Analyzing Historical Events

This paper deals with ways history can be interpreted and influences different interpretations have on society and individuals. This is explored through

At the end of WWI, Germany was directly blamed for causing the great conflict. Many Germans could not accept this blame, and believed designed by the Jewish people as part of a greater conspiracy. Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. The Nazi rise to power ended the Weimar Republic, the German democracy that was established after World War I. The Nazi state, also called The Third Reich, quickly became a regime in which citizens had no guaranteed basic rights. Hitler’s first objective was to eliminate political opposition. The assault against the Jews began with a boycott of Jewish businesses. A week later the Nazis dismissed Jews from civil service, and by the end of the month the participation of Jews in German schools was restricted. In May 1933, thousands of Nazi students and professors stormed university libraries and bookstores in cities throughout Germany to

What is history? We look at these past civilizations, making assumptions and criticisms about their ways of life as if we know exactly what they were thinking. In reality, we have no idea how they justified the actions that we judge. Soon we will be the past and we will be looked upon from future civilizations that attempt to understand our cultures. This thought can be quite overwhelming when one thinks how we will be viewed. In Chuck Klosterman’s novel “But what if we’re Wrong,” he delves into the idea of what past cultures would think of our views towards them as well as future generations analyses of us. We tend to make vague assumptions of their actions rarely considering their thoughts during the time. Many of their actions were based on the time they lived in and the resources available to them, not always having a choice towards joining different culture norms. Before we judge these past civilizations we must first consider what people in the future will think of our current society.

Hitler had shown unwillingness to tolerate the Jews and once he was appointed Chancellor, he started to take elimination measures like deportation, forced emigration, and isolation to enforce his belief. He took advantage of Germany’s weakness in World War One, then used it as an opportunity to blame the Jews for Germany’s defeat. Hitler’s political party was the largest political party in Germany thus allowing them to draw very large crowds to gatherings. He had very good oratory speeches with hand gestures that easily manipulated people to adhere to his views. Hitler constantly targeted the Jews because he knew people believed in these speeches. People in Germany were already anti-semitic but Hitler made it worse by constantly consuming them in his speeches. From the way he spoke about the Jews, we could clearly see the possibility of genocide. Hitler wanted Germany to be free of any humans that anyone other than his ideal master race so he personally selected bodyguards to be part of a group called the SS. Hitler was responsible for ordering the SS to carry out the extermination of anyone who did not fit this ideal. The SS handled oppositions using force and as a result of which people were forced to give into the idea of violence. Sometimes people purposely went along with this Holocaust ideal due to the fear of getting killed. These terrors allowed the holocaust occur

No matter how far we try to remove ourselves from our biases, it is impossible, because history forces us to develop bias. We are always attempting to compare an event with another, or a person with another, and these comparisons often result in the most interesting and thoughtful discussions. I don’t think the field of history would exist without comparisons. We need to look at ideas, people, and events in context in order to truly understand their meaning, and that requires us to compare.

The Nazis believed in ‘Aryan’ superiority, this belief contributed to the Holocaust. In the years of Nazi rule before World War II, The Nazi group organized policies of discrimination and separation targeting especially German Jews. The Nazi political group believed in one race Aryans, they believed the Aryans were superior to all races. Hitler was an anti-Semitic, he believed Jews were the main corrupter of culture, society and Germany. Non-Aryans were seen as impure and evil.

For example, owning a slave today is appalling, and considered a horrific crime against humanity. When Columbus started the Columbian trade and started to trade slaves he did not think it was an abnormal occurrence, because the leaders he started to trade with would capture other tribesmen to trade. If there had been a major problem the leaders would have refused to enslave their people to foreign men. Columbus should not be judged by today’s standards, due to the difference in opinion. While owning someone now is considered atrocious, it was normal then. How can something be judged if the standards for when the act was committed are different to the standards to which you are comparing it? It is not possible, to judged something by a different standard would be to punish a 2 year old the same way you would a 15 year old. It does not work and the outcome will not be

At the end of WWI in 1918, Germany’s economy was in ruins. There were very few jobs, and bitterness began to take over the country. According to the text, “Hitler, a rising politician, offered Germany a scapegoat: Jewish people. Hitler said that Jewish people were to blame for Germany’s problems. He believed that Jews did not deserve to live.” (7) This was the birth of Antisemitism--prejudice against Jewish people. Europe’s Jewish people have always been persecuted due to their “different customs and beliefs that many viewed with suspicion.”(7) Hitler simply reignited the flames, and a violent hatred was born.

The view Adolf Hitler had on the Jewish peoples was that everything was their faults and he hated them. Before Hitler became a Dictator he was a soldier just like everyone else in World War 1 and when the German Empire lost he was in disbelief and just couldn’t believe it. Many nationalist and conservatives believed that Germany had not lost the war on the battlefield but due to betrayal from within, by a ‘stab in the back’. Socialists, communists and particularly Jews were blamed, even though more than 100,000 German and Austrian Jews had served in the war and 12,000 had been killed.

Firstly, the Nazi’s used Germany’s defeat during the First World War (which began in the summer of 1914 and ended in November 1918) to their advantage. WWI claimed many lives and of course changed the lives of those in Germany forever. The years after the First World War were to see the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, the most notorious character of the twentieth century. Hitler offered to the Germans that one day he would Germany great again. Hitler also provided a scapegoat to the people of Germany, saying that the reason why Germany was in great debt and had such high unemployment was because of the Jewish people. This appealed to the German’s because it meant that they’d have an easy way out rather than taking the blame upon themselves. After Hitler was appointed as chancellor of Germany the basic democratic structure of the Germany was weakened then abolished. This then created a sense of fear the German population, and they were too scared to fight back. The lives of many millions of people across Europe would be devastated as a result of the beliefs, policies and actions of the Nazis led by Hitler.

German propaganda was at its highest point during defeat and many military and political leaders blamed the defeat of Germany on crooked politicians, bankers, Communists, and Jews. To make matters worse many Germans were angered due to three major factors. The first of these factors was that after Germany was forced to give up some of its best land in the North which was rich in natural resources such as coal, iron, and most of its best oil fields as punishment for its role in World War One. Another factor that upset many Germans was that it was separated from Austria, its main ally in World War One, who had joined Germany to form one country. The last rule that the Allied Powers, a group of countries united to defeat Germany made up of Great Britain, United States, France, Russia and Italy,(¨Shirer¨) imposed on Germany was that it set up a Republic style government called the Weimer Republic. The Weimer Republic at first was hated by many Germans because of economic problems the country faced because the German nation was required to pay penalties to any country that it had caused damage to in the war. As a result to a weak government many small political parties were formed hoping to get elected to impose reform in the government. Some of these parties included the German workers party, the Democratic German party and the German Republic party. Of all of these parties the German Republic party, the government set up by the Allies, was the most popular. In 1919 the German Working party, which had originally stated as a group of unemployed soldiers, gained a new member an Austrian man and ex soldier in World War One, Adolf Hitler. Hitler took control of the German Workers party by his emotional and mesmerizing speeches. Hitler encouraged militarism, national pride, and commitment to the Volk, a ¨pure¨ German race. Hitler also strongly expressed antisemitism which had

The Treaty of Versailles was an agreement declared on June 28, 1919 between the Allied Powers and Germany. Germany lost territory, including their African territories, as well as 700,000 square kilometers, all of which were given to the League of Nations (McDougal Littell). Additionally, Germany was restricted on their military size and power. The Rhineland was made into a demilitarized zone, and they had to pay reparations; the cost of repairing war damage. Although they did not want to sign the treaty, the Allies threatened to invade if they didn't. The most brutal agreement, however, was that Germany was obliged to sign War Guilt Clause, Article 231, where they were to be blamed for starting World War 1. This angered the Germans, but they were inevitably forced to sign. When Hitler and the Nazis grew as a political group, they claimed Jews responsible for losing World War 1 as well as for the economic crisis (McDougal Littell). Many German people believed in the Nazi claims that Jews were responsible for their suffering. Anti-semitism was, however, already an existing issue before the Nazi Party expanded it. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, there were roughly 522,000 Jews in total living in Germany. According to The Town Hall, "Another part of the modern anti semitism in Europe was the conspiracy theory of Jewish world economic domination as

One tremendous cause of the War was the Treaty of Versailles which was created after the end of World War One. After this war, there was constant aggression and tension throughout Europe and most of Germany. Hitler who realized this began to create a following, and promised he would establish German pride which was taken away from them when the Treaty of Versailles was put in place. Although Hitler came to power legally, he began to disregard the treaty and started to build up the German army. Another major cause of this war was the hatred for communism. Hitler and other powers who despised communism teamed up to fight against it. In order to do this Hitler signed an appeasement. However, this appeasement didn’t last long and Hitler soon broke the treaty. This betrayal led to France and Britain declaring war on Germany, which marked the start of World War Two. World War Two was a horrific war and impacted many religious, political and ethnic groups, as well as German society itself. Atomic bombs were dropped killing a tremendous amount and injuring many as well in Japan. Yet, the specific groups that were impacted the most were the Jews and Communists. From the beginning of the war Hitler had a huge amount of hatred for the Jews and Communists. Hitler believed that the Germans were the superior race and the Jews and Communists were the source of all the problems. Therefore, concentration camps were

The German people blamed the Weimar Republic for surrendering in 1918 and for signing the Treaty of Versailles. Many German people distrusted the Weimar Republic and were not willing to support it. This helped to make helped the Nazi party rise to power because of their distrust and because of everyone wanting someone new put into power.

From 1933 to 1945, Germany was under the leadership of Adolf Hitler and the Nationalist Socialist German Party, or Nazi Party. The group promoted German pride and Anti-Semitism, hate towards Jews, and expressed disgust towards the Treaty of Versailles, a peace document signed between Germany and the Allies at the end of World War 1 (History.com Staff). In order to grow his movement, Hitler recruited Germans for his armies, his factory workers, and his death camp guards. Because of this, it was easy to assume that all Germans supported the Nazi dictatorship and the ideas they preached. However, throughout this time period many Germans of different political and religious beliefs came together to protest against the regime.