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November-09-11
6:04 PM
Jewish Policy
o Boycotts
o Nuremberg Laws of 1935
Stripped Jews of German citizenship.
Now a minority "national"
Prohibit inter-marriage.
Significant because it enshrined anti-Semitism in legislation
o Kristallnacht - "night of the broken glass"
November 1938
Wide range of Jewish shops and synagogues were vandalized and burnt to
the ground
What did "ordinary" Germans think about the Nazi discrimination of Jewish
communities?
o Average German did not support the violence against Jews
o They would have supported legislative anti-Semitism
o Many just didn't care about Jewish minority
May 1940
o German success in Holland, Belgium and France
o Occupation of north and western France
France fell quickly due to French not being prepared for aerial war
Never recovered demographically from WWI
o Vichy regime
o Significance of military success
o Units of soldiers in Eastern Europe who went around and executed Jews. (Poland,
Ukraine, Baltic States). Started in 1940.
Wansee Conference - January 1942
o Hitler firmly decides to exterminate Jewish European population in a systematic
way
o Never publicly used terms "exterminate", "kill", "murder", etc., used euphemisms:
"final solution", "cleansing"
Zyklon B gas
o Gas used for killing. First people with disabilities were killed.
How much did ordinary Germans know of what was going on?
o Hard to tell
Dissent
o "Edelweiss Pirates"
Student group in Germany who openly criticized Hitler for anti-Semitism
o Swing Culture
Young Germans not interested in Hitler politics
More interested in US's music and culture
o White Rose - Catholic resistance
The July Plot (1944)
o Plot to assassinate Hitler
o Failed but made Hitler very paranoid
Goldhagen vs. Browning debate