Nadene Goldfoot
In 1919 the German Workers' Party added the words, "National Socialist" to its name and in 1921, Adolf Hitler became its leader. Until 1923 it was largely restricted to Bavaria and only became a mass movement in the economic depression at the end of the 1920's.
On 15 March, 1931, Nazi Party officials were told,: "The natural hostility of the peasant against the Jews, and his hostility against the Freemason as a servant of the Jew, must be worked up to a frenzy." 6 months later, on the eve of the Jewish New Year, squads of young Stormtroopers attacked Jews returning from synagogue. 3 youths beat up an elderly Jewish gentleman with their fists and rubber truncheons, 5 other young men stood around to protect them. The strong helping the strong to attack the weak- became the hallmark of Nazi action.
At the last free election in Weimar, Germany in 1932, it was the country's largest party, although not a majority (37% of the votes). It achieved power on January 30, 1933, after which it used every method to become the country's only party----a position it ruthlessly maintained until the end of World War II in 1945.
World War I began after the assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand by South Slav nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. The spark that set off World War I came on June 28, 1914, when a young Serbian patriot shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Austria), in the city of Sarajevo. The assassin was a supporter of the Kingdom of Serbia, and within a month the Austrian army invaded Serbia. As a result of the military alliances that had formed throughout Europe, the entire continent was soon engulfed in war. Because European nations had numerous colonies around the world, the war soon became a global conflict. It's much like it is today, which is what can happen with Ukraine with Russia waiting on its border. Other countries like USA, NATO will get into the defense posture.
World War I, which lasted from 1914 until 1918, introduced the world to the horrors of trench warfare and lethal new technologies such as poison gas and tanks. The result was some of the most horrific carnage the world had ever seen, with more than 16 million military personnel and civilians losing their lives. You'd think that Germany had had enough killing. They started WWII by invading, claiming they needed more room.
Tomorrow is International Holocaust Day when we stop to remember how people backed the slaughter of 6 million Jews in Europe. Their goal actually was to kill all the Jews in the world wherever they lived. I was one of the lucky ones to have been born in the USA at the time.
Jews had been citizens of Germany, but by 1933, the year before I was born, Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Party assumed power in Germany. Their military was the main strength of this party; divided between the traditional army, navy, and air force of the Germany state which they called the Wehrmacht, and the horrid SS, something new in countries being a paramilitary organization loyal to only Hitler and his Nazi Party. It became clear that it was not only crazy and most dangerous, so much so that a few sane Germans even tried to assassinate Hitler but of course, failed.
Hitler gave Heinrich Himmler and the SS powers to imprison all political opponents of Hitler's 3rd Reich, which meant that certain lawyers, homosexuals, gypsies, mentally handicapped, Catholic priests, and ALL Jews were to be imprisoned.
For the 1st time in modern history, anti-Semitism became a Western governmental policy. It had happened earlier in Biblical days during Queen Esther and King Ahasueros of Persia, when Haman set out to have all Jews slaughtered, which is why we have a holiday of Purim to remember it by. The killing had actually started when Queen Esther was informed and able to speak to her husband who stopped it. The king, so the story goes, didn't know his wife was Jewish.
In Germany, Jews had become foreigners in their own country, with a series of new laws for everyone to learn. Jews had lost their legal rights and were forced out of their businesses from trade and industry. No one was allowed to speak out against Hitler. if they did, they disappeared-killed.
The Nuremburg Race Laws were enacted on September 15, 1935. They forbade acts with Jews such as marriage, sex and everything relating between people such as Jews forbidden to employ Gentile domestic servants or to hoist the German flag. Jews had to immediately wear a star of David on their clothing to identify them as Jews. Who was a Jew in the 1st place? Someone who had at least 2 Jewish grandparents. Penalties included fines and prison with hard labor. They should have all walked out then; they knew they were being persecuted, but the situation made it almost impossible to do so.
Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938, the night of the broken glass, took place all over Germany whereby Jewish shops were broken into and the glass on the shops all were broken. It's a reference to the broken windows of synagogues, Jewish-owned stores, community centers, and homes plundered and destroyed that night. Instigated by the Nazi regime, rioters burned or destroyed 267 synagogues, vandalized or looted 7,500 Jewish businesses, and killed at least 91 Jewish people. They also damaged many Jewish cemeteries, hospitals, schools, and homes as police and fire brigades stood aside.
My uncle, Werner Oster's father, Ferdinand, Jewish and a veteran of WWI, was attacked and forced to scrub the street with something like a tooth brush. He wore his WWI uniform while doing this, hoping to shame the Nazis-and the crowd.
Kristallnacht was a turning point in Nazi anti-Jewish policy that would culminate in the Holocaust—the systematic, state-sponsored mass murder of the European Jews. Jews were suddenly finding themselves excluded from an economic life. Before the Nazi catastrophe, 7,502 Jews were living in Nuremberg, which was a center of the anti-Semitic movement. No Jews were left there by 1942.
Heinrich Himmler had concentration camps to imprison people, administered by notoriously cruel "Death's Head Units." All those in SS, including their military arm of the Waffen SS and concentration camp supervisors, wore the insignia of a skull on their caps. These special Death Heads also wore a special skull and crossbones badge on their right collar.
The war began in 1939 with thousands forcibly deported from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. The SS operated on its own, exterminating Hitler's enemies and all those said to be racially impure, basically the Jews and Gypsies. Nobody spoke out. 6 million Jews were slaughtered before the Nazis of Germany were stopped.
What happens in one place affects another. On 15 April 1936, just over 5 weeks after the Przytyk pogrom against Jews in Poland, the Palestinian Arabs began a General Strike in protest against Jewish immigration into Palestine. Violent acts against Jewish property and against individuals culminated in the killing of 2 Jews in Tulkarm on the 1st day of the strike. On April 19th, 9 Jews were killed in Jaffa, and on April 20th a further 5. Within a month, 21 Jews had been killed in Arab attacks. 6 Arabs had been killed by the British police. No Arabs had been killed by Jews. This in turn had its affect on the emigration from Germany.
Reference:
https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/kristallnacht
Book: Killing the Jews by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard, the hunt for the worst war criminals in history.
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
page 32, The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert
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