Adolf Hitler's Influence And Race Theorists

Also, Hitler was heavily influenced by fellow Austrian, Karl Lueger. Lueger was considered to be a nationalist Christian-Socialist and anti-Semitic. Under Lueger’s influence and race theorists, Lanz von Liebenfels, Hitler first developed the radical anti-Semitism and racial mythology that were to remain essential to his own and beliefs and ideology and that of the Nazi party (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2004). Anti-Semitism is hatred towards Jews for no apparent reason and it also includes stereotyped views about Jews. Adolf Hitler discusses his anti-Semitic views and his belief that Germans were the superior race in his book, Mein Kampf.

In 1933, Hitler and the Nazi’s began to practice their racial ideology. They believed that the Germans

were the superior race while they saw the Jews, Gypsies, and the handicapped as a significant threat to the German race. He also believed that Jews could not be considered German and that only people of German and Aryan blood should live in Germany. During this time, there were about 525,000 Jews in Germany and were considered the main target of Nazi hatred. The Nazi’s began to create propaganda that blamed the Jews for Germany’s economic depression, as well as Germany’s defeat in World War I. In April of 1933, the laws passed in Nuremburg made Jews second-class citizens, which made them seem inferior. The Germans were considered first-class citizens because they were seen as the dominant race. Jews were not defined by their religion, but by their grandparent’s religion (My Jewish Learning, 2002-2017).