Hitler had an anti-Semitism, ill opinion of Jews that turned his hate into an obsession. This obsessive hatred toward Jews is still a popular controversial topic among many historians and non-historians alike. So why did Hitler hate Jews? Although, there is much that you can read about this topic, there has yet to be found a single reason for his hatred.
Many historians believe the reasons behind his hatred prove that he was an insane and abnormal man who blamed Jews for all the evil in the world. His belief led to the Holocaust that killed thousands of people after WWI. If there are not any true reasons for his hatred, why did Hitler hate Jews with such passion?
Why Did Hitler Hate Jews?
Class War Theory
During Hitler’s time, the principles of communist ideology that contained the class war theory was considered by many. The people who supported the Marxist class war theory were all Jews, according to Hitler. This division began the fire for Hitler’s hate.
His hate was simply added to during the depression in Germany that he believed the Jews were responsible for creating. Jews had major control over the economy because they controlled important merchandises and expert fields, which meant that they were not hit as hard during the depression. According to Hitler, this was a huge injustice that had to be rectified.
Conformity of the Pure Race
The master race theory, created by Hitler, was all about purity. He believed that only white people of Nordic descent were worthy to be called the master race. Hitler wanted to eliminate everyone who did not conform to the Nazi policy that claimed the master race looked like Aryans, or the “pure race” of Germans. Hitler felt that Jews did not conform to this policy.
Jews Are the Cause of All Evil
Why did Hitler hate Jews? Perhaps this would help you to understand it better. Anti-Semitic literature, at the time, was stereotyping Jews in an evil light. Although Hitler was well educated, he drew his intentions from this literature. He strongly believed what was being preached about Jews being disloyal, untrustworthy, and not capable of being true German citizens so they had to be eliminated.
Jews Lost the War
There is a lot of evidence that Hitler blamed the Jews for the loss of WWI, as did many other German’s. Hitler was in medical treatment when the war ended and was gravely depressed for months when he heard that Germany had lost the war.
As with many other Germans, Hitler bought into the philosophy that they were stabbed in the back by the Jews. He put the Social Democrats, who signed the Armistice in the same group as the Jewish War Profiteers. This simply added to his growing hatred of the Jews, giving way to one more reason why Hitler hated Jews.
What Did Hitler Do to Jews?
1933 -1934
At the beginning of 1933, Jews became known as the sub-humans. Nazi’s stopped Germans from shopping in any shop that was owned by Jew in hopes that they would become bankrupt. As a way to ensure these shops were noticed, the Star of David or the word “Juden” were placed on the windows.
This did not stop at the shops. The schools began to teach anti-Semitic ideas and the Jewish children were publicly ridiculed by both students and teachers. Out in public, the Jews had specially marked bus seats, train seats, and park benches.
1935
The violence toward Jews really began in 1935 once the Nuremberg Laws were passed. Jews lost their German citizenships and were forbid to marry any non-Jew. Only those who were able to pay a steep fine were able to get out of the country, those who could not were forced to stay in horrible conditions. Food was denied by shops and chemists wouldn't sell medicines to the Jews.
1938
A Nazi diplomat was shot by a Jew in Paris, in November of 1938. This event caused Hitler to order a campaign against the Jews in Germany that would lead to 10,000 shops, homes, and synagogues being destroyed and burned. Jews suffered great damage, yet they still had to pay a large amount of fine-one billion mark to clean up the mess, plus scrub the streets clean.
1939 -1940
At the beginning of WWII, Germany occupied the western half of Poland. Ten thousand plus Polish Jews were forced into ghettoes that became over populated. The overpopulation gave way to a great breeding ground for diseases such as typhus on top of the unemployment, poverty, and hunger that the Jews were already suffering.
During this time, the Jews were not the only ones persecuted. Any institutionalized Germans with disabilities or mental illnesses were gassed to death in Euthanasia programs. It is said that this was Hitler’s test run of the soon to come, Holocaust.
1941-1945
In 1941 the Germans began sending Jews from the ghettoes of Poland to concentration camps, beginning with the sick, old, weak, and very young. On March 17, 1942 the first mass gassing took place at Belzec. This mass gassing continued in concentration camps all over Europe. The largest camp was Auschwitz-Birkenau, where more than two million people were killed.
Nazi’s did try to keep these concentration camps secret, however with the scale of the mass killings eyewitnesses began to report the activities.
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It saddens my heart that a human being can be full of so much hatred, that they are driven to kill another person, let alone, try to wipe out an entire race! ~ Jealousy and hatred are a volatile concoction