the Holocaust
...s, all non-Aryans, totally apart from it. Before getting to be the fuehrer, Hitler had already told German citizens about his anti-Semitic beliefs in ‘Mein Kampf’, and several speeches. He blamed the Jews for loosing the Great War and for the harshness of the ‘Treaty of Versailles’. As soon as he came to power, an amazing anti-Jewish propaganda started, somehow allowing the Nazis to be violent and discriminative against Jews. The propaganda and justifications that Nazis gave can be divided into public reasons and real Nazi beliefs. The public reasons given were not necessarily things that the Nazis believed. Anti-Jewish propaganda was presented in many ways. Textbooks in schools are a fine example of how Hitler introduced his propaganda in society. Textbooks contained any false statements that were not really believed by Nazis- they were just invented or created to make people hate the Jews. Such false statements were made specially for people to believe them. It was easier to get people to hate Jews to hate Jews because they caused their poverty, than to get them to hate Jews because they were form an inferior race. Textbooks, newspaper articles and magazines published articles associating Jews with communism. By that time, everyone, or almost everyone in Germany believed that communists were evil, that Karl Marx was a great criminal and that the Soviets were their worst enemies. Associating Jews with communists was a great anti-Jewish propaganda, everyone hated the communists, and after the propaganda was successful, everyone hated ‘communist Jews’. Since little children, every Aryan boy in school grew up discriminating Jews. They were separated in classrooms and public places, and later on, Jews couldn’t even attend those places. Growing up in a place where they were taught that discriminating Jews was alright, children would easily grow up discriminating Jews. Historical facts were altered or completely changed to blame Jews for almost every bad situation that Germany came through. Jews were blamed directly for loosing World War I. Besides that, Hitler said that ‘if during the war twelve or fifteen thousand Jews had been held under poison gas, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain’. Jews were also blamed for the harshness of the ‘Treaty of Versailles’, causing unemployment and years of economic, political and social crisis. But maybe the most important fact to make the Jews look bad, was blaming them for the Great Depression. This was maybe the fact that really pushed anti-Semitism in Germany to a higher level, this fact made everyone blame the Jews directly for their problems. For German citizens, Jews had caused years of crisis, lack of jobs and hunger. Besides this invented facts, there were other ones, also false, that the Nazis really believed- the ones about Aryan supremacy. Nazis believed that humans were divided into races, and that they descended from the most powerful race. Many years ago, according to Nazi beliefs, they were a race of semi-gods. This race became weaker each time because it mixed with lower races. Nazis believed that if they conserved their race being pure, it would eventually rise, and with time, they would also become semi-gods. Because of these beliefs, many atrocities were committed against all non-Aryans, handicaps, black people, but specially Jews, who were the lower race according to the Nazis. What the Nazis wanted was to keep Jews away from Aryans, no matter how. Jews ended up in other countries, in ghettos, or even dead. That’s one of the main reasons why Nazis were so cruel against Jews. Propaganda and reasons given to hate Jews were a key in doing all the massacres that Nazis actually did. It is good to understand that most of the reasons that the Nazis gave were invented facts, Nazis never really believed them. What they believed were the reasons of Aryan supremacy and superiority, which makes all the violence even more macabre. In fact, there was resistance against the Nazis, but it was never too much. Nazis always managed to control the little resistance there was and avoid other resistance groups to appear. Some people didn’t resist to the dictatorship because they feared the Nazis; others saw it pointless, it was easier to do nothing; others argue that they never knew about the atrocities that Nazis committed; others agreed with Nazi policies; the little resistance was never well organised and meant no danger to Hitler. Anti-nazism was never allowed to grow. Nazis knew how to create fear in German citizen’s hearts. Since Hitler came to power, Nazis started humiliating any Aryan who was friend of, or dated Jews and anyone non-Aryan. This served too well. After humiliations and warnings, Germans were afraid to help; they feared what the Nazi reactions would be. Nazis made their fear. There were other Germans that disagreed with Nazi discrimination policies, but thought it was too hard to organise a rebellion. Germans lived quite well in Nazi Germany; there were jobs, homes, and a nice lifestyle. Children went to schools and many families even had a car. With all those privileges and advantages, it would be hard to find someone willing to exchange his nice, comfortable life, for a war, fight or guerrilla that they were most likely to loose to the Nazis. There were many Germans that actually didn’t know about all the atrocities committed by the Nazis. Hitler was always careful and intelligent to keep concentration and death camps, and all massive murders in general, far away from Germany. He also controlled the press and the radio stations too well. Quickly after Hitler became the fuehrer, he took or destroyed all anti-nazi newspapers and radio stations, every newspaper passed through revision before being published. No paper or station...