living under nazi rule

Nazi ideology - “for a greater germany”

• Scrap ToV: ignore restrictions placed upon them by the Allies, particularly restrictions on armed forces and also wanted land back from the Slavs (Hitler labelled as the 'untermenschen')

• Idea known as 'Lebensraum' --> living space for 'pure' Aryan Germans

  • Needed to grow food for the German population

  • Hitler believed this was wasted on the Slavic people of Eastern Europe

• Brot und Arbeit: promised the bare necessities to the unemployed German people so all their needs would be met

  • Ensured contented and united state of the German people

• Build Nationalism: extreme patriotic view that Germany should be run by Germans for Germans

  • Foreign influence, that of non-Aryans and especially Jews should be removed of

• Destroy Marxism: believed to be essentially Communism led by Jews - everything they hate

• Strengthen central government: remove power from historically very powerful local governments and instead this power to make a more powerful central government

  • Nationalising important industries: supply of electricity, water and railway transport should be provided by the government for the good of the nation as opposed to independent companies for private profit

• Subdue the Jews: Nazis ideals entirely fuelled by racism, in particular anti-Semitism, saw them as 'untermenschen' - SUBHUMAN

  • Blamed as the 'cowards' who made Germany surrender in 1918, money-grabbers who benefitted at the expense of the poor

• Ensure Aryan supremacy: northern Europeans were 'Übermenschen' - SUPERHUMAN and Eastern European Slavs known as 'düngervolk' - DUNG PEOPLE

  • Volksgemeinschaft - 'People's Community' --> classless society of Aryans

• Improve education: saw importance in improving education as is crucial to improving economy - German people could work more efficiently, making Germany strong again and learn to accept Nazi ideology

treaty of versailles

• Germany was to blame for WW1 --> Clause 231 known as the war guilt clause

• Consequential reparations:

  • £6.6 million

  • Standing army reduced to 100,000

  • 10% of territories including Alsace Lorrain, Danzig, East Prussia and Upper Silesia lost

  • 12.5% of population lost

  • 16% of coal fields lost

  • 48% of iron and steel industry

• --> all meant would be harder for Germany to recover, overall weaker, and government's inability to control the country caused internal chaos and instability

• Because of Clause 231 were not allowed to join League of Nations (predecessor to UN) or any alliances e.g. Austria-Hungary

Hitler and the Nazi Party in January 1933 --> Hitler appointed Chancellor 30th January 1933

• Propaganda/use of media

  • Led by Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda for the German Third Reich - highly educated man from middle class

  • Effectively utilised modern media through posters, newspapers and various form of new technology such as forms of radio and film

  • Simple bold messages to make a point - "Bread and Work"/"Brot und Arbeit"

  • Deeply anti-Semitic ideals

  • Emphasised strength of Hitler through God-like portrayals

• Promises and vague, flexible political aims

  • 'Make Germany great again'

  • Workers promised jobs, employers promised profits, farmers higher prices, shopkeepers protection against competition

• Weakness of opposition --> Weimar Republic

  • Uprisings left and right (literally)

  •  Spartacist Uprising  - 5-12 Jan 1918 - also known as 'Bloody Week' - revolts from left wing Communist Party KDP, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht who were later murdered

  • Munich Putsch - 8/9 Nov 1923 - Hitler and 600 SA stormed a political meeting led by the Bavarian PM, Gustav Kahr

• Manipulation of the Depression/memories of the depression

  • Occupation of the Ruhr - Germany could no longer pay their reparations - which caused the French to occupy the Rhineland - 1 Dec 1918 – 30 Jun 1930

  • Hyperinflation - affected all classes, people resorted to crime, difficulty of ordinary life increase --> complexity and uncertainty

  • Dawes Plan - borrowing from the US - ultimately became significant contributor of the later Great Depression due to the Wall Street Crash

  • (concluding) Hitler became Chancellor due to popular support >> only gained this support because people turned away from Weimar >>> effect of negative cohesion - entire campaign built on idea of populism and would not have such popular support if Weimar government was more stable and able to control Germany better

• Use of stormtroopers (SA) --> terrorism

  • intimidated the Nazis’ political opponents – especially the communists – by turning up at their meetings and attacking them

  • provided opportunities for young, unemployed men to become involved in the party

  • protected Hitler and other key Nazis when they organised meetings and made speeches

 

Establishing the dictatorship, January 1933 to July 1933 - main factor was Nazi racist values - Reichstag fire used as excuse (catalyst)

• Reichstag Fire - 27th February 1933

  • Marinus Van der Lubbe - Dutch Communist who was arrested as the culprit for the Reichstag Fire

  • During trial stated that was an act of protest against the condition of the German working class - "I set fire to the Reichstag all by myself"

    • Nazis tried to convince general public it was part of a wider Communist network and plot - labelled a "communist terrorist"

  • Hitler contacted President Hindenburg - who was a right-wing nationalist in order to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree --> excuse to reduce opposition before 5th March elections

    • Article 1 restricted civil liberties - rights of a civilian under arrest, e.g. freedom of expression etc

    • 2/3 increased powers of central government

    • 4/5 harsh punishments for crimes - death penalty for arson to public buildings

    • 6 - decree took place on day was announced

  • More than 4000 communists arrested in the week of the fire, over 100 Reichstag deputies, including Ernst Thlämann, Leader of the Party

    • Communist press and meetings banned

• The Enabling Act - 24th March 1933

  • Gave cabinet and office of the Chancellor the power to pass any law they wished without the consent or control of the Reichstag

  • Area and interior of debate hall in Kroll Opera House surrounded by SA soldiers in act of intimidation

  • With communists eliminated, only Social Democrats left - 94 voted against and 444 voted for

• Gleichschaltung - "bringing Germany into line"

  • Civil Service Act (Feb 1933) - removed all non-Aryans + political opponents of the Nazis from positions as civil servants - removing their power --> impacted all aspects of life

  • Official encouragement of anti-Semitism --> boycotted Jewish businesses - 1st April 1933

• Book burning - 10 May 1933

achieving total power, july 1933 to august 1934

controlling local governments:

• the act for the reconstruction of the state - centralised power, moving it away from local governments

the people’s court:

• set up in april 1934 - separate to the normal justive system, dealing with “political offences” - a deliberately vague term

• could be tried for treason, plotting or “working too slowly”

• judges had to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler: “the speeches of our Fuhrer is the basis for interpreting legal sources” - Nazi legal expert, Prof. Karl Echhardt, 1936

  • essentially not tried according to law, but to Nazi ideologies

• between 1933 and 1934 - number of offences punishable by death sentence went from 3 to 46

the night of the long knives (30th June 1934)

• in 1933 SA had 300,000 members, by 1934 had 5x that, 6 million - becoming increasingly violent and difficult to control

• leader ernst rohm was tactically stronger and wanted the SA to take over the German army

• called to meeting at hotel just outside Munich, were 200 SA leaders were arrested and assassinated

• sa membership halved between august and october 1934

• sa were no longer as useful as before - therefore ss rose in prominence and Himmler became one of the most powerful people in Germany

• political opponents could see Hitler’s ruthlessness and the consequences of not cooperating with him - in Berlin on the same night 85 people were killed, including von Schleicher (the previous Chancellor) and 12 other prominent Reichstag deputies

• gained the loyalty of the reichswehr the german army as they had been chosen over the SA - leader Blomberg congratulated Hitler on his “soldierly decision”

the machinery of terror, including the SS, the law courts, the concentration camps and the Gestapo

the SS (Schutzstaffel)

• originally Hitler’s bodyguard - began to train as an elite paramilitary force in 1929

  • wore a black uniform with double lightning bolts

  • were all men of pure German blood with ideal Aryan features

• led by Heinrich Himmler - began the Reichsfuhrer in 1936 and chief of all German police

• the police force came under the control of the SS in 1936

  • the police liked the Nazi regime as this meant their powers were extended and they were given more funding

  • separated into two units, Orpo and Kripo

the law courts

• judges had to swear an oath to Hitler - “the speeches of our Fuhrer is the basis for interpreting legal sources” - Nazi legal expert, Professor Karl Echhardt, 1936

• the people’s court - set up in april 1934 following the Reichstag fire

  • dealth with “political offences” - deliberately vague statement

  • could be tried for reasons such as treason, plotting or “working too slowly”

  • number of offences punishable by death sentence went from 3 to 46 between 1933 and 1943

concentration camps

• was used to concentrate political opponents in places where they could be kept away from society and in harsh conditions

• theodore eicke appointed to Dachau in june 1933

  • controlled the “death’s head” units, guards who wore skulls on SS hats

  • established a code of conduct with specific punishments for specific offences ranging from beatings in front of other prisoners to diets of just bread and water

• himmler declared guards exempt from being arrested and jailed for their actions - resulting in deaths increasing 7x in Dachau in 1937

• in 1938, approx 4600 of 8000 in Buchenwald were “work shy”

  • other groups of prisoners: criminals, slackers at work, religious opponets and Jews (less)

• by the start of the war the concentration camps had 21000 prisoners

the Gestapo and the SD

• Gestapo were led by Reinhard Heydrich

• secret police who had the power to arrest and imprison

  • also spied on people, took out political opponents

  • relied on “informants” - 26% of arrests in Dusseldorf in 1933-34 were from sources in the general public

  • tip offs or “denunciations” were all investigaated and the accused were brought in for interrogation

  • interrogations were used to get the accused to confess using torture such as beatings, sleep deprivation and electrocution

• the SD or the Sicherheitsdienst was the country’s intelligence gathering agency

  • job was to identify actual/potential enemies to Nazi leadership

  • members were relatively young and well educated young men

  • spied on: the arts, education, government and administrations, churches, Jewish communities and other spies

the range and effectiveness of Nazi propaganda

newspapers

• Nazi controlled Reich press chamber

  • took control of all existing papers and closed any opposition papers down

  • by 1939 controlled 2/3 of all german newspapers and magazines

  • own party sensationalist paper Der Sturmer which regularly published anti-Semitic rants

• controlled the content of newspapers under the Editor’s Law

  • meant that editors were personally responsible for what was printed

radio

• in 1934 all national and local radio stations across Germany were incorporated into the Reich Radio Company and the Ministry of Propaganda controlled its output

• mostly played Nazi speeches, traditional German folk music and Wager - Hitler’s favourite composer

• american culture such as jazz music was seen as decadent and frivolous

• mass produced “people’s receiver” - sold at a week’s wage for the average manual worker

  • in 1935 1.5 million sets were produced

  • 1939, 70% of Germans had a radio in their home

  • had very limited range so could only pick up German radio stations

rallies

• speeches, choruses, marches, torch-lit parades ad even mock-battles

• largest was annually held in Nuremburg

  • 1934 rally, 500 trains carried 250,000 passengers to a specially built station

  • 30,000 swastika flags placed around the field - each lit up by individual spotlights

berlin olympics

• hosted by Germany in 1936 - with a new built 100,000 seats stadium

• antisemitic signs taken down and newspapers toned down to give and internationally acceptable view of Germany

film

• controlled through the Reich Film Chamber

• by 1939, 2/3 of all films were state financed

• the 1943 reich cinema law made it compulsory for all film scripts to be pre-censored

• although were under the guise of romances or dramas, all carried Nazi ideologies within - eg 1937 film Patrioten, about a German pilot gunned down over France in WWI and rescued by a young French woman - explores ideas of duty

opposition to Nazi rule, including the Left, Church leaders and youth groups

the Left

• social democrats who were abandoned by their leaders

  • left without clear leadership but still formed small resistance groups

  • produced anti-nazi leaflets and posters but were hunted by the Gestapo - who arrested 1200 members in the Ruhr region alone

• the communists

  • provided visible resistance with meetings, propaganda and newsletters - meant that they were easily identified and captured

  • had a monthly newsletter called “the Red Flag”

  • Georg Elser attempted to assassinated Hitler in 1939 - was unsuccessful and was sent to Dachau for 5 years before being executed

the church

• 22 million German Catholics, 40 million German Protestants

• July 1933 Hitler signed a “concordat” with Pope Pius XI - promised that the Catholics would stay out of German politics if the Nazis left them alone

  • went back on word - 1936 nearly all church youth groups were stopped, 1939 nearly all church schools were closed and priests who spoke out against Nazis began to be arrested

• Martin Neimoller - set up the non-nazi Confessional Church, which by 1939 6000 pastors had joined

• Pope Pius XI - wrote “with burning anxiety” which was read out in all Catholic churches on Palm Sunday, a letter that condemned Nazi beliefs and methods

youth groups

• communist youth federation of Germany - disguised meetings as unpolitical activities such as hiking in the wilderness - in Leipzig had over 1500 members

• christians - in 1933 over 2.5 million members were in Christian youth organisations - were banned but some went on illegal pilgrimage anyway

• swing kids - openly came together to listen to swing music, which was associated with african americans

  • seen as dangerous by himmler and heydrich who had the Gestapo deal with them - many were arrested and sent to concentration camps

• edelweiss pirates - formed in the Ruhr region and all wore distinct white Edelweiss flowers or white pins on their clothing - listened to foreign radio, produced flyers and painted slogans and fought with Nazi youth members

  • Bartholomew Schink arrested for being part of the group and publicly hanged in 1944

work and home: the impact of Nazi policies on men and women

by 1939, umemployment reduced from 25million to 35,000

laws put in place to protect both the middle class and agricultural workers, both schemes failed

• 1933 Law to Protect Retail Trade saw the number of artisans fall from 1.6 million to 1.5 million

• 1933 Reich Entailed Farm Law passed, rural population fell from 21% to 18"%

industrial workers - around 46% of population, earned 35 marks a week

• wages frozen in 1933 and rising food prices meant it was difficult to feed a family

• “voluntary” donations to the Winter Relief collection were on average 3% of a family’s income

deutsche arbeitsfront (DAF)

• german labour front, white replaced the trade unions which had been abolished

• by 1939 were 29 million members - membership was voluntary bu those who did not join struggled to find work

• strength through joy (KDF) - organised worker’s leisure time, including: subsidised holidays, theatre tickets and touring orchestra - were filled with propaganda, ie on KDF cruises where political lectures were delivered

  • in 1937 alone, 1.7 million went on package tours and 7 million took short excursions

  • 75% off on trains and 50% off on hotels

• beauty of labour improved workplaces - provided changing rooms, new bathrooms etc in factories across Germany

• Reich Labour Service set up to tackle unemployment, providing cheap labour for state projects such as motorways - in 1938 was made compulsory for all men aged 18-25 to serve for sixth months

• Volkswagon scheme, 1938, pay 5 marks a week for a car, but no one ever got one because all production stopped when the war began

• Women's entire purpose became making children

  • Propaganda portrayals as "physically robust" - smoking + cosmetics frowned upon

  • Loans put in place to encourage women to marry and have children - could receive goods up to 1000 Reichsmarks in value if the woman agreed to give up her job

  • In 1934, 250,000 loans were issued

  • Divorce and re-marriage was made easier so women could have more children

  • Marriages increased from 516,000 in 1932 to 772,000 in 1939

  • Number of women in employment rose between 1933 and 1939

  • Number of women in higher education fell - became a problem at the start of the war when qualified workers were needed during the rapid re-armament

The lives of young people in Nazi Germany including education and youth movements

• Reich Education Minister was Bernhard Rust - "the whole function of education is to create Nazis"

• Controlling teachers

  • Politically unreliable teachers fired, and Jewish teachers were banned from teaching in non-Jewish schools

  • National Socialist Teachers League formed and by 1936, 97% of all teachers had joined

  • Pupils acted as classroom spies and reported teachers who told anti-Nazi jokes or taught non-Nazi material to the Gestapo

• Controlling schools

  • Military schools set up teaching military education

  • Adolf Hitler Schools run by the leaders of Hitler Youth - designed to create future leaders of the party

  • Between these two types of schools by 1939 under 7000 pupils attended - selected on racial and physical criteria

• Controlling education 

  • History: Aryan race, WW1 and involvement of the Jews

  • Geography: Lebensraum

  • Biology: focussed on Rassenkunde - girls taught to identify ideal Aryan husbands

  • PE: 15% of lesson time - fit and ready for war

  • Academic standards dropped in the 1930s

• Hitler youth organisations 

  • 1936 made compulsory to become member and 1939 made compulsory to attend meetings

  • By 1936 was the only place children could access sports facilities and activities

  • Boys - military activities morse code tests, map reading and rifle shooting practice

  • Girls - domestic duties and military nursing

  • By 1939 82% of all boys and girls 10-18 were in Hitler Youth groups

  • Family and religion had large impact on how much children believed

Nazi racial policy: the growing persecution of Jews

• Social exclusion:

  • Signs appeared in public places such as parks, shops and restaurants saying "Jews not wanted here"

• Publications:

  • Displayed Jews as money grabbers and communists

  • Nazi newspapers such as "Die Stumer" regularly printed anti-Semitic cartoons

• Kristallnacht

  • 9/10 November 1938

  • Triggered by a Jew assassinating German embassy official in Paris

  •  267 synagogues destroyed and 7500 Jewish owned commercial establishments had its windows smashed and contents looted

  • 91 Jews killed and 30000 Jewish men arrested and sent to concentration camps by the SS and Gestapo

  • First time Jews had been imprisoned en masse

• Anti-Semitic legislation

  • Nuremburg Laws September 1935: Marriages between Jews and Germans punishable by death - Jews are no longer citizens and no longer have rights

the move to a war economy, and its impact on the German people 1939-1945

• Military expenditure:

  • By 1941 47% of German factories related to the military, 55% of the workforce was employed in war-related work

• Children sent to relatives outside the city and those left behind issued with gas masks

• Food shortages and rationing

  • Meat rations per week dropped from 750g in 1939 to 250g in 1945

  • Racial bias - Jewish people allocated cards with a red J and given substantially less rations

• Women entering the workforce

  • Albert Speer and Hitler were divided over the role of women - eventually by 1939, 760000 women working in war industries and this rose to 1.5 million by 1941

• Bombing and evacuation

  • September 1940 - KLV, Kinderlandverschicken was introduced, sending children below the age of 14 from cities like Hamburg and Berlin to the countryside

  • Children under ten could be accompanied by their mothers but older children were placed in "camps" run by the Hitler Youth

growing opposition from the german people including elements within the army

• In 1943 there were 4 assassination attempts on Hitler led by army officers - all unsuccessful

• July 1944 bomb plot

  • Led by Colonel Claus Graf von Stauffenberg - member of German nobility and army officers

  • Became disillusioned with Nazi leadership and particularly disagreed with Jewish policies

  • Unsuccessful - executed by firing squad

• Criticism from the church

  • Cardinal Galen - Catholic Bishop of Munster

    • Began speaking out about Nazi policies in 1934 

    • Delivered sermons in 1941 speaking about use of terror by the Gestapo, the taking of Church property and the murder of mentally and physically disabled people

    • Sermons illegally printed and distributed - three Catholic priests involved in this were executed in Lubeck

    • Not murdered but kept under virtual house arrest until the end of the war

  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Protestant pastor

    • Preached against Nazis and trained other pastors to join his cause

    • Late 1930s, joined the Abwehr - military intelligence

    • Relayed messages for underground resistance and helped organise the escape of Jews to Switzerland

    • Killed in Flossenburg concentration camp April 1945

• Leaflets and postcards

  • White Rose - group at Munich University who produced anti-Nazi leaflets

    • Centred around Hans and Sophie Scholl

    • Between 6000 and 9000 leaflets were distributed to nine large cities around Germany

    • Arrested in February 1943 after being caught distributing leaflets around the university

    • Faced the People's Court and were executed

• Passive resistance

  • "good morning" instead of "Heil Hitler"

  • Telling anti-Nazi jokes

  • Reading banned literature

  • Listening to the BBC

  • Hiding Jews

• Reasons there was not more opposition

  • Lack of knowledge - most people had little direct experience of Nazi brutality, lots was covered up and many people claim they know nothing of events such as the Holocaust

  • Fear - repression of the Nazis meant people were afraid of stepping out of line - persecution increased during the war

  • Nazi propaganda - even more effective during war years - Goebbels and department winning hearts and minds by putting forward idea that Hitler is saviour

the impact of total war on the german people, 1943-45

• Mobilised more people into the war effort

  • Out of the total 3 million women 17-45 called to work, only 1 million took up the call, with some deliberately getting pregnant to avoid

  • By 1944, limit for compulsory service for women increased to 50

  • Half a million workers were forced to become soldiers - many worked in arms factories and were replaced by untrained workers, negatively impacting production

  • Forced labour increased, by summer 1944, 7.6 million workers had been brought to Germany, making up a quarter of the workforce

• Anything that did not contribute to the war effort was eliminated

  • Professional sport ended, magazines closed and non-essential businesses shut down

  • Railway and postal services reduced to save fuel

• The Volkssturm

  • National Militia created in October 1944 to defend against advancing Russian and Allied troops

  • All males between 16 and 60 who were not already in service were forced to join

  • Received four days of training and had no official uniform - just neutral clothes and an armband

  • Nazi officials patrolled the wards of hospitals to find injured soldiers who were fit enough to carry a gun to return to service

• Bombing

  • Dresden, February 1945 - 1200 British and American planes dropped nearly 4000 tonnes of high explosives on the city, resulting in a firestorm spanning around 1600 acres and claiming the lives of around 25,000 civilians - the loss of civilian lives so devastating that people called for the British and American officers to be put on trial for war crimes

the contrasting nature of Nazi occupation in eastern and western Europe

• Occupation of Poland

  • Only existed as a country in its own right from end of WWI - 1918, before was part of German controlled territory

  • Nazi leaders believed Germans needed Lebensraum - and saw it as their right to take back

  • Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939 with the aim of completely eradicating Polish culture - General Government territory as opposed to General Government of Poland

  • Himmler's Eastern General Plan 1940 - strategy for occupation in the east

    • To remove as many of the Polish or Slavic people as possible and replace them with Germans

    • From 1940 hundreds of thousands of native Polish citizens were expelled and half a million "ethnic Germans" settled in their houses and on their lands

  • Removing culture:

    • In May 1940, Polish culture, education and leadership were systematically destroyed - around 30,000 of the most talented Poles were arrested

  • Removing Slavic Poles

    • Slavic Poles were seen as racially inferior and 1.9 million non-Jewish citizens were murdered by the SS and Wehrmacht (German army)

  • Removing other Poles

    • Between 1939 and 1945, 1.5million other Poles were sent to do forced labour in Germany

  • Removing Jewish Poles

    • 3.5million Polish Jews were put into ghettos and 3 million would be murder in death camps

  • By October, Poland ceased to exist and was split into 5 regions, 4 of which were incorporated into Germany

• Occupation of the Netherlands

  • Dutch were seen as having the same ethnic background as Germans so were treated more as equals

  • Civil servants allowed to keep their jobs, although 30% stepped down

  • Dutch education system left alone

  • By 1943 the Nazis abandoned trying to win the Dutch over and switched back to violence and intimidation

    • Began deporting Jewish Dutch, 76% of the Jewish population were deported

    • Dutch men were to be used as forced labour - 1944, all men 16-60 were to report for forced labour, 500,000 ended up working in Germany, a third of all eligible men

    • Dutch resistance grew, hid 300,000 men

    • 20,000 members of Dutch resistance were arrested

the holocause, including einsatzgruppen, ghettos and death camps

• 11milion individuals, including Jewish people, Slavs, Sinti and Roma, Communists and gay people, had been murdered by the Nazis by 1945 - nearly 6million were Jews

• Concentrated people in ghettos ready for deportation

  • Hundreds in German-occupied Poland alone

  • Largest was Warsaw, by March 1941 the ghetto had 445,000 Jewish inhabitants - a third of the Warsaw population lived in 2.4% of its area

  • Overcrowding led to disease and death - in its three year existence, around 140,000 died

• Einsatzgruppen - mobile killing units of SS men, police and auxiliary units were recruited from the local population - each 500-1000 men

  • Starting with the invasion of Soviet Union, June 1941 - they began their systemic extermination

  • Brought to secluded areas, like woodland, and forced to dig a large pit, then lined up and shot

  • Winter of 1941, around 1 million people murdered, 90% of which were Jews

  • Babi Yar in Ukraine, 33,000 Jews murdered in a single day

• Jewish people of German occupied Poland murdered by gas

  • Death camps began to be established in the General Government in Operation Reinhard in 1942

  • Kept in great secrecy: run by 20-35 officers each, and in wooded areas away from large towns

  • Jews deported from ghettos and stripped of clothing and possessions before being gassed in chambers designed to look like showers

• Auschwitz II-Birkenau - over 1 million Jews murdered

  • For gas chambers and crematoria were designed and built to kill and dispose of thousands of people at the same time

  • Jewish people from across Europe were transported to the site in cattle trucks with no water or toilet facilities

  • When the trains arrived, the prisoners formed two lines, of men and women, SS guards and doctors began the selection process

  • Around 75% of those who arrived were sent to be gassed straight away, the others were sent right to be forced to work in the factories connected to the site

  • Zyklon B gas pellets were dropped through the roof - the victims were dead in 20 minutes

  • Sonderkommandos (groups of Jews forced to work for Nazis) would enter the chamber, wearing gas masks, and remove the bodies to be burnt in giant ovens

  • Up to 12,000 individuals were murdered per day

responses to Nazi rule: collaboration, accommodation and resistance

• Collaboration

  • Coco Chanel, became friends with the Nazis in Paris after occupation

    • Had a relationship with Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, a military intelligence officer

    • Perhaps became a Nazi spy

  • DeVlag movement in Belgium had 50,000 members by 1943, helped the Nazis to recruit members into the Waffen SS

• Accommodation

  • Danish people were allowed to keep their government during the war in return for establishing good relations with the Germans

  • During the occupation of Greece, three Greek Prime Ministers, chosen and controlled by the Nazis, passed legislation demanded by the occupiers

• Resistance

  • André Trocmé, a Protestant pastor in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in south-east France hid around 5000 foreign Jewish people, mainly children around his parish between December 1940 and September 1944

    • Local population worked together to place them in homes, hotels, farms and schools

    • Forged identification cards and ration cards

  • Significant numbers of Poles helped to rescue and estimated 450,000 Jewish people from certain death

  • 1236 Bielski partisans, who were escapees from Polish ghettos and lived in the forest completing sabotage missions against the Nazis