HOW DID RACIAL POLICIES CHANGE FROM 1933 to 1939?

POLICIES TOWARDS JEWS 1933-37

• This period was gradualist, and the early moves gave no indication of the genocidal violence of the Second World War.

• Some Germans agreed that the legal discrimination against the Jews was no more than they deserved

• Accepted some of the Nazi’s arguments that Jews had been to blame for Germany's defeat in the First World War or that they were making vast profits while ordinary, hard-working Germans suffered from the Depression

• Receptive to Nazi propaganda that mixing with sub-humans, or Untermenschen, had weakened the German race and that to achieve racial purity their removal was required

• However, there were others who found the policies offensive- problem for these people, particularly once the dictatorship was secure, was how to register their abhorrence

• Nazis had to tread carefully with their policies, take backward steps to avoid inflaming opinion and only embark on the destruction of the Jewish people once war had begun.

• Nazi leadership also faced a problem from within in that there were many radical Nazis who wanted to take immediate action, while the party leadership was concerned that this would get out of hand and create disquiet

• Lack of consistency is seen in the early days of Nazi power- at first Hitler did not issue any directives on the Jewish question

• Violence from members of the SA against individual Jews and their property that forced him into action as the government feared that it would damage their reputation abroad

• Hitler announced a one-day boycott of Jewish businesses on 1 APRIL, with members of the SA positioned outside shops to persuade people not to use them

• However, this boycott was not popular or accepted by some and caused bad publicity abroad

• The policy was abandoned and instead, Hitler attempted to appease the radicals by expelling Jews from civil service, universities and journalism.

• NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES removed the radical elements within the party, but by the summer of 1935 there was further widespread violence against Jews and local party activists wanted further measures taken against them

• However, Hitler was concerned that the regime was losing support at home and that attacks on Jews would negatively affect international opinion. It was only at the last minute that he decided to announce, at Nuremberg, measures to regularise the status of Jews in Germany by removing citizenship rights

• Hitler hoped to satisfy and put an end to the violence- however, failed to satisfy the radicals within the party

• Laws also ensured that anti-Semitism became more embedded in German society and led to Jews being increasingly discriminated against

• They were often banned from places such as restaurants or swimming pools.

• Sex between Germans and Jews resulted in prosecutions at special courts and new forms of public humiliation

• Reinforced by propaganda and indoctrination

• Posters and signs appeared claiming ‘Jews are not wanted here’, several newspapers, such as Der Sturmer, were openly anti-Semitic and films such as The Eternal Jew appeared

• Policy came to a temporary halt in 1936- Berlin hosted the 1936 Olympics and the regime wanted to avoid international condemnation, put across a positive message about Nazi Germany and show that it was tolerant and unified. Second, conservatives within the regime were still able to exert a restraining influence, with ministers, such as Schacht, arguing that anti-Semitic action would have a detrimental impact on the economy

POLICIES TOWARDS JEWS IN 1938-39

• 1938 action against the Jews resumed and this time on a far greater scale

• Party activists demanded more radical action

• Aided by Goring, who wanted to confiscate Jewish assets to help pay for rearmament

• This pressure, reinforced by growing nationalist feeling within the country was encouraged by the Anschluss with Austria and growing tensions over the Sudetenland

• Increasing likelihood of war encouraged many to demand that Jews, who they saw as ‘the enemy within’ were removed.

• Culminated in a violent attack, or pogrom, on 9-10 November, which was know as Kristallnacht, because of all the smashed windows.

• Appeared to replicate the large-scale attack there had been on Jews in Vienna in March following the Anschluss

• Attack spread through Germany and resulted in the destruction of Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues, and the deaths of over one hundred Jews, while some 20,000 were taken to concentration camps

• Claimed the actions were a ‘spontaneous’ response to the murder of Ernst von Rath, a German diplomat in Paris, by a young Jew, Herschel Grynszpan

• However, it was more likely that it was other events, particularly Goebbels’ desire to win Hitler’s favour following his affair with a Czech actress that led to the co-ordination of persecution certainly destroys any claim that it was spontaneous, but more importantly, it can be seen as a turning point in the treatment of Jews

• The pogrom was soon followed by a series of anti-Jewish laws, while the Jews were fined for the damage caused by Kristallnacht

• This was followed the following year by further attacks as they were forced out of their jobs and had their remaining assets taken

• Further new element to Jewish policy; forced emigration.

• Events in Vienna led to the establishment of the Central Office of Jewish Emigration to force Jews to emigrate, with money from the seizure of their goods to used to fund it

• Adolf Eichmann- some 45,000 left within six months

• Success of this policy led to the creation of the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration being established in 1939 and as a result of the establishment of these two offices it is estimated that half the Jewish population had left before the war

• NOVEMBER 1938- the fate of the Jews was sealed.

• Hitler informed Goring verbally that ‘the Jewish question [should] be now once and for all coordinated and solved one way or another’

• Hitler claimed to foreign diplomats that he was preventing a massacre of Jews

• However, comments he made in 1939 made it clear what they could expect

• Chech Foreign Minister that he would ‘destroy the Jews’, while he made his famous speech to the Reichstag in January 1939 that if war broke out it would result in the ‘annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe’

It is argued that the persecution of the Jews was predetermined, as the policies towards the Jews were always wanted by the Regime, however, the radical members of the parties, as well as international pressure, put back these plans until Hitler had consolidated his power completely and could have full control of both his people as well as his government.