Assess the extent to which the treatment of Jews between 1934 and 1945 demonstrates the radicalisation of Nazi policy Introduction

Introduction

the Nazi regime steadily intensified its persecution of Jewish people, moving from legal discrimination to segregation, violence, and ultimately genocide. Overall, the treatment of Jews demonstrates an extreme and escalating radicalisation, as Nazi policy moved from exclusion to systematic mass murder.

BODY 1

(1934-35) Nazi policy began radicalising through the creation of legal discrimination aimed at excluding Jewish people from German society. The Nuremberg Laws (1935) formally stripped Jews of German citizenship, reducing them to “subjects” with fewer rights. They also outlawed marriages and sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews, turning antisemitism into a legal and racial category. This represented a shift from social prejudice to state-enforced exclusion, showing the early stages of radicalisation.

Propaganda further deepened this process. Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda used films, posters, and newspapers to portray Jews as dangerous and inferior. Works such as “The Eternal Jew” dehumanised Jewish people and encouraged Germans to view them as a threat to society. Through constant messaging, antisemitism became normalised, and opposition became riskier. Many ordinary Germans either accepted these ideas or stayed silent out of fear, creating a society in which harsher policies could be introduced with little resistance.

Therefore, the treatment of Jews in this period demonstrates the early extent of radicalisation, as the Nazis moved from prejudice to legally enforced racial discrimination and widespread propaganda-driven hatred.

BODY 2

(1936-39), Nazi policy intensified significantly, moving from discrimination to public humiliation and violent persecution. Jewish passports were stamped with a large red “J”, marking Jews as outsiders even outside Germany and restricting their freedom to travel or seek safety. Everyday segregation became part of life: Jews were banned from parks, cinemas, restaurants, and eventually forced into separate schools. Signs reading “Jews Not Welcome” reinforced their exclusion from public life.

The radicalisation accelerated sharply during Kristallnacht (1938), when Nazi-organised mobs destroyed synagogues, homes, and Jewish businesses. Around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. This was the first large-scale, state-endorsed violent attack on Jews and marked a turning point: the Nazis had shifted from legal discrimination to open physical terror.

Following the outbreak of war, Jews across Nazi-occupied Europe were forced into ghettos, such as the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos. These overcrowded, disease-ridden areas were designed to isolate Jewish communities completely. Conditions were deliberately horrific, with starvation and illness claiming thousands of lives. Jews were also required to wear the Star of David on their clothing, making them permanently identifiable and vulnerable to arrest or harassment.

This phase shows a much greater extent of radicalisation, as Nazi policy moved from exclusion to systematic violence, public humiliation, and confinement in ghettos.

BODY 3

(1941- 45), Nazi policy reached its most extreme and radical stage: the transition from persecution to genocide. Concentration camps, originally built for imprisonment and forced labour, were transformed into sites of mass killing. Jews were deported from ghettos across Europe to extermination camps such as Auschwitz, where millions were murdered in gas chambers or died from starvation, disease, and overwork.

The turning point came at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, where senior Nazi officials formally organised the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” This was the plan to exterminate all Jews in Europe through industrial-scale methods. Trains transported Jews from across the continent to extermination camps, where mass murder became systematic and bureaucratically managed. By the end of the war, approximately six million Jewish men, women, and children had been killed.

This stage represents the full radicalisation of Nazi policy: what began as discrimination in the 1930s became genocide by the 1940s. The shift from exclusion to annihilation demonstrates the most extreme and horrifying extent of radicalisation possible.

Thus, the treatment of Jews from 1941 to 1945 shows the ultimate extent of radicalisation, as Nazi policy escalated into a deliberate, systematic genocide.

Conclusion

Overall, the treatment of Jews between 1934 and 1945 clearly demonstrates the radicalisation of Nazi policy to a devastating extent. In the early years, policies focused on legal discrimination and propaganda, gradually preparing German society for harsher actions. By the late 1930s, persecution intensified into segregation, violence, and forced isolation in ghettos. Finally, during the war, Nazi policy reached its most extreme form through the Final Solution and the Holocaust, resulting in the systematic murder of six million Jews. This escalation from exclusion to genocide shows how Nazi policy became increasingly radical, ultimately reaching the most extreme and destructive form of state-sponsored racism in modern history.