4. Why did so many Jews remain living in Nazi Germany (including Austria following the Anschluss of March 1938) up to the outbreak of the Second W...

Though many Jews were able to emigrate out of Germany before further persecution took place, it was substantially difficult for every Jew to escape the impending danger that was looming large in both Nazi Germany and Austria. Reasons for emigration being very difficult included the reluctance of Jews to move when they had lived in Germany all their lives, and had generations of family members who have all been brought up in Germany, and some who had even served for Germany during the First World War. The prospect of leaving family behind was too much to fathom for Jews, as some Jews were married to non-Jewish women, and considered themselves more German rather than Jewish. This essay will however focus on a variety of factors which include economic problems faced by Jews even before the Anschluss was introduced in 1938, immigration restrictions set out acutely for Jewish immigrants by Western countries such as Britain and the United States in particular, and the role Anti-Semitism played throughout the world during this time period, that prevented and severely halted a majority of Jews to emigrate out of Nazi Germany and Austria, after the Anschluss and up until the outbreak of the Second World War.

Hitler's vision of unifying and annexing Austria and Nazi Germany into a greater 'German Reich' was represented finally through the implementation of the Anschluss in March 1938. The Anschluss would assuredly achieve Hitler's dream of exerting power and control over the Jewish population, by marginalising Jews from society in using forms of power such as propaganda to promote them as outcasts to German citizens, an objective Hitler had tried to achieve many years previously since being granted the Chancellor of Germany in 1932. The dev...

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...rence: Nazi Germany and The Jews pp.223-225). Friedlander's detailed analysis of the hostility that existed towards the Jews prior to the Second World War, conspicuously demonstrates how many countries were wary and cautious of accepting Jewish refugees due to fear that anti-Semitism would play a part in creating a divided population, one that would invoke racial tensions, hatred and hostility amongst Jewish and non-Jewish people at the time, created by the Nazi's strong promotion of anti-Semitic views on Jews' that has arguably influenced numerous countries to a certain extent that they became less lenient towards Jewish refugees in Germany and Austria, and were reluctant to accept any more in need of escape despite the hardships and prosecution that many were still faced with by the Nazi's. In addition, prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, countries