Essay On Jews And Aryans

Targeting the German-Jewish minority allowed the Nazi regime to rally civilian support while segregating Germany’s eternal enemy, the Jew. It proved to be an opportunity for financial gain for the government and ethnic Germans. After the Nuremburg Laws of 1935, Jews were stripped of all their legal rights and fully isolated from Aryans, who retained citizenship. This allowed the regime to expropriate Jewish property, bank accounts and businesses. In the eyes of the government, Aryans were the only people entitled to benefit the new state and inherit the farmland, not Jews. Propaganda inferred everything owned by Jews stemmed from them stealing, cheating or gaining it through corrupt acts. As the German Jew were of lesser social and political value, the Third Reich could justify
Exclusion from German society solidified the racial distinction of Jews and Aryans. Propaganda portrayed Jews in a negative, discriminative manner and subconsciously changed the nature of German society. Social ostracism expanded beyond legislation decrees and into the economic realm. It was virtually impossible for Jewish businesses to flourish. Jews were so isolated by the government that SS guards stood outside their enterprises, informing civilians that their shops were owned by Jews. The Gestapo even encouraged ethnic Germans to insult Jews, verbally or physically. Ultimately, “each step in the rapidly accomplished process of exclusion of the Jews not only worsened their objective situation, but at the same time improved the situation of non-Jewish Germans, not just gradually, but in every way,” (Welzer, 169). The Nazis ability to isolate the Jews from German society and politics mirrored their ability to dominate society. Nevertheless, ethnic Germans were increasingly desensitized to their former neighbours as they were portrayed as Germany’s eternal enemy. The Nazis comprehensive policy of extermination expanded from the Third Reich’s anti-Jewish laws to the ethnic Germany