Jews, Nazi Germany, and The Evolution of the Holocaust

1. Centralverein

   Annotations:

   • The central organization for Jews of Germany and decided in 1930 that no party would lobby for them so they decided to lobby for themselves and went straight to the Chancellors. They urged people to vote for the German State Party, but jews didn't know who to vote for and essentially lost power because they were divided among different groups
   1. Franz Von Papen

      Annotations:

      • German politician that served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932. He believed that Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government and used to Papen's advantage. So, Papen persuaded President Paul Von Hindenburg in the late Weimar Republic to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in a cabinet not under Nazi Party Domination. This was supported by conservatives and Jews.

1. DNVP vs. NSDAP (Nazis)

   Annotations:

   • The DNVP was declining rapidly as many workers and peasants began to support the more populist and less aristocratic NSDAP while upper-class and middle-class DNVP voters supported the NSDAP as the "party of order" best able to rush Marxism.
2. Jews and Nazi Regime
   1. Anti-Jewish Policies
      1. Robert Weltsch

         Annotations:

         • Zionist intellectual and politican. In 1933, he created the campaign, "Wear the yellow badge with pride" which urged Jews to wet the yellow star forced upon jews with honor. He said that they cannot hide the fact that they are Jewish and should be proud of their heritage
         1. New version of Anti-Semitism
         2. Zionism and issue of modus vivendi

            Annotations:

            • The belief that Jews and Germans were distinctly different nationality, and that Jews did not belong in Germany. Jews living in the Reich were therefore NOT to be regarded as "Germans of the Jewish faith", but as members of a separate national community. Zionism also implied an obligation by ZionistJews to resettle in Palestine, the "Jewish Homeland". They could hardly regard themselves as Zionists and simultaneously claim equal rights in Germany or any other "foreign" country. Therefore they could not peacefully coexist.
      2. Jewish Responses to Nazi Regime
         1. The Transfer Agreement of 1933

            Annotations:

            • The only way to respond to the Regime was to leave Germany but getting out was complicated and difficult. Jewish quotas and the effects of the Great Depression in Europe limited the places Jews could go. So, the Jewish Agency worked out a deal with the Zionist Federation of Germany. The conditions of the deal were that Jews that wanted to leave the country had to buy merchandise of German merchants, and when they arrived in Palestine, they had to sell this merchandise to the Palestinians. Whatever they made, they got to keep.
   2. Nuremburg and the Berlin Olympics, 1936

      Annotations:

      • Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler saw the Games as an opportunity to promote his government and ideals of racial supremacy. The oficcialy Nazi party Party, the Volkischer Beobachter, wrote in the strongest terms that Jews should not be able to participate in the Games. However, when threatened with a boycott of the Games by other nations, he relented and allowed all ethnicities to participate.
      1. Nuremburg Laws, 1935

         Annotations:

         • Set of laws that socially and economically isolated Jews, and gave them the impression that Jews could begin to predict their future for once.
         1. Kristallnacht

            Annotations:

            • "Night of Crystal" is often referred to as the "Night of Broken Glass". The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudentenland in Czech. recently occupied by German troops.
      2. Gretel Bergmann

         Annotations:

         • Two weeks before the Olympics began, Grman officials informed her that she was denied a place on the team because she was Jewish, although she had equaled the German women's record in the high jump. The Germans sacrificed a chance for a gold medal with this action.
   3. Nazi Military Action
      1. Nazi-Soviet Non Agression Act

         Annotations:

         • The two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years.  But contained a secret agreement i which the Soviet and Germans agreed how they would later divide up Eastern Europe. 
         1. Joseph Stalin (1979-1953)

            Annotations:

            • With Europe on the brink of another major war, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin viewed the pact as a way to keep his nation on peaceful terms with Germany, while giving him time to build up the Soviet military.
         2. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

            Annotations:

            • Used the pact to make sure Germany was able to invade Poland unopposed.
         3. Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union in 1941
            1. Nonaggression Pact fell apart
            2. Battle of Stalingrad

               Annotations:

               • Major battle of WWII in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Unio for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia, on the eastern border of Europe. Marked by constant close quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians by air raids, it is often regarded as the single largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare. The heavy losses inflicted on the German Wehrmacht make it arguably the most strategically decisive battle of the whole war.
               1. Pavlov's House

                  Annotations:

                  • A fortified apartment building in which Red Army defenders held for 60 days against a heavy Wehrmacht offensive during the Battle of Stalingrad. The siege lasted from Sep. 27th to Nov. 25 1942 an eventually the Soviet forces managed to relieve it from the siege. It gained its popular name from Sergeant Yakov Pavlov, who commanded the platoon that seized the building and defended it during the long battle.
      2. The Grofaz Campaigns

         Annotations:

         • Got its name from the German Soldiers' derogatory acronym for the title "Greatest Field Commander of All Time" given to Hitler during the early war years and publicized by Nazi propaganda.
         1. Poland (Sept. 1939)

            Annotations:

            • Germany goes to war with Poland, Blitzkrieg with Motorized Warfare (planes), deliberate bombing of civilians and population centers to rive Poles to surrender. Ethnic German "self-protection units" (insurgent partisan activity) gathered and murdered 20,000 Poles.
            1. Scandinavia (April 1940)

               Annotations:

               • right after the Polish Invasion
               1. Holland, Belgium, and France (May 1940)
      3. 1. The Battle for Moscow

            Annotations:

            • German's code named it "Operation Typhoon". It started on October 2nd 1941. The capture of Moscow, Russia capital, was seen as vital to the success of "Operation Barbarossa". Hitler believed that once the heart - Moscow - had been cut out of Russia, the whole nation would collapse.
            1. "To The Last Man"

               Annotations:

               • Radio broadcast with greetings from all fronts during Christmas as a morale booster.  Hitler wouldn't let Germany surrender until the "last man" Soviets sent a message to the Germans that a German dies every 7 seconds. 90,000 POWs German POWs were taken by the Soviets, and only 6,000 wet retuned to Germany in 1955.
            2. "Rasputitsa"

               Annotations:

               • The month long muddy period slowed down the German advance during the Battle of Moscow, and may have helped save the Soviet Capital.
   4. Ghettoization

      Annotations:

      • The segregation of Polish Jewry culminated in the confinement of the Jews to ghettos, beginning in the spring of 1940. The vast majority of ghettos were concentrated in occupied Poland (the General Gouvernament) and also in territories in western Poland, which had been ennexed to Germeny. The nature of the ghettos and the extent of their isolation from their surroundings varied from region to region. In some cases there wed even radical differences between the ghettos.
      2. Attrition vs. Production

         Annotations:

         • Attritionists believed that tghettos would be used to slowly wipe out the jewish population by cutting the Jews off from society with no help.  Productionists believed that ghettos shouldn't be a burden on the economy and that Jews should help produce a good economy and pay for themselves as well as Germany.
      3. Lodz

         Annotations:

         • WWII ghetto established for Polish Jews including Roma following the 1939 invasion of Poland. It was the second largest ghetto in all of German-occupied Europe after the Warsaw Ghetto. Situated in the city of Lodz and originally intended as a preliminary step upon a more extensive plan of creating the Judenfrei province of Warthegau, the ghetto was transformed into a major industrial cnetre, manufacturing much needed war supplies for Nazi Germany and especially for the German Army. The number od people incarcerated in it was augmented further by the Jews deported from the Reich territories.
         1. Chaim Rumkowski

            Annotations:

            • Polish Jew and wartime businessman appointed by Nazi Germany as he head of the Council of Elders in the Lodz Ghetto during the occupation of Palnd in WWII. He accrued exponentially more power by transforming the ghetto into an industrial base manufacturing war supplies for the Wehrmacht army in the mistaken belief that productivity was the key to Jewish survival beyond the Holocaust.
      4. "Bloody Thursday"

         Annotations:

         • An action conducted by the German army against the Jews who did not want to move to the ghetto. The Nazis surrounded a section of Piotrkowska St. and ordered the people to leave their apartments whiten a few minutes. Several persons who resisted were killed, others moved to Baluty fearing for their lives; consequence of German impatience with the ghettoization's. 300-400 Jews shot and 150 marched to the woods to be executed
      5. Judenrat

         Annotations:

         • Mediator between Jews and Germans;the Jewish Council in the Ghetto system; focal point for problems and hopes in the Ghetto. They decided who got what rations and who worked where. They were responsible for creating lists for deportation. They were created by the enemy for the enemy. They were well deseed and had equipment such as phones and typewriters. They were the Ghetto elite.
   5. Germanization

      Annotations:

      • The spread of the German language, people and culture or policies which introduced these changes. A major goal of the Nazi Regime.
   6. Ghetto System

Annotations:

• The Federal Republic and semi-presidential representative democracy established in 1919 in Germany to replace the German Empire

1. Heinrich Brüning

   Annotations:

   • Chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic from 1930 to 1932. He was very liberal and feared social disorder caused by the despair of economic depression.
   1. Rising Unemployment

      Annotations:

      • Unemployment was rising and Russia had been in a similar situation that had led to the first revolution in March 1917. Bruning was in despair and saw no improvement in sight and feared that people would take to the streets and that this would play into the hands of the Nazi's. He realized that that unemployment in the major cities was the key problem. The feeling of hopelessness could only benefit the extreme parities that existed in Weimar but he opposed Hitler and Nazism.
      1. Franz Von Papen takes over

         Annotations:

         • President Paul Vo Hindenburg replaced Bruning in 1932 with Franz Von Papen

1. 1933
   1. 1933
      1. 1933
         1. 1936
            1. 1939
               1. 1940