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A Nazi German Cartoon Circa 1938 Depicts the Jews As an Octopus Encircling the Globe.1

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A Nazi German Cartoon Circa 1938 Depicts the Jews As an Octopus Encircling the Globe.1 A Nazi German cartoon circa 1938 depicts the Jews as an octopus encircling the globe.1 1 Plank, Josef. “Churchill and the Great Republic: Seppla, Jews as an Octopus Encircling the Globe.” Library of Congress. 1935-1943. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/churchill/interactive/_html/wc0213.html ANTI-SEMITISM IN NAZI GERMANY Isaac Farhadian From the first century of the Christian Era, economic powerhouses, media owners, for a period reflecting two thousand years of Marxists, World War I backstabbers, and anti-Semitism, there have been three singular World War II instigators.4 The third and final anti-Judaic measures implemented against stage of Hilberg’s cyclical triad was fully European populations of Jewish people: executed under the Nazis’ fanatical belief conversion, expulsion, and complete that Jews initiated the Second World War. annihilation.2 Raul Hilberg argues that anti- The National Socialists did not ―discard the Semitism has had three successive goals past; they built upon it; they did not begin a during its post-Roman era. Hilberg proclaims development; they completed it.‖ 5 that the ―missionaries of Christianity had said The earliest accounts of National Socialist in effect: You have no right to live among us anti-Semitic policies towards Jews originated as Jews. The secular rulers who followed during the infant stages of the socialist proclaimed: You have no right to live among movement which gained ground under the us. The German Nazis decreed: You have no 6 3 highly unpopular Weimar Republic. The right to live.‖ Why was anti-Semitism so lack of stability of the Weimar regime was widespread in Germany, both in the political largely attributed to the humiliating defeat of sphere and in the cultural sphere, and what the Great War, the subjugation of foreign were the contributing factors that led to the oppression, and the economic depression that near-annihilation of European Jewry? 7 followed soon afterwards. Also associated In the eyes of anti-Semites, conversion with the Weimar was the series of disastrous and expulsion were only temporary solutions events in the post-war years: financial in dealing with the Jewish Question. Hilberg collapse; rising inflation; the inherent asserts, ―The process began with the attempt structural weakness of a foreign-designed to drive the Jews into Christianity. The constitution; the deep resentment of the development was continued in order to force signing of the Treaty of Versailles; the lack the victims into exile. It was finished when of support for the Republic among the the Jews were driven to their deaths.‖ In German people; and, most importantly, as other words, Hilberg argues, the cyclical triad National Socialists argued later, lack of of anti-Jewish resentment did not originate in awareness of the degree to which Germany but rather was completed in utter International Jewry was attempting to control destruction. The Nazis only differed from previous regimes because they turned actions 4 into words in eradicating the Jews, whom Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda they identified as racially degenerate, During World War II and the Holocaust (Cambridge: parasitic, Untermensch (sub-humans), Harvard University Press, 2008), 152-53. 5 Hilberg, Destruction, 5. 6 Eric D. Weitz, Weimar Germany (Princeton, New 2 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews Jersey Princeton University Press, 2007), 38. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 7 Eberhard Jäckel, Hitler’s Weltanschauung 2003), 4. (Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1972), 3 Hilberg, Destruction, 5. 27. the German people. 8 The lack of anti- ideological foundation blocks of the Nazi Semitism this newly instated republic party. It was of primary significance because demonstrated only intensified suspicions it not only symbolized the ambitions of the amongst radical nationalists that this growing party but it also laid out the system ―disgusting‖ form of oppressive government, of beliefs under which its future leading to the dismemberment of the Second administration would govern. 9 Reich, was the work of Jews. The Weimar The first mention of racial segregationist Republic was seen as an instrument of measures against Jews lay in Point Four of exploitation created by Democratic Jews who the program, addressing the construct of wanted to bankrupt the resources of the 10 Racial Hygiene. It dictated, ―Only those who Fatherland. It was thought that international are our fellow countrymen can become Jewry might successfully take over Germany citizens. Only those who have German blood, by establishing a democratic rule where their regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. voices would be much louder than the voices 14 11 Hence no Jew can be a countryman.‖ From of the rest of the German people. National the very beginning, the leaders of the Nazi Socialists believed that the Jews established party knew that their dream of establishing an the Weimar Republic because they knew they Aryan utopia would have to come at the could not be legally persecuted or punished expense of excluding and ultimately for their transgressions and financial and exterminating would-be offenders that could political ambitions under a democratic or infect (as they saw it) the racial purity of the Marxist administration.12 Nordic race. These groups included the Sinti On February 25, 1920, the Twenty-Five (Gypsy), the Roma (a subgroup of the Point Program of the National Socialist Romani people), and the Jews. German Workers Party (NSDAP) was In Point Twenty-Four, the program promulgated in the city of Munich. The dictated the following: extremist ideology of the Twenty-Five Point Program was evident in the wide range of We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so topics it addressed: German ultra- long as they do not endanger its existence or nationalism; complete denunciation of the oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. Treaty of Versailles; condemnation of the The Party as such advocates the standpoint of newly established Weimar Republic; ―Racial a positive Christianity without binding itself Hygiene‖; military rearmament; territorial confessionally to any one denomination. It expansionism; and hostility towards large combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within businesses.13 This program established the and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within the framework: The good of the state 15 8 Weitz, Weimar Germany 35-37. before the good of the individual. 9 Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda The interesting part of this excerpt is that During World War II and the Holocaust (Cambridge: when referring to religion it mentions mainly Harvard University Press, 2008), 147. 10 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company 1999), 562. 14 The Avalon Projecct: Documents in Law, 11 Eric D. Weitz, Weimar Germany (Princeton, New History and Diplomacy. “Program of the National Jersey Princeton University Press, 2007), 139-140. Socialist German Workers' Party.” 12 Herf, Enemy, 152-53. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/nsdappro.asp. 13 Donald D. Wall, Nazi Germany and World War II 15 Konrad Heiden, A History of National Socialism, (Belmont : Thomas Wadsworth, 2003), 29 1935. Translated by Alfred A. Knopf, page 17. Christian sects such as Catholicism and Christianity from the face of the earth and Protestantism but when it references Jews, it ultimately impose their own dominion from simply identifies them as materialists rather horizon to horizon.18 than a religious group that has existed for In Nazi Germany and the Jews, Saul three millennia. In Nazi Germany Jews were Friedlander argues that ―the most explosive not persecuted on the grounds of their creed ideological mixture present in postwar but rather for many other ideologically- Germany was a fusion of constant fear of the driven reasons or presumptions. Red Menace with nationalist resentment born Why did early Nazi leaders such as Adolf of defeat.‖19 Communism was Nazism’s Hitler, Anton Drexler, Gottfried Feder, and greatest adversary in post-World War I Dietrich Eckart propose such appalling Germany. Up until the early 1930s, the discriminatory measures towards the Jewish German Communist Party (KPD) had won population not only in Germany but also in the majority of the vote, thus establishing Europe as a whole? The answer to that itself as a cohesive movement whose chief question can be found in Germany’s defeat concern was to obtain administrative power. during the Great War. Throughout the course The most powerful tool the Nazis often of his infamous book Mein Kampf, Hitler exploited to their advantage was the linkage speaks of a struggle not only between races they established between modernization, but also between ideologies. Time after time advanced capitalism, Bolshevism and Jews. Hitler makes reference to Marxism and Jewry The vast majority of the German population as interchangeable concepts used as a resented the encroachment of Marxism and common rationale to destroy civilization. He feared a gradual Marxist takeover in all facets refers to Marxism as a Jewish doctrine ―that of German everyday life. Hitler utilized his rejects the aristocratic principle of Nature and charismatic oratorical skills to lend authority replaces the eternal privilege of power and to public denunciation of all communist strength by the mass of numbers and their activities and beliefs; his outspoken linkage dead weight. Thus it denies the value of of communists and Jews was highly popular. personality in man, contests the significance As a result of combining growing anti- of nationality and race, and thereby Semitism with everything that was withdraws from humanity the premise of its supposedly wrong with Germany, existence and its culture.‖ 16 The fact that economically, socially, and racially, Hitler most of Bolsheviks who were involved with achieved unprecedented success with his the October Revolution were of Jewish diatribes, and party membership flourished to descent only added fuel to the hysterical record highs.
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