Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The social and economic factors impact of the first world war
Racism and World War 2
Impact of the First World War
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
After World War One ended, Adolf Hitler and many other Germans felt humiliated for losing the war. Adolf blamed the Jews, he felt they were the reason the war was lost. Hitler had been obsessed with race, specifically the purity of the German race. Which he believed to be the “master race”. Aryan is what he claimed the master race was, those with blonde hair, blue eyes and tall. This belief in the “Master Race” created a horrific massacre of nearly six million people with Jewish descent over the course of twelve years. After World War One ended in 1918, many of Germany’s unemployed soldiers and citizens felt defeated and their pride injured. Wilhelmine’s leaders of military and political parties blamed Germany’s failure on being “stabbed in the back” by Jews, Communists, and leftwing politicians. After losing the war many Germans banded together to create a new government, the Weimer Republic. They suffered from an unstable economy which became worse when the New York stock market crashed
The treaty also limited their military to 100,000 men, and forbidding an air force and they would take responsibility for the war by making reparation payments to the Reparations Committee. In the 1932 election, the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party had successfully won the most votes, and President Paul Von Hindenburg appointed the Nazi party leader Adolf Hitler as Chancellor. The Nazi party had become the most powerful political party in Germany. The Nazi’s changed Germany’s political, economic, and social structure once Hitler became chancellor. Despite the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler changed the economy by rearming Germany and creating an air force. Though the Allied Powers condemned Hitler’s decision to break the treaty they did nothing. (Lindsay, James
The Weimer Republic, is the democratic government established in Germany in 1918 that ruled for fifteen years after the collapse of the German empire after the First World War.The republic consisted of moderates from the Social Democratic Party as well as their liberal allies, which included the German Democratic Party, and the Catholic Center Party. The Weimer Republic sought political democracy, which they believed was attainable by the elimination of war, revolutionary terror, and capitalism. Despite their clear goal, the Weimer Republic faced backlash by the radicals of society, which included communists, National Socialists, and the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler. THESIS: The Weimer Republic’s instability in the period of 1918-1933 is
Beginning in 1933, Hitler and his Nazi party targeted not only those of the Jewish religion but many other sets. Hitler was motivated by religion and nationalism to eradicate any threats to his state. It was Hitler’s ideology that his Aryan race was superior to any other. Hitler’s goal was to create a “master race” by eliminating the chance for “inferiors” to reproduce. Besides the Jews the other victims of the genocide include the Roma (Gypsies), African-Germans, the mentally disabled, handicapped, Poles, Slavs, Anti-Nazi political parties, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Homosexuals. In Hitler’s eyes all of these groups needed to be eliminated in order for his master race to be a success.
The period after World War One was very politically unstable. Many different kinds of governments, such as fascism and communism, were coming up all over Europe. One country that especially faced this political fluctuation was Germany. After the war, Germany was forced into a democracy known as the Weimar Republic, but this government soon collapsed and Hitler’s fascism took over. There were various factors that contributed to the fall of the Weimar Republic, but three major ones were the lack of popular support for the government, the lack of efficiency and internal organization, and the competition of other, more conservative parties such as the Nazis.
Events in his life made him adopt a strong discontent and animosity towards the Jews. In his speeches and writings, Hitler spread his beliefs of racial "purity" and of the superiority of the "Germanic race"—what he called an Aryan "master race." He pronounced that his race must remain pure in order to one day take over the world. As seen clearly from the ‘Nation and Race’ For Hitler, the ideal "Aryan" was blond, blue-eyed, and tall, any description in variance with this was not
Hitler wanted a “More Perfect Race”, But how did such a troubled man such as himself, make such a “Perfect Race”, He went out his way in the mass murder of over six million Jewish people, and along with eleven million more who didn’t fit the perfect picture. Hitler’s idea of the “Perfect Race” was very simple, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Hitler thought that blond hair and blue eyes meant power and leadership. Hitler thought people with blond hair and blue eyes needed to be all of Germany, so that meant no Jews, Gypsies, and other people could ever fit into this race. But there are many problems with that.
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”,
After Germany lost World War I, it was in a national state of humiliation. Their economy was in the drain, and they had their hands full paying for the reparations from the war. Then a man named Adolf Hitler rose to the position of Chancellor and realized his potential to inspire people to follow. Hitler promised the people of Germany a new age; an age of prosperity with the country back as a superpower in Europe. Hitler had a vision, and this vision was that not only the country be dominant in a political sense, but that his ‘perfect race’, the ‘Aryans,’ would be dominant in a cultural sense. His steps to achieving his goal came in the form of the Holocaust. The most well known victims of the Holocaust were of course, the Jews. However, approximately 11 million people were killed in the holocaust, and of those, there were only 6 million Jews killed. The other 5 million people were the Gypsies, Pols, Political Dissidents, Handicapped, Jehovah’s witnesses, Homosexuals and even those of African-German descent. Those who were believed to be enemies of the state were sent to camps where they were worked or starved to death.
To begin with, Racism had a big effect in the genocide and murders in Germany. According A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust, it states that “ It was the explicit aim of Hitler's regime to create a European world both dominated and populated by the "Aryan" race. Some people were undesirable by Nazi standards because of who they were,their genetic or cultural origins, or health conditions.” (“ Victims” ). It is so devastating that someone could kill or torture anyone who was not like them or who fought against them. The Jews were required to carry their identification cards. They were also excluded from businesses, parks, resorts, and forests. German children were taught that the Jews and Gypsies were not as good as the Germans. One of the methods used to teach German children was to make the Jewish children stand up and point out their distinguishing features. Later on the Jewish children were banned from schools and had curfews. John Boyne Quotes from his book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas “What exactly was the difference? he wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?” In his speeches and writings Hitler spread his believes in racial “purity” and in the superiority of their Germanic race. What he called an “Aryan master race”. These believes became the governments ideology and were spread in publicly displayed posters on the radios,m...
The Treaty of Versailles only partly helped Hitler become chancellor. On 28 June 1919, Germany signed the Treaty with the allies, losing 10% of her land. The German army was reduced to 100,000 men and Germany had to pay reparations of £6,600 million. Hitler blamed the Treaty for Germany's problems. When Germany failed to pay a reparation instalment in 1922, French and Belgian troops entered German soil and seized goods.
Richard Bessel’s article stresses the political structure of Weimar Germany as the cause of its failure. Its structure was flawed in numerous ways, all of which contributed to its inevitable failure. First of all, the problems within Germany due to the First World War were massive. This caused economic, political and social problems which first had to be dealt with by the new Weimar government. The loss of the war had left Germany with huge reparations to pay, and massive destruction to repair. In order to gain the capital needed to finance efforts to rebuild, and repay the Allies, the economy had to be brought back to its prewar levels. This was not an easy task.
Hitler represented the evil side of any human beings in the world, and he had done many brutal actions towards people. Adolf Hitler was a little-known political leader whose early life had been marked by disappointment. He formed the Nazis party, where they shared the belief that Germany are required to overturn the Treaty of Versailles. During the Depression, many Germans turned to Hitler for security and firm leadership, ”With terrible economic conditions and rapid inflation, support for Hitler's party grew. By 1923, the Nazi's had 56,000 members and many more supporters” (Adolf Hitler Biography). Soon, President Hindenburg announced Hitler the chancellor and he came to power legally. With majority control, Hitler demanded absolute power and turned Germany into a totalitarian state. Hitler waited for the right time to step out and control the people, ”[Hitler] had a charismatic talent that he used for evil to accomplish something beneficial to him” (Maria Langstaff). With such power, Hitler abused it and o...
Hitler's main idea was to, as he called it, 'cleanse' Europe of these non-deserving people. Hitler despite having gained anti-Semitic views on his own from things. he saw he was influenced a lot by Neil Darwin. He based a lot of his racial arguments and views on this. However, another point to consider was that the Jews were being used as scapegoats for German problems.
It was Hitler’s ability to make group identity salient within the Aryan German population, the transformation of his ideas to ideology, and his deep hatred for the Jews that ultimately led to the Holocaust. Although Anti-Semitism was already present within German society before Hitler rose to power, he was the actor that enacted policies against Jews and what ultimately led to the Final Solution
But Hitler made it his goal to kill this imperfect race. “Born in Austria,Hitler served in the German army during World War One.” ( The Holocaust) To him the Jews were an inferior race the needed to be eliminated. He thought that by using anti-semitism he would become more popular with the crowd.
Hitler had thought that the Jews did not believe in the “right” thing so he tried to eliminate the race. He did not want them to believe in what they did and still do. He thought that the Jewish race was inferior and did not mean anything. The way that Hitler treated the Jews were crimes against humanity and I know that many non Jews saw that but did...