Dehumanization of the Jews by the Nazi Regime

Link Posted on November 24, 2013 Updated on November 24, 2013

How propaganda affected the life of Jews

During the 1930s, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime used propaganda spreading lies about the Jews. The “Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda” of the Nazi party, Josef Goebbels created a negative image of the Jewish people, by blaming them for the economic and social problems of Germany and the world. The propaganda has its goal to dehumanize the Jews by naming them an “inferior race”. Furthermore a goal was to create widespread anti-Semitism and the elimination of the rights and freedoms of the Jews. The Nazis preached that Jews must be excluded from the whole society, and used for example schools, the media or popular art forms such as posters to teach and project a distorted image of the Jews. These effects of the propaganda, combined with the anti-Semitic feelings that already existed in Europe, resulted in violence, humiliation, and persecution of Jews. Driving them into poverty and despair, Nazi propaganda and hatred against the Jews set the stage for the cruel mass genocide.

Anti-Semitic Laws 

The Nazis encouraged Germans to boycott Jewish businesses. The passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 formally established who was a German versus who was a Jew. These laws prevented Christians from marrying Jews and stripped away the civil rights of Jews, removed them from jobs, and restricted their daily lives. The Nuremberg Laws increased the isolation of the Jews in deliberate, gradual steps.  At first, only Jews in certain professions were affected.  Jewish doctors and lawyers could only serve other Jews. Teachers and professors were forced out of their positions.  As time passed, Jews were excluded from every part of society

The Star of David

As a farmer marks his cattle with a brand to separate them from others, the Nazis forced Jews to wear the Star of David on their clothing in order to mark and identify them as Jews. Furthermore the Nazis also wanted to separate them from the rest of society and to let them feel ashamed. The marking of Jews in this way was but a single step in the movement to dehumanize them.

“Night of Broken Glass” -“Kristallnacht”

On October 28 and 29 of 1938, between 6,000 and 10,000 Polish Jews were involuntarily deported from their homes and villages.  Thousands of them were murdered shortly after their arrival in prison camps.  Herschel Grynszpan, a member of a deported family, shot a German diplomat in Paris. This shooting served the Nazis the opportunity to raise the persecution of the Jews to more violent heights. On November 9 and 10, the Nazi German government ordered the first major pogrom against the Jews in Germany and Austria. Jewish stores, synagogues as well as homes were destroyed.  More than 100 Jewish men were killed and 30,000 were sent away to concentration camps. These horrible acts of violence are now known as “Kristallnacht”, or as the “Night of Broken Glass” .

http://holocaustcenterpgh.org/page.aspx?id=148357

 

 

Jews In Vienna

The Nazis tried to dissolve Jewish organizations, hoping to force Jews to emigrate. The plan succeeded:

• By the end of 1941, 130,000 Jews had left Vienna, 30,000 of whom went to the USA
• They left behind all of their property, but were forced to pay the Reichsfluchtsteuer, a tax on all emigrants from the Third Reich
• Following the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, where the Nazis resolved to completely annihilate the Jewish population, the majority of the Jews who had stayed in Vienna became victims of the Holocaust.
• Of the more than 65,000 Viennese Jews who were deported to concentration camps, only a few more than 2000 survived.

 

From an ethical point of view nothing could be further away from a decent relation between human beings like the situation for the “inferior races” during the Second World War. To reduce humans to worthless creatures without any rights and even without permission to live is something that should never happen again in the future. It is important to remember our generation as well as further generations of what has happened during these years. Only the knowledge about these actions and the consequences can assure that this cruel age won’t recur. One must bear in mind that we all are humans and we all belong to a certain community. The respect for the individual as well as the freedom of expression could lead us into a world without apartheid, racism, anti-Semitism or propaganda against minorities. The Star of David and how Jews had to wear it to show their difference and indignity is evidence enough how wrong a situation inside a human community can develop itself with inhuman actions towards a group of people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Vienna#1938_to_1945