Nazi and the Holocaust

Alexis Arocha
Orient Building: Room 136
Time: 4pm- 5:50pm
Professor Casey
Hitler and the Holocaust
In the year of 1933, Adolf Hitler took power and the holocaust occurred. The vigorous dictator had a set of ideas and goals that took place across Europe. Hitler’s ideologies consisted of Germany and Austria having superiority over the Jewish population, whom were accused for all the issues Germany faced. Hitler “believed that only by waging a war of conquest against Russia could the German nation gain the living space and security it required and, as a superior race, deserved,” (Sources,369). Mein Kampf is a thorough work of literature that Hitler used as a guide for fourteen years; it enlightened people about the principles that were intended to transpire. Hitler was also a strong believer on Social Darwinism, and having said that, Social Darwinist believed that the process of survival of the fittest, by natural selection, should have been sped up by the government. With nationalistic thought, Hitler attempted to eradicate the Jews with the belief of Germany benefiting from this. This then lead to the catastrophe of the Holocaust where “estimates of the number of dead range as high as fifty million, including twenty-five million Russians, who sacrificed more than the other participants in both population and material resources,”(Sources, 369).
Throughout Adolf Hitler’s life, he developed many different goals and ideas, which later grew and made who he came to be. Hitler began his life wanting to become an artist, however, that didn’t get him anywhere. Many theorist people believed Hitler grew up in an anti-semantic home. Everything Hitler attempted to accomplish didn’t occur and therefore held the Jews responsible. For example, when Hitler failed to be accepted in The Vienna School of Art, he blamed that on the population of the Jews. Thus, volunteering for service in the German army and learning all that was needed to know about politics and important history. Hitler grew up blaming these individuals for everything that went wrong, for the social and economic issues of that era. It was made out to believe that the Jewish society were wise and sought after the wealth of the community at the expense of other members in the community. Also, they weren’t “Native” members of their country so Hitler easily said accusations like this to turn people against the Jewish society. Hitler’s hatred towards this group of people was his tool in convincing Germany that the basis of the problem was the Jews, and it could be resolved if they followed him.
Hitler’s theory on ideology consisted of many points; one being a religious doctrine declaring that those who agreed with Hitler, and preached to others about his thoughts, were the true masters of the religion; if done the opposite, these people were then known to Hitler as slave or false religions. The main principles of Nazism were extreme patriotism, anti-Semitism, declaration of racial superiority, disagreements to communism and democracy, and militarism. Hitler wanted to create common enemies such as the Jews, liberals, gypsies, homosexuals, etc. just because it was “wrong” in his perspective. Hitler made people believe that such things weren’t meant to be this way. In this autobiographical work, Mein Kampf, Hitler portrayed his un-changeable “world view”; which later the Nazi assumed control and became the political ideological foundation on the new regime. This book was mostly a racist interpretation of world history, and how it was the Jewish race destroying cultures and the Aryan race that was forming new cultures. Hitler spoke of the Social Darwinist outlook on life and how it is the strong that survive and the weak that die. Also, Hitler believed that when you’re in war it’s where you show your true abilities; which was militarism. Lastly, it was brought upon the belief that Germany was able to, and will become world power.
Once Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January of 1933, the Holocaust began. The defeat of Germany in World War I is what led to World War II. Germany was humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles and therefore, reduced not only its prewar territory, but its armed forces as well; they had to pay reparations, and demanded the credit of its guilt for the war. With the Germany Empire being destroyed liked this, it lead to a new parliamentary government. The economy just went downhill and the stock market crashed; this was known as the Great Depression of 1929.
Four years later Adolf Hitler came into the picture and took control over the government. Hitler encouraged prejudiced against Jews and other detrimental groups that weren’t apart of the Aryan race. The Aryan race consisted of all the Germans and the Northern Europeans. Hitler and his people came up with a plan to get rid of all the Jews, and the way it was done, that seemed to be most efficient, was through setting up camps to completely exterminating the entire Jewish population. “Using the modern state’s organizational capacities and the instruments of modern technology, the Nazis murdered six million Jews, including one and a half million children__two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe,” (Sources, 400). Jewish businesses were forced to close and the children soon weren’t allowed to educate themselves with the other German students. “To speed up the ‘final solution of the Jewish problem,’ the SS established death camps in Poland. Jews from all over Europe were crammed into cattle cars and shipped to these camps to be gassed or worked to death.” It was set up to kill up to nine thousand Jews each day. What human could live watching people die each day?
The Nazis genuinely believed the Jews were a threat to the German nation and that killing was the only option. In what mind would anyone believe killing was okay to do? This whole fixation of the Jews being the issue is completely wrong. The fact that there were ghettos built as well, keeping the Jewish community living under poor conditions and having no one care, is just terrible. Hitler’s beliefs were so strong; no one could convince him otherwise and watching numerous people die each day seemed to not be of any issue. Hitler’s reign of terror had a major impact in history that lasted seven years. Although Hitler didn’t achieve all the goals he wanted, still he managed to kill as many people as possible. This was such a tragic time that anyone today would think shouldn’t have happened or wouldn’t happen now.