Nazi Germany- social change/ the holocaust

800,000

Number of married women who left the labour market between 1933 and 1935

Women forbidden from practicing law

part of the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service law

Only unmarried women older than 35

Could hold permanent positions in the civil service, no women could serve on juries

Law for the Promotion of Marriage June 1934

‘Genetically healthy’ married couples were eligible for a loan if the woman gave up her job at the time of the wedding, ¼ of the loan would be cancelled for each child born

1 million loans granted, marriage rate increased by 20%

Marriage between 1933-1939

“The mission of women is to be beautiful and to bring children into the world”

Dr Goebels on women

"Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play."

Dr Goebbels on the press/propaganda

‘Children, Church and Kitchen’

Slogan for women

Goal to increase birth rate

For a ‘racially pure’ society- abortion made illegal

Lebensborn/Spring of life program 1936

Under control of SS and leader Heinrich Himmler, special homes were set up to provide for unmarried women who fell pregnant to SS men outside of marriage. Children were then fostered out to German couples- later extended during war to include the removal of Nordic looking children from families in conquered territories to be placed with German families

“Giving a child to the Führer”

Lebensborn slogan

League of Young Girls

Youth program for girls aged 10-14

League of German Maidens

Youth program for girls aged 14-18

December 1936 Hitler Youth Law

Membership in Hitler Youth had already exceeded 5 million when membership was made compulsory by this law for all boys ages 14-18. All other youth organisations gradually closed down including Boy Scouts and sporting clubs- everything became organised under Hitler Youth

As early as 1933

Propaganda campaign to acquaint German people with benefits of “euthanasia”

Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, 7th April 1933

Law passed that allowed the Nazi Party to control the civil service- civil servants of Jewish descent were removed + officials who lacked adequate qualification or had previous political activity against the Nazi party

Nuremberg laws

15th September 1935

Reich citizenship law

Institutionalised racial theories of Nazi ideology, defined anyone with 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents as a Jew, excluded Jews from Reich citizenship, claimed Jews to be a race and not a religious group, legally distinguished between German and Jew- foundation for further antisemitic measures

Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour

Banned marriage/sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews- labelled as ‘defilement or the race’

Kristallnacht 9 November 1938

Response to the murder of a Nazi diplomat in Paris by a Jewish student. The Nazis launched a systematic attack on German Jews, SS and SA troops smashed and burnt Jewish property across the country

1000+ synagogues attacked, 7000+ shops and businesses looted, made to pay 30 million Reichsmarks for cost of destruction

Consequences of kristallnacht for Jewish community

20,000

In the days after Kristallnacht this number of Jewish men and boys were rounded up and placed in concentration camps

Was initiated by Goebbels and other Nazi leaders to please Hitler

Hitler did not make a public statement about the event

August 17th 1938- The Executive Order on the Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names

Required Jews bearing first names of “non-Jewish” origin to adopt an additional name: “Israel” for men and “Sara” for women.

November 15 1938

The Reich Ministry of Education expels all Jewish children from public schools.

November 23rd 1939

In occupied Poland Jews aged 10 and older are forced to wear a yellow star/armband

1143 ghettos in occupied Eastern territories

Authorities segregated Jews into ghettos in run down areas of cities- little food, overcrowded, disease

31 July 1941

Reich Marshall Herman Goring authorised subordinates in the Reich Main office for security to make preparations for the implementation of a “complete solution of the Jewish question”

Wannsee conference 20th January 1942

Reich security main office coordinated the extermination plans- Reinhard Heydrich spoke of inclusion of 11 million Jews in the Nazi program for the “final solution.”
Result- network of extermination camps established
Final solution was formally revealed to non-nazi leaders who would help arrange for Jews to be transported to camps in Poland

Rudolf Höss, Summer of 1941

Received orders to explore new methods of mass murder using poison gas- first experiment in September 1941

Operation Reinhard

3 killing centres set up in Poland- Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka II- facilitated murder of up to 1,700,000 Jews

October 1941

Himmler authorised SS to implement a plan to murder all Jews in the Generalgouvernement area (Occupied Poland)

March 1942

Nazis began deporting ghetto inhabitants as part of operation Reinhard

Department created to coordinate the deportation with local civilian, SS and police authorities

Governor Hans Frank

Governor of the occupied Poland area (Generalgouvernement), pressured for a solution to the issues arisen from the influx of Jews from deportation to Poland

“Today I will once more be a prophet: If the international Jewish financiers in and outside of Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"

Extract from Speech to the Reichstag by Adolf Hitler, January 30th, 1939

the proto-genocidal then genocidal intent is there all the way through. But the actual policies, of course, take time to materialise and develop and shape up.

Ian Kershaw quote on intent

“We had the moral right, we were obligated to our people to kill this people which wanted to kill us.”

Heinrich Himmler on the Holocaust

“The murder of the Jews was Hitler's most consistent policy, in whose execution he persisted relentlessly, and obsessiveness with the Jews may even have cost him his war for the Thousand Year Reich.”

Lucy Dawidowicz