MIDTERM Key Terms

Dehumanization

Acts of humiliation and oppression so extreme that the victims are deprived of all privacy and personal feelings of shame, any kind of individuation..., of their names, personalities, and family connections... The term also describes people carrying out such acts, who thereby proved that they had lost their connection to ordinary moral precepts

Holocaust

the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators (other groups were also targeted and murdered)

Imperialism

(i) policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force

(ii) An imperial system of government; rule by an emperor or supreme ruler, esp. when despotic or tyrannical

Antisemitism

i. “… discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish).”

ii. “… a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.”

iii.  “Prejudice, hostility, or discrimination towards Jewish people on religious, cultural, or ethnic grounds.”

iv. “…belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish.”

Eugenics

A theory of “racial hygiene,” embraced and promoted by Nazi German government, growing from a (now pseudo-) scientific movement of that began at the turn of the 20th century.

Intentionalist

Holocaust is result of Hitler’s intentions and planning

Functionalist

Holocaust results from a series of developments; Hitler was a pawn in larger drama

Modified intentionalist

Bergen notes Hitler’s intentions mattered but he depended on many others

Beer Hall Putch (November 9 1923)

Hitler and Nazis attempted a disorganized and failed attempt to overthrow Bavarian government (in Munich, its capital).  Hitler was sentenced to 5 years for this crime but served only 13 months and wrote his book (*Mein Kampf*) in prison.

Hitler’s world view

Included hostility, ‘redemptive antisemitism’ (S. Friedlander), the use of anti-Jewish hatred to save the Germanic world from imagined pollution and apocalypse

True Believers

Hitler’s inner circle: GGHH

Goring (air force commander)

Goebbels (Propaganda minister)

Himmler (architect of Holocaust)

Heydrich (SS Chief).

Weimar Republic

\: “the name given to the German government between the end of the Imperial period (1918) and the beginning of Nazi Germany (1933).”

Characterized by political turmoil and violence, economic hardship, and voting rights for women and vibrant artistic movements. Germany, still strongest economy in Europe, created its first democracy, neighbored a new USSR, a destroyed France, and splinters of the old Hapsburg empire.

Enabling Act (March 24 1933)

“allowed the Reich government to issue laws without the consent of Germany’s parliament, laying the foundation for the complete Nazification of German society... the ‘*Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich*.’ ”

NSDAP (Nazi Party)

Fascist German political organization which “combined extreme nationalism (and...) racial antisemitism with German outrage over the Versailles peace settlement following their defeat in World War I. The program called for...a Greater German state. The Nazis also publicly declared their intention to segregate Jews from ‘Aryan’ German society and to abrogate the political, legal, and civil rights of Jews in Germany.”

Totalitarian (Regime)

A government that prohibits any opposition and denies human rights, exercising a high degree of control over public and personal life. More repressive even than authoritarian government, where power is centralized. Nazi Germany was initially authoritarian

Revolution (1933-34)

A first phase on Nazi rule in Germany, including a political revolution (Hitler as Chancellor seizing sole power) and a social revolution (Nazi party law creating a racialized state).

Dachau

The first Nazi concentration camp (of many), near Munich, used to imprison political opponents (people accused as communists) starting in March 1933, after February 27 fire in Reichstag (Government). It was a site of forced (slave) labor and medical experiments (not unlike many other camps).

Policy of Coordination (*Gleichschaltung*)

“Shifting into the same gear,’ Nazi leaders created a series of new groups with monopolies (no competitors allowed) in vocational and social activities (groups for workers, youth, women, and writers). Nazis also established new professional associations, removing Jewish people from most jobs.

Routinization (1934-37)

A new (second) phase of Nazi brutality, in which authorities concentrated on systematic violence and normalized coercion. Routinization involved both centralizing power and passing laws to promote coercive persecution.

Nazi Propaganda

State-supported public ‘information’ campaigns (led by Goebbels’ ministry) designed to promote negative and false stereotypes, fostering hatred and ultimately violence towards targeted, persecuted groups (especially Jewish people). Included Nazi state-controlled newspapers, film, and false ‘news’ to cover secret atrocities.  

Propaganda

‘Biased information spread to shape public opinion and behavior,’

Rohm Purge (Rohm Putch) (July 1934)

‘The night of long knives,’ “was the murder of SA (Storm Trooper) leadership (including Ernst Rohm)

demonstrated the Nazi regime’s willingness to go outside the law to commit murder as an act of state...”

Nuremberg Laws (September 1935)

the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for ‘the Protection of German Blood and German Honor.’ These laws embodied many of the racial theories underpinning Nazi ideology. They would provide the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany.”

Holocaust Phases

Periods defined by Doris Bergen, both leading up to and during the Holocaust, from revolution and routinization into open aggression and mass murder (defined as ‘genocide’ in 1948)

The Anschluss

German annexation of Austria in spring of 1938

Kristallnacht

Nazi pogroms against the Jewish population... vandalism and destruction of businesses, synagogues, and homes (marked by broken glass)

Pogrom

Russian for “to wreak havoc, to demolish violently...refers to violent attacks...by ..non-Jewish populations on Jews.”

Pact of Steel

German military alliance with Italy, mutual aid, foundation of wartime Rome-Berlin Axis

Non-aggression pact (Hitler-Stalin or Molotov Ribbentrop) (August 1939)

Germany and USSR agreed to public ‘friendship’ (after six years of German anti-Communist propaganda) and to divide eastern Europe into two spheres (splitting Poland and claiming other nations).   It was one of several what might be called 'Hitler fakes.' In addition to the Nazis breaking this peace treaty with USSR, Nazis also reneged with Britain  on their Anglo-German Naval Agreement of June 1935 and the broader terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty.

Concentration camp system

“a variety of detention facilities to confine those (who German authorities) defined as political, ideological, or racial opponents of the regime.” 

Kindertransport and migrations

“a series of rescue efforts which brought thousands of refugee Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1940.”

Euthanasia program

Disguised by Latin term for “good death,” the Nazi program would select and kill people with disabilities, improving the ‘race’ and reducing financial and other burdens to society. ‘A rehearsal for…genocide.’

Blitzkrieg

German ‘lightning war’ strategy used to defeat Poland and nine European opponents, driving a wedge into and through a narrow front, encircling and disrupting enemy forces. Division and dual occupation. The division and conquering of Poland in 1939 by Germany, followed by dual occupation (eastern Poland by USSR)

Ghettoization

German officials forced Jews into ghettos: designated, concentrated, and isolated urban neighborhoods, usually surrounded by walls or fences.

The very existence of European Jewish populations, demonized by propaganda, was 'a problem' for Nazi antisemites like Hitler, even before the ghettos.  Classification, deportation, containment (segregation) in ghettos, and finally mass murder were 'solutions' to this 'problem' (which, tragically and ironically, was an intentional Nazi fabrication not actually a real problem).

T-4 Program

Nazi program experimenting with methods for murder (of disabled), code-named after its Berlin HQ address

German Invasion of Western Europe

1940 military campaigns to invade and occupy Denmark, Norway, and the Low Countries, along with much of France (battle of Dunkirk). “France: signed an armistice in June, leaving Great Britain as the only country fighting Nazis. Germany and collaborating authorities soon initiated anti-Jewish laws in occupied western Europe.”

Battle of Britain

German attack on UK in September 1940, repelled by Royal Air Force (RAF).

US Lend-lease material aid policy

1941 US law and policy to provide material aid, mostly to Britain, in wake of German expansion and threat to UK (Battle of Britain, 1940-41)

Einsatzgruppen

Special action forces or groups composed of security police who followed the German army as it invaded and occupied Eastern Europe. These ‘mobile killing squads’ are known for the “Holocaust by bullets,” the systematic murder of Jews in mass shooting operations on Soviet territory.

Wehrmacht

The German Military, which cooperated in the Holocaust and Nazi war crimes, including mass murder. Under Hitler, military oath of service was changed to support allegiance to Fuhrer (leader), not German constitution. From 1935, it excluded Jewish members.

Wannsee Conference

\:  Meeting of Nazi SS and \[German\] state agency leaders “to inform and secure support from government ministries and ...agencies relevant to the implementation of the \[planned annihilation of Jews code-named\] the ‘Final Solution’.”

Genocide (1944,48)

Criminal “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”

Germanization

Nazi eugenic attempts to increase ‘Germanic’ (‘Aryan’) racial and ethnic traits in   populations, especially to create ‘new order’ in nations to the east, through selective harm and promotion of childbearing among selected groups

Discounted atrocity stories

Allied response to the Holocaust was limited in part by the perception that true   accounts of horrific atrocities (mass killings, death camps, ...) were exaggerated and false