Background

= ** Historical Background ** =

**Post WWI to 1933**

After Germany lost //World War I//, they began cycling through revolution and counterrevolution. Eventually, around 1920, Germany had created a stable democracy called the  Wiemar republic. They had begun prospering, creating new buildings and expanding their markets with world trade. Then, a few years later, the economy completely collapsed. The once thriving capitalist economy was now failing. **Adolf Hitler** saw this as an opportunity. Through the disaster, many lost their jobs, and wanted to know who was responsible. Many believed the Nazi propaganda claiming that the los was the fault of “Jewish communists” and “Jewish financiers”. At the same time, Nazis were also working off of German nationalism by stating that the economy collapsing was also the fault of the //Treaty of Versailles//. “The Nazis vowed to reverse the Versailles Treaty, which had imposed severe reparations payments on Germany” (The History Behind the Holocaust 7).

**1933 to 1939** On January 30, 1933, //Hitler was named Chancellor//, the most important position in the German government” (USHMM 20) representing the Nazi party. The Social Democratic leaders met and concluded that Hitler had: “followed the path of the constitution” (The History Behind the Holocaust 17). The **Social Democracy Party** had allowed the fascists to seize power without a fight in order to prevent a civil war. Hitler convinced the German **Reichstag** (or Congress) to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree and grant him emergency powers, these powers effectively gave Hitler complete power over the German government and limited freedom of speech, religion, assembly and press. Hitler then began the formation of his own personal army the **Gestapo** and the **SS**, which he used to destroy all opposition to the Nazis in Germany (USHMM 20). Once he had unopposed power over Germany, Hitler began to punish the Jews as he had promised during his rise to power. This all began with a nation-wide smear campaign that blamed Jews for the German defeat in WWI and subsequent economic depression. With the German people on Hitlers side, “[Jews] were gradually shut out out of German society by the Nazis through a never-ending series of laws and decrees, culminating in the Nuremberg Laws of 1935”(Gavin 1). The Nuremberg Laws striped Jews of all their rights including interracial marriage, education, right to work, ability to join the army and right to enter certain parts of German cities. Once //Germany annexed Austria// in 1938 Austrian Jews were subject to the same laws. The holocaust technically began on November 9, 1938, that event is called //Kristallnacht// (night of the broken glass). A 17-year-old Jew named **Herschel Grynszpan** killed a German diplomat out of spite for the abuse of his parents and in an outrage all off Germany began to riot. Ninety Jews died, 500 Synagogues were burned and Jewish businesses had their windows broken (Gavin 1). This is also the date in which the first Jews were taken to concentration camps in mass numbers. Due to now widespread persecution, many Jews attempted to flee but could not because of the harsh immigration laws of allied powers like the U.S. and the emigration laws in Germany. **1939 to the Wannsee Conference** Finally, on September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland and started the second world war. The Polish population of Jews, numbering in at 3 million, were quickly sent to newly built concentration camps like Auschwitz, placed into Ghettos like Warsaw or killed on site by the ruthless Nazi SS.(Gavin 1).Hitlers armies swept west through Europe, accumulating more Jews with each conquered country. Nazis had to decide what to do with all the Jews they had imprisoned. This became known as Judenfrage or the Jewish question.(Gavin 2)On January 20 1942, high ranking Nazis held the //Wannsee Conference// to decide the fate of the Jewish race. = The Decision =