Persecution of minorities

Aryan

A person of European descent - not Jewish - often with blond hair and blue eyes. The Nazis viewed Aryans as the superior human race.

Nazi racial beliefs

• Aryans were the master race

• Some races were untermensch ( sub-human)

• Eugenics - people with disabilities or social problems were degenerates who's genes needed to be eliminated from the human bloodline

Sterilisation

In order to keep the Aryan race pure, many groups were prevented from reproducing. The mentally and physical disabled were sterilised as were people with hereditary diseases.

Euthanasia

Between 1939 and 1941 over 100,000 physically and mentally disabled Germans were killed in secret, without the consent of their families. Victims were often gassed

Concentration camps

Homosexuals, prostitutes, gypsies, alcoholics, pacifists, beggars, hooligans and criminals were often rounded up and sent away to camps. During world war 2 85% of Germany's gypsies died in these camps.

Persecution of Jews - 1933

• Nazis organised a boycott of Jewish businesses

• Books by Jewish authors were publicly burnt

• Jewish civil servants, lawyers and teachers were sacked

• Race science lessons were introduced, teaching that Jews were sub-human

Persecution of Jews - 1935

Nuremberg laws formalised anti-semetism into the Nazi state by:

• Stripping Jews of citizenship

• Outlawing marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Germans

• Taking away all civil and political rights from Jews

Persecution of Jews - 1938

• Jews could not be doctors

• Had to add the name Israel or Sarah to their name

• Children were forbidden from going to school

• Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht - 9th November 1938

• 7 Nov - Polish Jew shot German embassy member

• 8 Nov - Goebbels used SA, SS and Gestapo to attack synagogues and Jewish homes

• 9 Nov - turned into Nationwide attack

  • Police told not to prevent violence

  • SS told to arrest as many Jews as possible

  • Gangs smashed and burned property

  • SA and Hitler youth told not to wear uniform

  • 814 shops, 171 homes and 191 synagogues destroyed

  • 100 Jews killed

• Jews fined 1 billion marks to pay for damage

• 12 Nov - 12,000 Jews sent to concentration camps

Persecution of Jews - 1939

• Jews forbidden to own a radio or business