-
Essay / Why the Nazis Pointed the Finger at the Jews - 784
When you have millions of people in a troubled country, it's often easy to blame a group of people or a certain aspect of society. This is exactly what the Nazis did when they had to pay billions of dollars in reparations to the Allies after World War I. But they described it as a war that has been going on for centuries. As the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum states: "They mistakenly believed that Jews had a natural impulse, inherited from generation to generation, to strive for world domination, and that this goal would not only prevent domination German, but would also enslave and destroy the German race ("Why were the Jews chosen for extermination?"). They created a fake war to scare people, then that fear turned into hatred. The Nazis also considered the Jews to be an inferior race and the Aryan race to be the race that should dominate. Negative stereotypes were presented, such as Jews being Christ's murderers, agents of the devil, and practitioners of witchcraft ("Why were the Jews chosen for extermination?"). The hatred also came from anti-Semitism. The fear of Jews created by the Nazis was effective. Small Jewish stores were burned or heavily destroyed by the German people. The propaganda used to incite hatred of Jews was created to show how to solve Germany's problems. According to the Anne Frank House, the solution to all of Germany's problems was to banish Jews from society ("Banish"). According to the Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust, Jews were not allowed into movie theaters, swimming pools, and resorts ("Victims"). Jews were expelled from Germany at one point. The goal was to get rid of all other races besides the Aryans. Hitler believed that if Germany was completely Aryan and strove to change the Jews from their lust for world domination. Jews, however, tried to escape this targeting. As the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh states, even before the Holocaust, Jews were forced to flee Germany due to discrimination and anti-Semitism. They emigrated mostly to Palestine, England and the United States. A small number of Jews also immigrated to countries in South America. The number of immigrant Jews increased even more when Hitler took power in 1933, particularly when he introduced the Nuremberg Laws which began to actively restrict Jews in Germany ("Jewish Life During the Holocaust") . Ultimately we see that anti-Semitism, the loss of World War I and the economic decline of Germany, as well as a racial struggle between Aryans and Jews led to the extermination of the Jews..