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A Nazi German cartoon circa 1938 depicts the 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

Isaac Farhadian

From the first century of the Christian Era, economic powerhouses, media owners, for a period reflecting two thousand years of Marxists, 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 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 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 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 . 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 ; 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 they identified as racially degenerate, During World War II and the (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 , 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 . 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 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 because they knew they 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 . 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 ), and the Jews.

German Workers Party (NSDAP) was In Point Twenty-Four, the program promulgated in the city of . The dictated the following: extremist ideology of the Twenty-Five Point Program was evident in the wide range of We demand freedom of for all religious denominations within the state so topics it addressed: German ultra- long as they do not endanger its existence or ; 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 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 (Cambridge: when referring to religion it mentions mainly Harvard University Press, 2008), 147. 10 , (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company 1999), 562. 14 The Avalon Projecct: Documents in Law, 11 Eric D. Weitz, Weimar Germany (Princeton, New 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, 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 was ’s Hitler, , , and greatest adversary in post-World War I 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 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 , 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 were of Jewish diatribes, and party membership flourished to descent only added fuel to the hysterical record highs. belief that Communism was a Jewish- Incidents that further added fuel to the inspired and Jewish-led movement seeking 17 general notion that Jews were world domination. The fall of Czarist disproportionately using an insurrectionist Russia was attributed solely to Jewish Marxist creed to achieve dominion in revolutionaries whose ultimate goal was to Germany were uprisings such as the destroy all established order, annihilate Spartacist Rebellion of 1919, which aimed to overthrow the democratically established Weimar Republic. The goal of the Spartacist 16 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company 1999), 64. 17 Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda 18 Saul Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews During World War II and the Holocaust (Cambridge: (New York: Harper Collins Publishers 1997), 90. Harvard University Press, 2008), 100, 102, 108. 19 Friedlander, Jews, 90. uprising was to ―create a socialist state run by and ethnic nationalism, which according to the workers’ and soldiers’ councils that had the conservative Far Right was the greatest of sprung up all over the country as the old sins. Without nationalism or pride of imperial system disintegrated. With the heritage, then the Nazis believed that the model of Lenin’s Bolshevik Revolution in German race would come to an end. Hitler Russia before their eyes, they pressed on believed that the Jews who had no homeland plans for a second revolution to complete and who were scattered across the nations of their work.‖20 The failed insurrection was led the world favored anti-nationalism on the by Rosa Luxemburg, founder of the German grounds that they were always the minority. Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in In essence, he believed that Communism 1918, along with Leo Jogisches, Paul Levi, offered Jews a way in which they could and Julian Balthasar Marchlewski, who were remain powerful through high positions, all Jews.21 Friedlander argues that the behind the mask of Marxism, which sees all prominence of Jews amongst the leaders of men as equals in gender, race, religion, class, the failed revolution in added further and heritage. Hitler viewed Marxism as the incentive to the already passionate anti- destroyer of culture and he believed he was Semitic hatred among right-wing fanatics.22 predestined to fight against this ―foreign

Soon named Führer of the Nationalist disease‖. He concludes his third chapter by Socialist German Workers Party, Hitler proclaiming ―I believe that I am in foresaw the role of Jewish involvement in accordance with the will of the Almighty Marxism and thus made it one of his chief Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.‖24 topics during his speeches. By doing so, he exacerbated what was once mild anti- Among the chief concerns of the Nazi Semitism among the general public, which regime from its inception was the notion of became more and more vitriolic. In Mein Racial Purity. Their argument for this base Kampf, Hitler emphasized that ―if, with help ideal was the omnipotent driving force for the of his Marxist creed, the Jew is victorious destruction of supposedly lesser-valued races. over the other peoples of the world, his The idea that some races are in some way crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity favored more than others played a and this planet will, as it did thousands of monumental role in shaping Nazi years ago, move through the ether devoid of governmental society in all facets.25 The men.‖23 From such passages, we can infer proponents of argue that that Hitler saw the world in two dimensions: full-blooded were inherently black and white. For him without total culturally superior and that this superiority victory, there would be an utter devastation legitimized German rule over Slavic and of the Fatherland and eventual decline of the Polish peoples.26 Indeed, in the immediate rest of Europe. pre-war years the wars of different ideologies

Communism’s purpose was seen as came to an abrupt end, with National destructive to individualism, the class system, Socialism triumphing over all other competing political doctrines.

20 Richard J. Evans The Coming of the Third Reich (New York: Penguin Group 2005), 74. 24 Hitler, Mein Kampf, 76. 21 Evans, Third Reich, 57. 25 Hitler, Mein Kampf, 65. 22 Evans, Third Reich, 91. 26 Michael Burleigh, Wolfgang Wippermann, The 23 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Houghton Racial State Germany 1933-1945 (Cambridge: Mifflin Company 1999), 65. Cambridge University Press 1991), 25.

With the conclusion of the political When the Nazis finally acquired power in takeover in Europe, a new conflict arose from 1933, the first anti-Jewish labor laws were the ashes of the Fatherland, which led to a voted into law. The expropriation of Jews racial war categorizing people into superior first began in the fields of education: drastic or inferior classes on the basis of Nazi measures were taken on an unprecedented pseudo-science. From the very beginning, the scale against Jewish professors, teachers and Party founders believed that the Germans students, and thereafter against Jewish belonged to a mythical that had physicians, lawyers, bankers, soldiers, existed from the dawn of humanity. The government officials, storeowners, media results of ―scientific‖ analysis of the time moguls, newspapers, theatre, and the arts. legitimized the belief that the Germanic race Non- were completely excluded from was indeed superior and that the greatest society because they were seen as corrupting threat to its continued existence would be the master race. Positions that once were held interbreeding with lesser races such as the by Jews were now being offered to and Gypsies, Jews, , Roma, and Sinti, which bestowed upon Aryans. Prior to this time, would result in cultural deterioration of the 27 60% of the banks were controlled by Jews; elite. According to Richard Weikart, ―Hitler 80% of lawyers and judges were Jews; some believed that these biologically unequal of the most popular newspapers and theatres humans, just as other organisms, were locked were run by Jews; and successful chains of in an eternal, inescapable Darwinian struggle department stores were controlled by Jews. for existence. The strong triumph and the 28 The success, power and influence of the Jews weak perish.‖ This appropriation of the who dominated the socio-economical and Darwinian creed of the survival of the fittest cultural aspects of everyday German life was became the rationalization for the persecution a reality too great for the Nazis to ignore. of all those who threatened the Aryans. Hitler also believed that if the subjugation of the A prime target of National Socialists had inferior were not to be achieved, the racial been the chains of department stores, ―where purity of the German elite would be since the nineteenth century people had been destroyed and lost forever. Implementing able to go to buy cheap, mass produced goods of all kinds. Many of the founders of laws that distinguish, separate, and persecute 29 inferior races would preserve the master race such stores were Jewish.‖ The most from any threat, either domestic or foreign. prominent chains of department stores that Hitler may have believed that he was only were controlled by Jews were those of the speeding up the process of Nature in Wertheims and the Tietzes, whose total stores destroying the weak who are not able to numbered over 65 around the capitol city of adapt. The greatest fear of the National . The Wertheim's controlled a modest Socialists was that over time the racially seven shops whose employees numbered 10,450, with sales of 128 million ―unfit‖ would multiply exponentially, rebel, 30 and overthrow the from power . By 1928, the Tietzes owned and authority, resulting in racial 58 department stores whose employees ―degeneration.‖ numbered 31,450 and whose annual sales generated a staggering 490 million Reichsmarks. Richard J. Evans proclaims 27 Michael Burleigh, Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State Germany 1933-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991), 38. 29 Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (New 28 Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler (New York: Penguin Group 2005), 378. York: Palgrave Macmillan 2004), 7. 30 Evans, Power, 379. that, ―these department stores accounted for would result in bastardization and a less than five percent of total retail sales in deterioration of racial value.‖33 Sections One Germany up to the late 1920’s.‖31 The Nazis through Four of the Law of German Blood used this encouragement and exploited the and Honor dictated the following: continuing hatred toward the Jewish role in Section 1; Marriages between Jews and the German economy. The reality that a small citizens of German or kindred blood are minority of controlled so much forbidden. Marriages concluded in defiance wealth and power was the driving force that of this law are void, even if, for the purpose led to the nationalism and persecution of all of evading this law, they were concluded non-Aryan businesses. abroad. Section 2; Sexual relations outside marriage between Jews and nationals of The idiosyncratic goal of German or kindred blood are forbidden. was to expropriate not only all Jews, but also Section 3; Jews will not be permitted to all homosexuals, Gypsies, Romas, employ female citizens of German or Communists, people with mental kindred blood as domestic servants. Section or illnesses, feminists, a-socials, Jehovah 4; Jews are forbidden to display the Reich witnesses and any other minority group and national flag or the national colors. On which played any kind of socio-economic the other hand they are permitted to display role in the German nation. Its purpose was the Jewish colors. The exercise of this right is protected by the State.34 clear: it strove to exclude all alien races that are racially unfit, poisonous, less valuable, Mercy did not exist in any aspect of life low class, or destroyers of racial purity from when in dealing with Semites. Burleigh the national community. Aryanization was argues that Nazis envisioned Jews and others made possible through a series of legislative as the embodiment of evil who were capable acts known as the Laws, passed of anything and everything including the during the Nazi takeover of the greatest sin of all, which is the racial administration. The infamous Nuremberg deterioration of the Germanic Nordic race.35

Laws were series of edicts whose ultimate The second regulation under the purpose was to denaturalize, exclude, and was The Reich Citizenship expel all non-Aryans. In October 1935, Law, which was passed on September 15, Section One of the Nuremberg Laws, known 1935. The Reich Citizenship Law deprived as the Law for the Protection of the all Jews of their German citizenship and Hereditary Health of the German People, was introduced a new distinction between ―Reich passed, explicitly separating alien groups citizens‖ and ―nationals.‖ The Reich deemed as racially unfit, from Aryans.32 Citizenship Law excluded all minorities from This campaign of exclusion was further membership in society and expropriated their legitimized when the Law of the Protection of German Blood and Honor was initiated to 33 Michael Burleigh, Wolfgang Wippermann, The prevent between Germans and Racial State Germany 1933-1945 (Cambridge: so-called alien races such as Jews, Blacks, Cambridge University Press 1991), 38. and Gypsies. The Far Right vehemently 34 Jewish Virtual Library, “Law for the Protection believed that ―interbreeding between races German Blood and Honor,” http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holo 31 Evans, Power, 379. caust/nurmlaw2.html. 35 Michael Burleigh, Wolfgang Wippermann, The 32 Saul Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews Racial State Germany 1933-1945 (Cambridge: (New York: HarperCollins Publishers,1997), 152. Cambridge University Press 1991), 36. human rights. They no longer had the same capitol at the time of rights in regards to education, public service, [Annexation], some 7000 had already been military service, professions, political liquidated‖ in May of 1938.39 Five thousand possessions, ownership, personal freedom, of the remaining 26,000 were Aryanizied and freedom of religion, freedom of the press, or the other 21,000 were completely liquidated the right to petition. Article Two of the into the national socialist movement.40 Also Reichstag Citizenship Law declared that ―1. by the end of 1938, a total of 44,000 of A citizen of the Reich is that subject only 70,000 Jewish owned apartments were who is of German or kindred blood and who, Aryanizied as well.41 As an immediate result through his conduct, shows that he is both of the decimation of the purportedly Jewish- desirous and fit to serve the German people controlled elements of German-speaking and Reich faithfully. 2. The right to society, many Jews fell into severe poverty. citizenship is acquired by the granting of By 1939 five to six Jewish families were Reich citizenship papers. 3. Only the citizen living in one apartment room, with an of the Reich enjoys full political rights in obvious lack of plumbing, radio, telephone, accordance with the provision of the laws.‖36 kitchens, bathrooms, beds, and overall space The major effect of the Reich Citizenship law to accommodate the needs of all residents. was that it made Jews and other minorities A crucial precipitating crisis for European second class citizens who were politically Jewry occurred when a European Jew named powerless to stand up to Nazi persecution, took action into his own while reserving full political and social rights hands. Grynszpan was a seventeen-year-old only to full-blooded Germans. Jew living in who had discovered that Aryanization was so successful that his parents, along with thousands of other within three months, 83% of the handicrafts, innocent Jews, had been expropriated and 82% of the monetary services, 50% of the deported from Germany to . In an act individual businesses, and 26% of the of vengeance, Grynszpan purchased a industry owned by Jews were taken over by revolver and marched towards the German Nazis in alone.37 After Aryanization embassy.42 On November 7, 1938, he was complete in , only eight of the eventually came across a German diplomat original 86 Jewish-owned banks remained named , and shot him. The unscathed, while the rest got liquidated into bullet did not kill him instantly; he received a the Reich Bank.38 This was the beginning of wound which would be fatal later that day. the end for European Jewry in the Fatherland. , the Minister of Public In 1939 Aryanization was further intensified, Enlightenment and Propaganda, decided to and with unrelenting speed. Evans proclaims make this Jewish assassination of a German that ―[A]ll Jewish-owned businesses had diplomat into a major propaganda weapon disappeared in Vienna. Of the 33,000 Jewish that painted the incident as an assault by enterprises that had existed in the Austrian world Jewry on the Third Reich.43 Immediately after the assassination of Rath,

36 Jewish Virtual Library, “Law for the Protection German Blood and Honor,” 39 Friedlander, Jews, 243. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holo 40 Friedlander, Jews, 243. caust/nurmlaw3.html 41 Friedlander, Jews, 243. 37 Saul Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews 42 Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (New (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), 243 York: Penguin Group 2005), 580. 38 Friedlander, Jews, 243. 43 Evans, Power, 580. Goebbels ordered vicious assaults on Police) were encouraged to believe it was and on Jewish neighborhoods. their national duty to despoil, wreak havoc, The first measure demanded by the Ministry loot, pillage, plunder, ransack, rape, ravage, of Propaganda portrayed the Jews as strip, and depredate all Jewish synagogues, collectively responsible for the death of Rath. stores, banks, schools, law firms, businesses, According to Burleigh, the Jews were forced and Jewish-controlled media throughout the to pay one billion Reichsmarks to the Nazi nation. The total amount of damage done regime for ―recompensation.‖44 during the infamous Night of the Broken

For the National Socialists this event now Glass – the reference was to the countless definitively justified any and all kinds of Jewish shop windows broken - is recorded in maltreatment of the Jews. This was the a preliminary confidential report by Reinhard turning-point, after which time the Nazi Tristan Eugen Heydrich to Hermann Wilhelm Göring on November 11, 1938. regime felt justified in acting without remorse, mercy or humanity, and in ignoring The extent of the destruction of Jewish international interference. According to shops and houses cannot yet be verified by Evans, ―Hitler immediately issued figures . . . 815 shops destroyed, 171 instructions to Goebbels for a massive, dwelling houses set on fire or destroyed only coordinated, physical assault on Germany’s indicate a fraction of the actual damage so far as arson is concerned . . . 119 Jews, coupled with the arrest of as many synagogues were set on fire, and another 76 Jewish men as possible into leaving completely destroyed . . . 20,000 Jews were Germany, through a terrifying, nationwide 45 arrested. 36 deaths were reported and those outburst of violence and destruction.‖ The seriously injured were also numbered at 36. assassination of Ernst Vom Rath was Those killed and injured are Jews. . . . 47 significant for the Nazi regime because it More recent estimates claim that all provided the ―propagandistic justification for synagogues were burned, 40,000 Jews were the final, total expropriation of Germany’s arrested, over 200 Jews died, 7,500 shops Jews and their complete segregation from the were destroyed, and estimates of total rest of the German economy, society, and national damages reached as high as one culture.‖46 billion Reichsmarks ($250,000,000 U.S. On , 1938, the infamous dollars in 1938).48 The estimated damage of of state-organized massacre known broken glass alone came to five million as ―‖ or ―Night of the Broken marks ($1,250,000 in 1938).49 The result of Glass‖ was planned and ordered. Goebbels, Vom Rath's assassination in Paris was fully with Hitler's administrative permission, exploited to justify the expropriation and decreed a ―state of emergency‖ in which subjugation of the Jewish community in Party members, supporters, Germany: the action of one European Jew (Protective Squadron, abbreviated SS), resulted in the suffering of an entire nation’s Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service, Jewish population. All Jews were held abbreviated SD), and (Secret State completely responsible, whether or not they

44 Michael Burleigh, Wolfgang Wippermann, The 47 William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Racial State Germany 1933-1945 (Cambridge: Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press 1991), 93. Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1960), 386. 45 Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (New 48 Donald D. Wall, Nazi Germany and World War II York: Penguin Group 2005), 581. (Belmont : Thomas Wadsworth, 2003), 114-15. 46 Evans, Power, 581. 49 Shirer, Rise and Fall, 386. were in any way involved. The whole Jewish Jeffrey Herf, in The Jewish Enemy, population of Germany became the argues that the Nazis fervently believed the propagandistic scapegoat for Rath’s murder Jews had successfully launched World War II and Jewish victims of the pogrom were held in order for the National Socialists to be responsible to pay for the destruction of their obliged to wage war on European Jewry.51 In own property. response to the threat of global war between

Hitler fervently believed that it was the Aryanization and Jewry, Hitler declared that Jews who started World War II. During the ―today I will once more be a prophet: if the war, the ―propaganda of the Nazi regime international Jewish financiers in and outside repeatedly asserted that an actual political Europe should succeed in plunging the subject, an actor called Jewry or international nations once more into a world war, then the Jewry, was guilty of starting and prolonging result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the the war and that a Jewish international 52 conspiracy was intent on exterminating annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." Germany and the Germans.‖50 The ideology He clearly believed that defeating the Jews behind Nazism was survivalism in a world was in part a necessity for an ongoing filled with conflict. Jewry was seen as at the evolutionary cycle of the strong prevailing over the weak. forefront of all problems both domestic and abroad. The conflict, if not settled or crushed, The greatest challenge to the spread of would in the minds of the National Socialists Nazism was without a doubt the international ultimately destroy the racially fit, risking the presence of Jewry in politics, economics, and eventual destruction of mankind. Along with financial banking. National Socialism his senior officials, Hitler believed that the obsessively reiterated that the idiosyncratic reason the World War II ignited was Jewish goal of Jewry was to destroy the racial purity manipulation of capitalists in Europe and of the German people. ―Reactionary America and communists in Russia into Modernism‖ dictated that National Socialism fighting their wars for them. The Nazis must liberate technology from the supremacy constantly referred to the world as dominated of wealth from Jewish materialism. Nazi by International Jewry whose fundamental historian Peter Schwerber argues that only goal was to destroy all opposition hostile to victorious racial superiority over the lesser- the interests of Jews. In this case, it was Nazi valued races could prevail against Jewish Germany that was the devil incarnate in the materialism; it was thought that whereas the eyes of international Jewry. Hitler believed Jews destroyed and distorted technology, the that the world was continuously struggling to Master Race was ideally suited to it.53 The defeat this monolithic system of corruption, laws of nature demanded Reactionary but had always fallen short of accomplishing Modernism in the sense that all political, its goal. Thus his war was indeed targeted at the whole world, because he believed all global organizations were run by Jews 51 Herf, Enemy, 5. seeking to extinguish the Germans’ hopes of 52 Stein, Dr. S. D., “Statements by Hitler and unification, growth, and racial evolution. Senior Nazis Concerning Jews and .” http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/statements.ht m. 53 Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, 50 Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich During World War II and the Holocaust (Cambridge: (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), Harvard University Press, 2008), 2. 193. racial, and economic opposition must be presence in German life. In this chain of eradicated or mankind would suffer complete events, efforts to decimate the entire annihilation. Herf contends ―Radical anti- European population of Jews were set in Semitism rested on the belief that the Jews motion. were a cohesive, politically active subject - The stage had been set for the final act. that is, a group united on a global scale by The third and final element of Hilberg’s racial bonds that transcended any allegiance 54 cyclical triad (Conversion, Expulsion, to nation-states.‖ He further attests that this Deportation) was soon to occur. The Final powerful international entity of Jewry led the Solution to the Jewish Question was now Nazis to believe that it controlled and proclaimed in bold letters. But in the event, manipulated puppet states to serve its own 55 the solution would not be deportation but evil interests. Thus it was Nazi creed that rather the attempt at complete annihilation of the Allies, Britain, , and the United the Jewish population of Europe. States, only declared war on Germany and grew out of an because they were financially and politically uninterrupted chain of events that reduced motivated and funded by world Jewish and crippled the Jewish presence in Europe, leaders who wanted the destruction of the involving practices on an unprecedented Germanic race. scale we should hope never to see repeated in It was the young Jew’s decisive act of any approximation. defiance in 1938 that finally enabled the Nazis to envision the Judenfrei (free of Jews) German society, which began to become a reality in all facets of life. The assassination of Ernst Eduard Vom Rath fed the National Socialists the propaganda justification for the final, total expropriation of Germany’s Jews and their complete segregation from the rest of the German economy, society, and culture.56 The reality of (Racial Community) began to be fulfilled as all lesser-valued races were expelled, and expropriated from German life.57 Arguably, the most portentous moment in the lead-up to WWII resulted from the assassination of an unimportant diplomat whose death was seen by the Nazis not as a loss but rather as a basis for promoting the decimation of the Jewish

54 Herf, Enemy, 7. 55 Herf, Enemy, 7. 56 Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (New York: Penguin Group 2005), 581. 57 Thomas Saunders, “Nazism and Social Revolution,” in Gordon Martel, ed., Modern Germany Reconsidered, 1870-1945 (London: Routledge, 1992), 166-67.

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Jewish Telegraphic Agency Bulletin. "Anti-Jewish Laws and Regulations Already Introduced in Sudeten Districts: Very Few Jews Remain in Occupied Areas." Institut zum Studium der Judenfrage Collection. Stanford: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, October 19, 1938.

—. "Passports of German Jews Declared Invalid: Identity Cards with Finger Prints for all Jews in Germany." Institut zum Studium der Judenfrage Collection. Stanford: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, October 10, 1938.

Jewish Virtual Library. September 14, 2008. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ Holocaust/nurmlaw2.html (accessed October 11, 2008).

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 (accessed December 1, 2008).

The Avalon Projecct: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy. Program of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Yale Law School: Lillian Goldman Law Library. 2008. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/nsdappro.asp (accessed October 19, 2008).

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Burleigh, Michael, and Wippermann Wolfgang. The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin Group, 2003.

—. The Third Reich in Power 1933-1939. New York: The Penguin Press, 2005.

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