Holocaust DBQ



Paper 1

Source A

The majority of the German population believed that the Nazi regime would solve several years’ of political crisis. This belief survived the problems (for instance the bad economy) in the first years of the regime. A series of successes on the international scene – for instance the naval agreement with Great Britain 1935 – was a strong contributing element.

This belief in the regime carried with it a broad accept (passive or not) of the Nazis’ measures against the Jews. Sympathy with the Jews would have equalled doubting the policies of Hitler and the regime, and many Germans had definitively established their individual and collective priorities in this matter – and not to the advantage of the Jews.

The same applied to the regime’s myth of the Volksgemeinschaft. The German national unity thus explicitly excluded the Jews. To belong to the German people meant accepting what this exclusion implied, i.e. that the Jews were not a part of Germany and its people.

From: Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany & the Jews. Years of Persecution, 1933-39 (New York, 1997),p. 116.

Source B:

The Jews in Germany

At the time of the Nazi takeover in 1933, believing Jews made up 0,8% of the German population, 500,000 of a total population of approximately 62 million (according to a public census from 1933). The Jewish population was largely concentrated in the great cities.

Jews in Germany, 1933:

500,000 Jews in total (app. 0,8 % of the population)

In the great cities:

161,000 in Berlin

26,000 in Frankfurt am Main

20,000 in Breslau

17,000 in Hamburg

15,000 in Cologne

Most of Europe’s between 9 and 11 million Jews lived in Eastern Europe. But Germany had the largest number of Western European Jews.

In general, the German Jews were better educated and assimilated than was the case with the Jews in the Eastern European countries. Many of the Jews in Germany were not believers.

Although the Jews in Germany constituted a very small percentage of the total population, a relatively large number of Jews were represented on the political, economic and cultural scene.

 From: Wolfgang Benz, ed., Dimension des Völkermords (Munich, 1991)

Source C

Message from SS-Grupenführer Heydrich to all State Police Main Offices and Field Offices, November 10 1938 (before Kristallnacht, the "night of broken glass," the first large scale pogrom against the Jews)..

Regards: Measures against Jews tonight.

.a) Only such measures may be taken which do not jeopardize German life or property (for instance, burning of synagogues only if there is no danger of fires for the neighbourhoods).

b) Business establishments and homes of Jews may be destroyed but not looted. The police have been instructed to supervise the execution of these directives and to arrest looters.

c) In Business streets special care is to be taken that non-Jewish establishments will be safeguarded at all cost against damage.

As soon as the events of this night permit the use of the designated officers, as many Jews, particularly wealthy ones, as the local jails will hold, are to be arrested in all districts. Initially only healthy male Jews, not too old, are to be arrested. After the arrests have been carried out the appropriate concentration camp is to be contacted immediately with a view to a quick transfer of the Jews to the camps 

 

Source D

Discriminatory Decrees Against the Jews

This document was retrieved from the archives of Nizkor. Source: Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Volume I, Chapter XII, Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1946, pp. 980-982.

2. DISCRIMINATORY DECREES AGAINST JEWS

When the Nazi Party gained control of the German State, the conspirators used the means of official decrees as a weapon against the Jews. In this way the force of the state was applied against them. Jewish immigrants were denaturalized (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 480, signed by Friank and Neurath). Native Jews were precluded from citizenship (1935 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1146, signed by Frick). Jews were forbidden to live in marriage or to have extramarital relations with persons of German blood (1935 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1146, signed by Frick and Hess). Jews were denied the right to vote (1936 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 133, signed by Frick). Jews were denied the right to hold public office or civil service positions (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 277, signed by Frick) . Jews were relegated to an inferior status by the denial of common privileges and freedoms. Thus, they were denied access to certain city areas, sidewalks, transportation, places of amusement, restaurants (1938 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1676). Progressively, more and more stringent measures were applied, even to the denial of private pursuits. They were excluded from the practice of dentistry (1939 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 47, signed by Hess). The practice of law was denied to them (1938 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1403, signed by Frick and Hess). The practice of medicine was forbidden them (1938 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 969, signed by Frick and Hess). They were denied employment by press and radio ( 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 661). They were excluded from stock exchanges and stock brokerage 1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 661). They were excluded from farming ( 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, , Part I, page 685).

Source E: Cartoon produced by a Christian Newspaper in America 6 days after Kristallnacht

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1) (A) What does source A suggest for the reasons of anti-Semitism? (3 points)

(B) What is the message conveyed by Source E? (2 points)

2) Compare and contrast the views expressed in sources C and D (6 points)

3) With reference to their origin and purpose, assess the value and limitations for source A and Source B for studying the attitudes of Germans on anti-Semitism (6 points)

4) Using the sources and your own knowledge, what was the cause and effect of the rise of the Nazi party on the Jewish population? (8 points)

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