Discourse On Colonialism In The City Of God By E. L Doctorow

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Hitler’s and his nazi’s rule is one of the most important historical event s of our world. They terrorized many including German citizens, and especially the Jews. In the novel, The City of God by E.L Doctorow, we follow a young boy named Albert through his life as a young Jewish boy living at the Kovno ghetto. The horrors lived by the boy are an example of what Adolf Hitler wrote in his book, Mein Kampf, and what Aime Cesaire wrote on his Discourse on Colonialism.
Some of the horrors of Nazi Germany are depicted through the eyes of Albert who lives in the Kovno ghetto. Before the ghetto his parents were well off, but once Nazi Germany began their rights as citizens and humans began to deteriorate. The Jewish were taken to the Kovno ghetto …show more content…

He states and restates that the Aryan race is the supreme race of the world and that the Jews are at the bottom. So for the Aryan race to succeed and grow, Hitler strongly believes that a pure Aryan blood is the answer. He says that many Aryan conquerors have failed to maintain power because they start to mix with those who are conquered. In his book he heavily belittles the Jews by denouncing them imitators, egoistic, and destructive. According to him they are imitators because “his [Jewish] intelligence is not the result of his own development, but of visual instruction through foreigners” (Hitler, Pg. 134). He also believes that they have “no culture of their own”, and that the “sham” of the culture they have is the “property of other people”. He also expresses his view about that Jew’s egoistic and lack of self sacrificing nature. He describes the Jews as only looking out for themselves and claiming that they are only “united when a common danger forces him [Jews] to be” (Hitler, 135). He professes that if Jews were left alone in the world then their destructive nature would lead them to exterminate one another. Other reason for his allegation that Jews are destructive include that they destroy the property they own and that they destroy other cultures. He comes to the conclusion that those who are not pure Aryan blood are “chaff”, …show more content…

The German boys showed more care for the uniform than each other. The characteristics that Hitler associates with the Jews are also characteristics that most people in the world have especially Hitler and his Nazis. We increase our intelligence by learning from other people’s theories and ideas, we cannot develop as individual and as a nation without knowledge from other nations or individuals. It would be hard to believe that an individual has never acted selfishly in their lifetime. Also, if an individual has not destroyed anything he/ she is still part of destruction, for example, the U.S has destroyed many other nations just for it’s own benefit. Hitler and the Nazis are not the first ones who have done all these thing, but it is maddening that they accused others of being all of these. Cesaire’s Discourse of Colonialism is about his perspective of colonialism and everything tied to it, but for the purpose of this paper I will focus on how he characterizes the Nazi’s. One quote that describes his main point is
“ We aspire not to equality but to domination. The country of a foreign race must become once again a country of serfs, of agricultural laborers, or industrial workers. It is not a question of eliminating the inequalities among men but of widening them and making them into law.”
Adolf

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