw themselves as important contributors to society. Despite this, the Nazi occupation created a reality in which Jews were split off from community in their home countries, leading to the first acts of anti-Semitism.
Having followed the invasion, Jews in France, the Netherlands, as well as other countries faced oppressive legislation that stripped them of their citizenship and forced them out of the workforce. As a measure, the Jews had to reconfigure themselves differently in order to function as a self-sufficient group. Jews in these countries, including those in Germany, were forced to wear the yellow star or its equivalent over time. Finally, Nazi policy became more stringent, and Jews from Central and Western Europe were deported to extermination camps in Eastern Europe.
Jews are being humiliated
Following the conquest and division of Poland, the country's political infrastructures deteriorated, and anarchy reigned. Many others were forced to leave their homes, including many Jews who were able to make it inland into Soviet territory. Polish Jews were subjected to heinous acts of humiliation, brutal physical assaults, and even murder in the aftermath of the German occupation. These attacks were random due to the lack of a consistent and guided Nazi strategy, but their large number robbed Jews of all personal protection and left them fearful of their existence.
Murder in the thousands
Jews in Central and Western Europe see themselves as the important contributors to society. Nonetheless, the Nazi occupation established a reality in which Jews were cut off from society in their home countries, resulting in the first acts of persecution against Jews. Regarding the invasion, Jews in France, the Netherlands, and other countries faced oppressive regulations that stripped them of their citizenship and forced them out of the workforce. Like a consequence, the Jews had to restructure themselves separately in order to function as a self-sufficient group. Over period, Jews in these nations, as well as those in Germany, were expected to wear the yellow star or a similar symbol. In the end, Nazi policy have become more draconian, with Jews from Central and Western Europe being sent to East European detention centres.
Master and Slave
Starting in the mid-1930s, the Nazis began manipulating the camps' prisoners economically. To raise money, the SS authorities rented out their human resource - the labour of the camp inmates - to various German companies. With dominance of vast swaths of Europe, Germany had a plethora of options for continuing to manipulate what they saw as racially inferior minorities economically. As a result, hundreds of camps for forced labour were created. A large number of inmates died as a result of the poor working conditions.
Resistance by Jews
Underground resistance groups were established, initially resisting the Nazis by conducting illegal schools, printing presses, and other covert operations. These organisations did not begin to organise armed resistance until they were aware of Nazi plans for genocide, which were already underway. The rebellion in the Warsaw Ghetto was the most well-known.
Survivors of the Holocaust
Thousands of Jewish refugees stayed in concentration camps and hiding even after Europe was liberated and World War II ended. Some headed to their home countries, while others felt they couldn't stay on European soil any longer. In Germany, Austria, and Italy, refugees were clustered in Displaced People Camps (DP camps). Many of the 200,000 Polish Jews who had sought asylum in the Soviet Union during the war and later returned to Europe gradually joined them. The overwhelming majority of camp residents formed a strong Zionist ideology and announced their intention to relocate to Palestine.
Adolf Eichmann Trial
Adolf Eichmann was among the most important figures in the “Final Solution's” execution. He was one of the main organisers of the Holocaust, in responsible for overseeing and encouraging the widespread expulsion of Jews to slums and killing centres in the German-occupied Region. His execution in Jerusalem, Israel, in 1961 aroused international attention and raised public consciousness of the Holocaust's atrocities.
The allegations towards Eichmann were based on the Nazi and Nazi Perpetrators Punishment Law of 1950. This law permitted Israeli courts to prosecute Nazis for crimes targeting Jews committed during WWII. Gideon Hausner, the Israeli state's attorney, indicted Eichmann on 15 counts, covering offenses it against Jewish people as well as human rights abuses.
Eichmann was held liable of most of the accusations in the initial lawsuit on Dec 12, 1961. On December 15, he was condemned to death. Eichmann was assassinated on June 1, 1962. His remnants were scattered at sea, outside Israel's disputed sea, after he was interred. The prosecution of Adolf Eichmann is the last time Israel has carried out a capital punishment. The trial of Adolf Eichmann piqued public interest in the Holocaust. The hearing was among the first to be broadcast on tv, bringing Nazi atrocities to the attention of a worldwide audience. According to several historians, the Eichmann Trial was the turning point in the public acceptance of the term "Holocaust" and its events.
Conclusion/Analysis:
During the final years of the dictatorship, details about Nazi activities began to leak out of Germany. However, it was not until the war was over and Germany was defeated that the world realised the horrors of what had occurred. While the Germans were preoccupied with their own condition as a defeated nation emerging from the ruins, the Jews wanted the public to remember the horrors and misery they had experienced during the Nazi assassination campaigns, also known as the Holocaust. At one point, a ghetto resident told another that he only wanted to survive the war for half an hour. He was presumably referring to his need to be able to inform the rest of the world about what had occurred in Nazi Germany. Many ghetto and camp residents wrote diaries, kept journals, and built records, demonstrating their indomitable spirit to bear witness and conserve the records. When the war appeared to be lost, the Nazi leadership distributed gasoline to its functionaries in order to remove any damning documents found in offices.
In many areas of the world nowadays, the Holocaust's legacy and memory continue on in autobiography, novels, films, music, memorials, and museums. They are a homage to those who stood up to it, an embarrassment to those who helped, and a message to those who stood by and did nothing.
Reference List
Mastering Modern World History Fifth edition (Norman Lowe) - PART II THE RISE OF FASCISM AND GOVERNMENTS OF THE RIGHT
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/eichmann-trial
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/holocaust
The coming of the Third Reich – 2005 and 2014 Edition
Cynthia Crane, Divided Lives: The Untold Stories of Jewish-Christian Women in Nazi Germany,2000
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 1960
BY SHIVAM RAJ, LAW STUDENT