moTivations and justifications of the jewish holocaust
Regan zscheile
The Holocaust involved the deliberate and systematic murder of approximately six million Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe between 1941 and 1945. Although evidence of this brutal crime has been significantly recorded, it still remains on many levels an unfathomable mystery. No agreement remains among historians on certain central issues of the Holocaust. Hotly debated among academics is how it was possible for individuals of a supposedly civilized society to transform into mass murders. This essay will submit an answer to this question by analyzing the ways in which Jews were stripped of their humanity and individuality. These methods include Nazi propaganda, anti-Semitic laws enacted by the Nazis, and the process of Ghettoization. It will be argued that dehumanizing Jews allowed Nazi perpetrators to transform these fellow citizens into ‘the other’. This growing distance between Jew and Gentile explains how the Nazi party was able to justify the killing of Jews on a mass scale and do so with virtually no protest from the rest of the population.
Before discussing the methods in which Jews were dehumanized by the Nazis, it is imperative to contextualize them with the desire for an ethnically homogeneous nation-state that was prevalent in Germany. Central to Nazi philosophy was the belief that the Aryan race was not only superior to the “lower” races, notably Jews, but was involved in a terminal struggle with them for survival of the fittest. Hitler viewed German society as an organism with its own health. Individual human beings were regarded as functional or dysfunctional parts of this larger whole and thus affected the health of society. Because of this, racial hygiene became fundamental to Hitler’s rationale. These ideas had evolved since the late 19th century from the related notions of eugenics and social Darwinism. Social Darwinism promoted the concept of survival of the fittest and eugenics supported that certain diseases such as mental illness, feeblemindedness, criminality, and alcoholism are genetically determined. It advocated the improvement of human genetic traits through increased reproduction of people with desired traits and reduced reproduction of people with less-desired traits. In chapter XI of Hitler’s Mein Kampf he states that, “the result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief always the following: [the] lowering of the level of the higher race; [and the] physical and intellectual regression and hence the beginning of a slowly but surely progressing sickness”. Inspired by these theories, German Darwinists argued that the extermination of inferior races was not only appropriate but unavoidable.
One of the primary methods undertaken by the Nazi regime to distance Jew and Gentile was the publication of anti-Semitic propaganda. To Hitler, the Nazi party was a means of social transformation. In his view, the German people were too infected with Marxism, liberalism, Christianity, and Judaism for the party to appeal to the electorate with an open declaration of its ideological goals. For this reason, the constant motif of Nazi electoral propaganda was not Hitler’s philosophy of purification. The purpose of Nazism after the seizure of power, however, was to immerse the German population with its ideology. As soon as they came to power, the Nazi party founded the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. This program was masterminded by Joseph Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister, who controlled all communications media such as radio, newspapers, posters, and television. One of the main goals of Nazi propaganda was to dehumanize Jews. In other words, to convince others that Jews were sub-human. To achieve this goal, some Nazi propaganda attempted to demonize the Jews. See A1 for further information. The Nazi party claimed that Jews were behind Germany’s defeat in the First World War, blamed them for the economic collapse, the depression, and the treaty of Versailles and denounced them as the route of all evil. It was argued that they were racially incapable of improvement. No matter how hard they attempted to integrate into German culture, the Jews were depicted as scheming, manipulative, and constantly plotting to take over economic control of the state. Another method propaganda used to portray Jews as sub-human was to depict them as vermin. Metaphorical language was also used in propaganda which named Jews as diseases and disease organisms. See A2 for further information. By utilizing propaganda to dehumanize Jews and to render them as inhuman, the Nazi party successfully lengthened the distance between Jew and Gentile within German public opinion.
Legislation also proved an effective means for shutting Jews out of German society. The legal assault against the Jews can be divided roughly into three stages. The first stage, from 1933 to the middle of 1935, was characterized by laws that aimed to prevent Jews from participating in any part of German professional and cultural life. On April 7 1933 the Nazis introduced the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service Act. This act demanded the dismissal from Civil Service positions of ‘non-Aryans’ and opponents of the regime. It affected scientists, school and university teachers, and all government employees. Another law was passed on the same day prohibiting ‘non-Aryans’ from practicing law. During the following months additional laws were passed that prohibited ‘non-Aryans’ from practicing as doctors and dentists in state-run hospitals and institutions. As well, they were forbidden from judge, juror, tax consultant, publisher, and editor positions. On April 25 1933 the Nazis imposed a form of cultural segregation on the Jews. The Law against the Overcrowding of German Schools and Institutions of Higher Learning restricted the number of ‘non-Aryan’ students admitted into German schools. On May 10 1933 Joseph Goebbels had organized a public burning of ‘un-German’ literature. Any book that was written or published by a Jew or any book that dealt sympathetically with a Jew or Jewish theme was to be burned. On September 29 1933 the Reich Chamber of Culture was established. This enabled the Nazi party to monitor all the cultural activities of the country. One of its main objectives was to ensure that ‘non-Aryans’ would be unable to participate in German artistic, literary and cultural life. Jews were forbidden to enter public swimming pools, to own dogs, to visit health spas, or to enter public parks. Finally, on May 21 1935 the Defence Law was passed. This legislation deemed all ‘non-Aryans’ ineligible for military service. This demoralized the number of Jews who continued to feel both patriotic and German.
The second phase of legal onslaught against the Jews started with the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935. While the first stage was comprised of immensely damaging and discriminatory legislation, the second stage demonstrated more clearly the racist objectives of the Nazi party. These laws officially defined the Jews in purely racial terms, according to the number of Jewish grandparents they had. The first law passed stripped Jews of their citizenship and the second prohibited marriage and sexual relations between Jews and those of ‘German or related blood’. As a result of the increased precision of the Jewish definition, Christians whose parents or grandparents were Jewish could now be considered as full Jews. The Nuremberg laws institutionalized Nazi racism and formalized the continually growing distance between Jew and Gentile. They served as a base to eventually exclude Jews from society all together.
The third phase of legal aggression against the Jews began in April 1938. The Degree Concerning the Reporting of Jewish Property was declared. This degree demanded all Jews to register the value of both their domestic and foreign property, property that would eventually be confiscated. On August 17 1938 legislation was passed that forbade Jews to take ‘Aryan’ names. An extension to this law required all Jewish males to adopt the extra name of Israel and all Jewish females to adopt the extra name of Sarah. This regulation also made it mandatory for all Jews throughout Nazi occupied Europe to wear armbands and badges that bore the Star of David. These regulations made the identification of Jews easier. Furthermore, they stripped Jews of their individuality and formulated them into a homogeneous, faceless, and inferior group.
The final method utilized by the Nazi regime to separate Jews from society was the process of Ghettoization. Reinhard Heydrich, Head of the Reich Security Main Office and of the Security Police was assigned the role of devising a temporary method of dealing with the Jews in occupied Poland until a more permanent solution could be found. He called for the organization, concentration, and Ghettoization of Jews. The first was established at Lodz in the spring of 1940 and the largest was established at Warsaw in the autumn of 1940. The Jews had been successfully and systematically isolated. Any contact with other Jewish ghettos in Poland was restricted as well as contact with the various welfare organizations that had been set up by Jewish communities in the free world. Inhuman conditions characterized the ghettos. Combinations of overcrowding, starvation, and outbreaks of typhus and cholera would reduce ghetto inhabitants through ‘natural wastage’. If a Jew was caught attempting to escape they would be shot immediately. Furthermore, any Jew between the ages of 14 and 60 were susceptible to forced labour. Initially, the ghetto in Warsaw contained approximately 550,000 Jews. By the time of its destruction, only 45,000 remained alive. The process of forcing Jews into an isolated and confined area characterized by inhuman living conditions is comparable to a farmer herding cattle destined for slaughter into a field. This animalization further solidified the distance that had now been established between Jew and human being.
By analyzing Nazi propaganda, anti-Semitic laws enacted by the Nazis, and the process of Ghettoization, it is clear that Nazi perpetrators succeeded in transforming Jews into a menacing and inferior ‘other’. This explains how the Nazi party was able to justify the killing of Jews on a mass scale and do so with virtually no protest from the rest of the population. In order for a state to attempt the extermination of a selected victim group they would have to be convinced that this group posed a mortal threat to the state itself. It is in this mentality that the Holocaust debatably bears closest resemblance to other genocides such as the Turkish onslaught against the Armenians. As Landau states, the reasoning might go something like this:
Before discussing the methods in which Jews were dehumanized by the Nazis, it is imperative to contextualize them with the desire for an ethnically homogeneous nation-state that was prevalent in Germany. Central to Nazi philosophy was the belief that the Aryan race was not only superior to the “lower” races, notably Jews, but was involved in a terminal struggle with them for survival of the fittest. Hitler viewed German society as an organism with its own health. Individual human beings were regarded as functional or dysfunctional parts of this larger whole and thus affected the health of society. Because of this, racial hygiene became fundamental to Hitler’s rationale. These ideas had evolved since the late 19th century from the related notions of eugenics and social Darwinism. Social Darwinism promoted the concept of survival of the fittest and eugenics supported that certain diseases such as mental illness, feeblemindedness, criminality, and alcoholism are genetically determined. It advocated the improvement of human genetic traits through increased reproduction of people with desired traits and reduced reproduction of people with less-desired traits. In chapter XI of Hitler’s Mein Kampf he states that, “the result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief always the following: [the] lowering of the level of the higher race; [and the] physical and intellectual regression and hence the beginning of a slowly but surely progressing sickness”. Inspired by these theories, German Darwinists argued that the extermination of inferior races was not only appropriate but unavoidable.
One of the primary methods undertaken by the Nazi regime to distance Jew and Gentile was the publication of anti-Semitic propaganda. To Hitler, the Nazi party was a means of social transformation. In his view, the German people were too infected with Marxism, liberalism, Christianity, and Judaism for the party to appeal to the electorate with an open declaration of its ideological goals. For this reason, the constant motif of Nazi electoral propaganda was not Hitler’s philosophy of purification. The purpose of Nazism after the seizure of power, however, was to immerse the German population with its ideology. As soon as they came to power, the Nazi party founded the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. This program was masterminded by Joseph Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister, who controlled all communications media such as radio, newspapers, posters, and television. One of the main goals of Nazi propaganda was to dehumanize Jews. In other words, to convince others that Jews were sub-human. To achieve this goal, some Nazi propaganda attempted to demonize the Jews. See A1 for further information. The Nazi party claimed that Jews were behind Germany’s defeat in the First World War, blamed them for the economic collapse, the depression, and the treaty of Versailles and denounced them as the route of all evil. It was argued that they were racially incapable of improvement. No matter how hard they attempted to integrate into German culture, the Jews were depicted as scheming, manipulative, and constantly plotting to take over economic control of the state. Another method propaganda used to portray Jews as sub-human was to depict them as vermin. Metaphorical language was also used in propaganda which named Jews as diseases and disease organisms. See A2 for further information. By utilizing propaganda to dehumanize Jews and to render them as inhuman, the Nazi party successfully lengthened the distance between Jew and Gentile within German public opinion.
Legislation also proved an effective means for shutting Jews out of German society. The legal assault against the Jews can be divided roughly into three stages. The first stage, from 1933 to the middle of 1935, was characterized by laws that aimed to prevent Jews from participating in any part of German professional and cultural life. On April 7 1933 the Nazis introduced the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service Act. This act demanded the dismissal from Civil Service positions of ‘non-Aryans’ and opponents of the regime. It affected scientists, school and university teachers, and all government employees. Another law was passed on the same day prohibiting ‘non-Aryans’ from practicing law. During the following months additional laws were passed that prohibited ‘non-Aryans’ from practicing as doctors and dentists in state-run hospitals and institutions. As well, they were forbidden from judge, juror, tax consultant, publisher, and editor positions. On April 25 1933 the Nazis imposed a form of cultural segregation on the Jews. The Law against the Overcrowding of German Schools and Institutions of Higher Learning restricted the number of ‘non-Aryan’ students admitted into German schools. On May 10 1933 Joseph Goebbels had organized a public burning of ‘un-German’ literature. Any book that was written or published by a Jew or any book that dealt sympathetically with a Jew or Jewish theme was to be burned. On September 29 1933 the Reich Chamber of Culture was established. This enabled the Nazi party to monitor all the cultural activities of the country. One of its main objectives was to ensure that ‘non-Aryans’ would be unable to participate in German artistic, literary and cultural life. Jews were forbidden to enter public swimming pools, to own dogs, to visit health spas, or to enter public parks. Finally, on May 21 1935 the Defence Law was passed. This legislation deemed all ‘non-Aryans’ ineligible for military service. This demoralized the number of Jews who continued to feel both patriotic and German.
The second phase of legal onslaught against the Jews started with the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935. While the first stage was comprised of immensely damaging and discriminatory legislation, the second stage demonstrated more clearly the racist objectives of the Nazi party. These laws officially defined the Jews in purely racial terms, according to the number of Jewish grandparents they had. The first law passed stripped Jews of their citizenship and the second prohibited marriage and sexual relations between Jews and those of ‘German or related blood’. As a result of the increased precision of the Jewish definition, Christians whose parents or grandparents were Jewish could now be considered as full Jews. The Nuremberg laws institutionalized Nazi racism and formalized the continually growing distance between Jew and Gentile. They served as a base to eventually exclude Jews from society all together.
The third phase of legal aggression against the Jews began in April 1938. The Degree Concerning the Reporting of Jewish Property was declared. This degree demanded all Jews to register the value of both their domestic and foreign property, property that would eventually be confiscated. On August 17 1938 legislation was passed that forbade Jews to take ‘Aryan’ names. An extension to this law required all Jewish males to adopt the extra name of Israel and all Jewish females to adopt the extra name of Sarah. This regulation also made it mandatory for all Jews throughout Nazi occupied Europe to wear armbands and badges that bore the Star of David. These regulations made the identification of Jews easier. Furthermore, they stripped Jews of their individuality and formulated them into a homogeneous, faceless, and inferior group.
The final method utilized by the Nazi regime to separate Jews from society was the process of Ghettoization. Reinhard Heydrich, Head of the Reich Security Main Office and of the Security Police was assigned the role of devising a temporary method of dealing with the Jews in occupied Poland until a more permanent solution could be found. He called for the organization, concentration, and Ghettoization of Jews. The first was established at Lodz in the spring of 1940 and the largest was established at Warsaw in the autumn of 1940. The Jews had been successfully and systematically isolated. Any contact with other Jewish ghettos in Poland was restricted as well as contact with the various welfare organizations that had been set up by Jewish communities in the free world. Inhuman conditions characterized the ghettos. Combinations of overcrowding, starvation, and outbreaks of typhus and cholera would reduce ghetto inhabitants through ‘natural wastage’. If a Jew was caught attempting to escape they would be shot immediately. Furthermore, any Jew between the ages of 14 and 60 were susceptible to forced labour. Initially, the ghetto in Warsaw contained approximately 550,000 Jews. By the time of its destruction, only 45,000 remained alive. The process of forcing Jews into an isolated and confined area characterized by inhuman living conditions is comparable to a farmer herding cattle destined for slaughter into a field. This animalization further solidified the distance that had now been established between Jew and human being.
By analyzing Nazi propaganda, anti-Semitic laws enacted by the Nazis, and the process of Ghettoization, it is clear that Nazi perpetrators succeeded in transforming Jews into a menacing and inferior ‘other’. This explains how the Nazi party was able to justify the killing of Jews on a mass scale and do so with virtually no protest from the rest of the population. In order for a state to attempt the extermination of a selected victim group they would have to be convinced that this group posed a mortal threat to the state itself. It is in this mentality that the Holocaust debatably bears closest resemblance to other genocides such as the Turkish onslaught against the Armenians. As Landau states, the reasoning might go something like this:
If we do not destroy them, they will destroy us. Our action therefore is no ordinary one and cannot
be limited by moral or legal constraints. On the contrary because “they” are the enemy, a veritable
cancer threatening our very existence, our sanction to act, as we propose is absolute; our mission is “sacred”.
Nazi propaganda demonized the Jews so successfully that genocide was elevated to a moral obligation. Additionally, since anti-Semitic laws and the process of Ghettoization further dehumanized the Jews, those who murdered Jews did not view this act as comparable to an immoral and savage murder of innocent human beings. Instead, it was viewed as the extermination of vermin. Kristen Munroe suggests a concept of moral salience which suggests that the cognitive process of categorizing others as “friends” or “foe” creates the feeling of moral salience that requires action, not just generalized feelings of concern. People who are “different” become devalued, dehumanized, and eventually killed because it is perceived as the right thing to do. Heinrich Himmler’s speech at Posen offers a prime example to this logic. He states:
We have the moral right, we had the duty to our people to do it, to kill this people who would kill us…
we do not wish to be infected by that bacillus in the end and die…altogether we can say we have carried out this
most difficult task for the love of our people…we have suffered no defeat within us, in our soul, or in our character.
It is clear that Himmler viewed the extermination of Jews as necessary for the survival of Germany. It is also clear that Himmler did not view the killing of Jews as savage murder, as to him they were nothing more than disease. Therefore, in Himmler’s eyes, the moral character of the Germans remained intact, and the killing of Jews justified.
The debate surrounding how it was possible for the population of a supposedly civilized society to transform into mass murderers is one that remains prominent among scholars today. The debate between Daniel Goldhagen and Christopher Browning has been particularly publicized. Supporting the propositions of this paper, Goldhagen argues that German anti-Semitic beliefs about the Jews were the central cause and justification of the Holocaust. He concludes that anti-Semitism is what moved many thousands of ‘ordinary’ Germans to slaughter Jews. It was not economic hardship, not the coercive means of a totalitarian state, and not invariable psychological propensities. It was in fact anti-Semitism that had been pervasive in Germany for decades that persuaded ordinary Germans to slaughter innocent and defenseless Jewish men, women, and children without pity. They truly believed that this was the right thing to do. While Goldhagen’s thesis directly corresponds to the central argument of this paper, it is beneficial as well to consider Browning’s argument. Browning concluded that the ordinary men who killed Jews were not anti-Semitic fiends. They were in fact ordinary men who killed out of basic obedience to authority. Browning constantly refers to the Milgram experiment, concluding that ordinary people are likely to follow orders, even if they find them immoral, if they perceive these orders to have originated from authority.
This essay analyzes the methods undertaken to dehumanize the Jews such as Nazi propaganda, anti-Semitic laws enacted by the Nazis, and the process of Ghettoization. In doing so, it submits that it was the growing distance between Jew and Gentile that explains how the Nazi party was able to justify the killing of Jews on a mass scale and do so with virtually no protest from the rest of the population. This demonization and dehumanization not only elevated the killing of Jews to a moral duty, but also removed guilt from killers who viewed the extermination of Jews not as savage murder, but as the permanent removal of vermin. This thesis holds substantial historiographical importance. It sheds light on factors that motivate and justify genocide. It allows us to consider the conditions which allowed ordinary men to transform into mass murderers. It is valuable to consider how such an unthinkable act of violence is and has been achievable by perpetrators who seem not too different from ourselves. It is important to note, however, that as with all areas of history, no consensus has been reached by historians on this issue. The debate between Goldhagen and Browning is a prime example. Historians will continue to search for historical “truths”.
The debate surrounding how it was possible for the population of a supposedly civilized society to transform into mass murderers is one that remains prominent among scholars today. The debate between Daniel Goldhagen and Christopher Browning has been particularly publicized. Supporting the propositions of this paper, Goldhagen argues that German anti-Semitic beliefs about the Jews were the central cause and justification of the Holocaust. He concludes that anti-Semitism is what moved many thousands of ‘ordinary’ Germans to slaughter Jews. It was not economic hardship, not the coercive means of a totalitarian state, and not invariable psychological propensities. It was in fact anti-Semitism that had been pervasive in Germany for decades that persuaded ordinary Germans to slaughter innocent and defenseless Jewish men, women, and children without pity. They truly believed that this was the right thing to do. While Goldhagen’s thesis directly corresponds to the central argument of this paper, it is beneficial as well to consider Browning’s argument. Browning concluded that the ordinary men who killed Jews were not anti-Semitic fiends. They were in fact ordinary men who killed out of basic obedience to authority. Browning constantly refers to the Milgram experiment, concluding that ordinary people are likely to follow orders, even if they find them immoral, if they perceive these orders to have originated from authority.
This essay analyzes the methods undertaken to dehumanize the Jews such as Nazi propaganda, anti-Semitic laws enacted by the Nazis, and the process of Ghettoization. In doing so, it submits that it was the growing distance between Jew and Gentile that explains how the Nazi party was able to justify the killing of Jews on a mass scale and do so with virtually no protest from the rest of the population. This demonization and dehumanization not only elevated the killing of Jews to a moral duty, but also removed guilt from killers who viewed the extermination of Jews not as savage murder, but as the permanent removal of vermin. This thesis holds substantial historiographical importance. It sheds light on factors that motivate and justify genocide. It allows us to consider the conditions which allowed ordinary men to transform into mass murderers. It is valuable to consider how such an unthinkable act of violence is and has been achievable by perpetrators who seem not too different from ourselves. It is important to note, however, that as with all areas of history, no consensus has been reached by historians on this issue. The debate between Goldhagen and Browning is a prime example. Historians will continue to search for historical “truths”.