1 / 7

Anti-Semitism, Hitler and the German People, 1919-1945

Anti-Semitism, Hitler and the German People, 1919-1945 . Anti-semitism can be defined as a suspicion of, or a hatred toward, Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage

thanos
Télécharger la présentation

Anti-Semitism, Hitler and the German People, 1919-1945

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Anti-Semitism, Hitler and the German People, 1919-1945

  2. Anti-semitism can be defined as a suspicion of, or a hatred toward, Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage • It has been around for over 1000 years – it would be misleading to think of anti-Semitism as a twentieth century phenomenon – although this is natural with its strong emotive connection to the Holocaust and the death of millions of Jews • Historically, the Jews have faced continued persecution - for example there were Pogroms against them which proceeded the First Crusade of 1096 and in 1290 they were even expelled from England

  3. Problems with studying anti-semitism • Dangers of being too emotional and not objective enough – for example labelling all Germans as guilty and the Jews as passive victims – the reality was much more complicated than that, as you will find out while studying this course! • Also danger of not being emotional enough, reading the sources and accepting the de-humanizing language of the Nazis, when really they were simply euphemising mass murder • Hindsight! We know that the outcome of Nazi policy was the Holocaust, and this can result in ‘reading history backwards’ – this could result in interpretation that the Jews of the 1920s/30s were simply waiting for the inevitable to happen, this wasn’t the case! • Problem of ‘collective guilt’ – many historians have wrongly applied this concept to Germany as a whole when the reality is much more complex – many ordinary Germans knew nothing of the extermination in the east, yet, many who claimed to know nothing of what was happening clearly did – it is wrong to generalize

  4. Timeline • 1918 – The German revolution and the proclamation of the republic • 1919 – Imposition of the Versailles Treaty • 1924 – Advances by anti-Semites in May elections • 1925 – Mein Kampf is published • 1932 – Nazis become the largest single party in Germany • 1933 – Hitler appointed German Chancellor, boycott of Jewish shops and businesses, exclusion of Germans from the press • 1934 – Night of the Long Knives • 1935 – the Nuremberg Laws • 1938 – Anschluss with Austria, Jewish passports stamped with a J, Kristallnacht pogrom • 1939 – Hitler gives a speech in the Reichstag threatening ‘annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe’, Nazi-Soviet Pact, German invasion of Poland and the start of ghettoization there • 1940 – Fall of France, Warsaw ghetto in Poland is ‘sealed’ • 1941 – German invasion of the USSR, mass killings of Jews near Kiev in the Ukraine • 1942 – Wannsee Conference, mass deportation of Jews from Western Europe to Auschwitz • 1944 – Start of death marches • 1945 – Liberation of Auschwitz and other camps, Hitler’s suicide, German surrender

  5. Interpreting sources • Is the source reliable and credible? • What factual information can you glean from the document? • What are the biases in the document? • In what historical context was the document produced? • How should we interpret the source?

  6. 12 mark question How far do the views of in Source B differ from those in Source A in relation to Hitler’s role in the persecution of the Jews?

  7. ‘Responses will make a developed comparison between the views expressed in the two sources and will apply own knowledge to evaluate and to demonstrate a good contextual understanding.’ DIFFERENCES: • Source A is focusing on the role of leading Nazis, such as Goebbels and Heydrich, whilst Source B is concentrated on Hitler’s ‘central role’ • Source A states that there is ‘no doubt’ about Hitler’s role whilst Source B states that certainty about his role is ‘complicated’ by him not issuing ‘explicit written orders’ SIMILARITIES: • Hitler not being solely responsible for the persecution • That his role was often one of ‘authorising’ rather than initiating the policy followed by the Nazis OWN KNOWLEDGE? • Kristallnacht? The Wansee Conference? Both are linked in with the role of Goebbels and Heydrich • Kershaw’s theory of ‘working towards the Fuhrer’ JUDGEMENT: • HOW FAR the sources differ, need to state the degree of difference/similarity and make a JUDGEMENT

More Related