Transcript Hate, Hubris, and Holocaust

Hate, Hubris, and Holocaust
Jeffrey L. Richey, Ph.D.
GSTR 221-A: Western Traditions II
Berea College
Spring 2005
ROOTS OF THE HOLOCAUST
• German resentment of
Versailles Treaty
ending World War I
(1919)
• “Great Depression”
fiscal crisis (1930s)
• Rise of fascism
• European racialism
• Christian antiSemitism
POST-WORLD WAR I
GERMANY
• Versailles Treaty forces
Germany to:
1. Take responsibility for
causing World War I
(1914-1918)
2. Pay massive financial
reparations to Allies
3. Reduce size of army and
navy
4. Eliminate air force
5. Surrender territory to
France and Poland
• German economy suffers
from colossal currency
inflation:
1. 1914 -- $1=4.2 marks
2. 1923 -- $1=4.2 trillion
marks
• German unemployment
rises to 40%
• New government is weak
and unstable:
1. Inefficient new parliament
2. Frequent insurrections by
left- and right-wing groups
THE RISE OF FASCISM
•
“Fascist” – derived from
two roots:
1. Latin fasces (rods wrapped
around an axe, a symbol of
authority in ancient Rome)
2. Italian fascio (group)
•
“Fascism” = extreme
right-wing dictatorship,
often seeking total
domination of all aspects
of people’s lives
Growth of fascist regimes in
Europe:
• 1922 – Italy
• 1923 – Bulgaria
• 1926 – Poland, Portugal
• 1929 – Yugoslavia
• 1932 – Hungary
• 1933 – Germany
• 1936 – Greece
• 1938 – Romania
• 1939 -- Spain
THE “ARYAN” MYTH
• Aryan (Sanskrit, “noble”)
= an Iranian people who
invaded India (c. 1500
BCE) and whose language
was ancestral to nearly all
modern European
languages, as well as
many Indian languages
• In 1800s, some Europeans
identified themselves as
descendants of Aryans and
associated Aryan identity
with Germanic ethnicity
• Many 19th century
Europeans and Americans
assumed that qualitative
differences underlay
ethnic and linguistic
variations (“racism”)
• “Race” = fictive, nonbiological division of
humankind
• Aryan myth + race
concept = idea of
Germanic racial purity and
superiority
Nazi anti-Judaism was the work of
godless, anti-Christian criminals. But it
would not have been possible without
the almost two thousand years’
pre-history of “Christian” anti-Judaism.
-- Hans Küng, On Being a Christian (1976), p. 169
CHRISTIAN ANTI-SEMITISM
• 545: Jewish property
confiscated by Christians;
Christians forbidden to sell
property to Jews
• 1215: Jews forced to wear
“badge of shame” in all
Christian countries
• 1290-1292: Jews expelled
from England, France, and
Italy
• 1443: Jews forbidden to
attend universities in Europe
• 1492: Spanish Jews forced to
convert, leave, or die
• 1543: Martin Luther
advocates burning of all
synagogues and Jewish
books
• 1648: 100,000 Jews
murdered in the Ukraine
• 1915: 600,000 Jews expelled
from western Russia to
Russian interior; 100,000 die
while being “relocated”
ADOLPH HITLER (1889-1945)
• Austrian World War I veteran
• Founder of National
Sozialische Deutsche Arbeit
Partei: radical, right-wing, antiSemitic
• 1923: describes Jews as “alien,”
“non-German,” and worthy of
hatred in autobiography, Mein
Kampf (My Struggle)
• 1933: becomes Chancellor of
Germany; excludes Jews from
government, media, and the
professions
• 1938: Jews banned from public
spaces and retail commerce
• 1942: “More efficient”
concentration system
established to liquidate Jews
CONSEQUENCES OF THE
HOLOCAUST
• More than 3 million Jews
killed in concentration
camps
• 5-6 million Jews killed
overall
• 60% of European Jews
killed
• 90% of German Jews
killed
• 80,000 other Germans
killed because of mental
or physical disabilities,
homosexuality, dissidence
THE HOLOCAUST ON TRIAL
• After Hitler’s suicide and
Germany’s surrender in
1945, Nazi official Adolf
Eichmann fled to safety in
Argentina
• In 1960, he was captured
by Israeli agents
• In Jerusalem, he was tried,
found guilty, and executed
for crimes against
humanity
• Eichmann’s defense: “I
obeyed orders.”
Obeying an order was the most important thing to
me. It could be that is in the nature of the German….
Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated
on being obedient and taking orders is a very
comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way
reduces to a minimum one's own need to think…. I
am certain, however, that those responsible for the
murder of millions of Germans will never be brought
to justice.
-- Adolf Eichmann, Memoirs (1961), n. p.