Transcript Questions to Consider

Questions to Consider:
• (1) How did the Nazis encourage support for the
Holocaust?
• (2) To what extent were average German citizens
aware of the Holocaust?
• (3) How was this accomplished?
Handout:
• Nazi Germany: To what extent were
average German citizens aware of or
involved in the Holocaust?
Questions to Consider:
* How does hatred occur?
* Why do certain people hate other
people?
* How did this happen in Germany?
Are There Psychological Reasons
for Why This Happened?
- Gordon Allport’s, a psychologist and sociologist
- Developed a “Scale of Prejudice and
Discrimination”
or
“Allport’s Scale of Prejudice”
- From the book, The Nature of Prejudice
Scale (Progression) of Prejudice
1 – “Antilocution” – when a group believes
negative images of people outside one’s own group
(begins with predilection, forming preferences)
2 – Avoidance – avoiding the minority group; no
direct harm in initiated, but psychological harm may
result from exclusion
3 – Discrimination – Calculated harm, denying
opportunities (examples, Jim Crow laws or Apartheid
in South Africa)
4 – Physical Attack – violent attack begins,
could also include vandalism
5 – Extermination – genocide, complete
elimination of other group
* Prejudice?
* Discrimination?
* Violence?
* Hatred?
What is Genocide?
The legal definition is …
“… the deliberate and systematic destruction, in
whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or
national group.”
From:
Office of the High Commission for Human Rights. Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Wikipedia.org
Eugenics
False science of racial identity
based on physical features.
Jews were considered
racially inferior to “Aryans.”
Why Did People Support Hitler?
** Hard to truly answer this question!!!
No simple answers.
Why Did People Support Hitler?
** Hard to truly answer this question!!!
No simple answers.
Other Possible Explanations:
(1) Propaganda
- Scapegoat
(2) Existing Anti-Semitism
- “Pogroms”
- German peoples hatred of the
Treaty of Versailles??
- Lack of strong democratic
tradition??
(3) Economic Prosperity under Hitler
(4) Fear of being a target yourself
Unemployment Rates
The German Recovery:
- Large-scale borrowing for
public expenditures
- Railroads, canals, & the
Autobahnen
- Large-scale wage controls
** For both U.S. & Germany,
industrial production dropped
50% from 1929 to 1933
• VIDEO: “THE PATH TO NAZI GENOCIDE”
(20:00 – 37:25)
(1) What caused the German people to
trust Hitler?
(2) Summarize the progression of Nazi
persecution and murder towards Jewish
peoples after the invasion of the Soviet
Union?
Propaganda
“You will think
the way I tell you to think.”
Aryan supremacy was one goal. Lebensraum “living
room” or “living space” the other.
Nazi Germany & Adolf Hitler
• Already discussed major events bringing him to power
• Hitler’s Ideology
In Mein Kampf (1923), major points …
• [1] – Uniting all German-speaking
people
• [2] – Racial purification and a master
“Aryan” race
• [3] – Germany needs “lebensraum” or
living space for national expansion
Youth were indoctrinated to see Hitler as a loving
protector.
1930’s
Children’s
Book
What a greedy Jew looks like…
[from “The Poison Mushroom” required reading
in elementary schools under Nazi authority]
1930’s
Children’s
Book
"Just as it is often hard to tell a toadstool from an
edible mushroom, so too it is often very hard to
recognize the Jew as a swindler and criminal..."
1930’s
Children’s
Book
“How Jewish traders cheat us. ”
From “The Poison Mushroom”
“The eternal Jew”
always taking money
[German propaganda poster, 1935]
What a proper German looks like…
Nazification replaces education
in schools
• Book burning
• Fewer academics
• Physical
conditioning
"Hitler our last hope";
"Therefore come to us!"
Austrian political poster 1936-1938
Public burning of “un-German” books in Berlin,
May 10, 1933. SA officers and college students.
SA stands for Sturmabteilung, or Storm Troopers. Nazi academics had been eager to eliminate
books that promote thinking outside Nazi belief, including religion, communism…Jewish authors,
in particular.
Students engaged more in physical and military training
exercises, less in academics.
By 1937, 95% of teachers belonged to the
Nazi Teachers’ League
Peer pressure, fear, job security, just make things easier.
"The Jew is our greatest enemy!
Beware of the Jew!"
Slide comparing racially mixed man with
healthy “Aryan” man
Linking the idea of racially identifiable Jews with Bolshevism, Communism, inferior
physical and moral characteristics – a constant theme.
Propaganda posters on public display
Postcard showing
Nazi soldier
waving large
swastika flag
standing on a
mountain ridge,
overlooking a
valley.
Huge rallies were staged and broadcast via radio
Hitler ordered all but the official Nazi radio transmission to be cancelled. There was no
television, computer, cell phone or other electronic visual technology in the home.
“We are yours” is depicted in the stadium.