Nadene Goldfoot
How is it that a man such as Hitler had the audacity to think at a time his country was flailing economically, that the solution was to kill all Jews in the whole world? He was part of a Catholic country of Austrian birth.
Like today, Jews in 1930 made up about 1% or less of Germany and Austria. They are a minority of minorities. Because some Jews were successful in business and the economic situation of Germany wasn't, he blamed the Jews.
Hitler was a German National Socialist leader. He joined the National Socialist German Worker's Party after serving in WWI and built it up into a major force exploiting anti-Semitism in Germany. After becoming the German chancellor in 1933, he imposed on the state a totalitarian regime with extreme militaristic tendencies. His chancellor position was following a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. He ruled absolutely until his death by suicide in April 1945.
National Socialism was synonymous with Nazism, a German political movement. It was in 1919 that the German Worker's Party added the words, "National Socialist" to its name and in 1921 Adolf Hitler became its leader. It became the largest party in 1932. It achieved power on January 30, 1933, after which it use every method to become the country's only party---a position it ruthlessly maintained until the end of WWII.
A boycott was started on April 1, 1933 in which Jewish persecution was stepped up to intolerable proportions. Actions of violence became common after the occupation of Austria on March 13, 1938. , with the avowed intention of compelling Jews to emigrate, and believe me, they had been trying to. The government worked against it. My uncle to be was the last Jew possibly to get out of the country in June 1939, and it hadn't been easy. His parents couldn't afford to do it as it was so expensive for a ticket on a ship. His whole family died a ghastly death, and he had to live with the guilt of being a survivor.
Hitler's Aryan decree was issued on April 11, 1933 which defined as non-Aryan any person having a non-Aryan, particularly Jewish, parent or grandparent. Had my grandfather not immigrated from Lithuania in 1900, myself, brother, parents, children and grandson would have all perished.
Hitler created the Gestapo. The Geheime Staatspolizei, abbreviated Gestapo, was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various security police agencies of Prussia into one organization.
Hitler created the SS. The Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich.
The SS was the organization most responsible for the genocidal killing of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews and millions of other victims during the Holocaust. Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II (1939–45). The SS was also involved in commercial enterprises and exploited concentration camp inmates as slave labor. After Nazi Germany's defeat, the SS and the Nazi Party were judged by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to be criminal organizations. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking surviving SS main department chief, was found guilty of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in 1946.
There was held a pogrom against Jews on November 9-10, 1938 which was followed by the killing of Vom Rath in Paris; Ernst Eduard vom Rath was a German diplomat. He is remembered for his assassination in Paris in 1938 by a Polish Jewish teenager, Herschel Grynszpan, age 17, which provided a pretext for the Kristallnacht, "The Night of Broken Glass". the brutal assault on Jews throughout the Reich, the demolition of their houses and businesses, the burning of synagogues and the wholesale arrests, violence, and murder which roused world-wide protests.
He had concentration camps set up for Jews and his political opponents. He then invaded Poland in 1939 which led to WWII. After that such concentration camps became gas chambers where 6,000,000 Jews were murdered. That was 2/3 of the world Jewish population. That means that about 3 million remained alive in the world, scattered about, mostly in England and the USA and some in Palestine and other corners. In the USA in 1940 there was 4,770,000-4,975,000 Jews. Today there are about 6,000,000.
Jews were a small group, unarmed and had not harmed any Germans, Austrians or anyone. They were unsuspecting of the consequences of their being good citizens, never becoming a criminal element in their country. Their men had served in WWI. They were an unarmed people. They had no way to protect themselves and no way to know what was going to even happen to them until it was too late. My uncle's father had served in the first world war. He put his uniform on as he was forced to scrub the street on his hands and knees, being a Jew, an act to bring him down, to debase him, but he wore his uniform, to show what they were doing to a German soldier in good standing.
Hitler committed suicide, which is the prevailing evidence we have as Russian troops were advancing through Berlin. His paranoiac hatred of the Jews stirred his followers and adherents to unspeakable excesses and was responsible for the extermination of the 6 million Jews in Europe.
There were German men who took the chance and tried to kill him, but were killed for doing so. They knew he was mad and not the leader they wanted. More men evidently protected him, as he lived through it.
The shock is that the whole country kept a blind eye to what was happening and went along with such a killing spree, worse than any Emperor of the past had done to anyone. How was it that a whole country was fearful of disappointing one horrid little ugly man? Germany alone's population in 1939 was 69,600,000? At the same year, there were 234,000 Jews living in Germany.
Hitler wrote, Mein Kampf, which sold many copies to the Middle East's Arabs. Mein Kampf is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germany. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926. I remember my father reading it and going around in shock afterwards.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://edia.org/wen.wikipiki/Ernst_vom_Rath
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk02MXnweTieA7R2QOZbJVg2vIShAnQ%3A1608276848019&source=hp&ei=b1vcX-vDO8fT-wS3iafYAw&q=germany%27s+population+in+1940%3F&oq=germany%27s+population+in+1940%3F&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzIJCAAQ
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