Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I Background
- Part II The Nazi system
- Part III Background for war
- Part IV World War II
- 12 German diplomacy toward the Soviet Union
- 13 The Nazi–Soviet pacts of 1939: A half century later
- 14 From confrontation to cooperation: Germany and the United States, 1917–1949
- 15 Pearl Harbor: The German perspective
- 16 Global conflict: The interaction between the European and Pacific theaters of war in World War II
- 17 The “Final Solution” and the war in 1943
- 18 July 20, 1944: The German resistance to Hitler
- 19 D-Day after fifty years: Assessments of costs and benefits
- 20 German plans for victory, 1944–1945
- 21 Reflections on running a war: Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Tojo
- 22 Some thoughts on World War II
- 23 A new Germany in a new world
- Appendix: the end of Ranke's history? Reflections on the fate of history in the twentieth century
- Index
17 - The “Final Solution” and the war in 1943
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I Background
- Part II The Nazi system
- Part III Background for war
- Part IV World War II
- 12 German diplomacy toward the Soviet Union
- 13 The Nazi–Soviet pacts of 1939: A half century later
- 14 From confrontation to cooperation: Germany and the United States, 1917–1949
- 15 Pearl Harbor: The German perspective
- 16 Global conflict: The interaction between the European and Pacific theaters of war in World War II
- 17 The “Final Solution” and the war in 1943
- 18 July 20, 1944: The German resistance to Hitler
- 19 D-Day after fifty years: Assessments of costs and benefits
- 20 German plans for victory, 1944–1945
- 21 Reflections on running a war: Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Tojo
- 22 Some thoughts on World War II
- 23 A new Germany in a new world
- Appendix: the end of Ranke's history? Reflections on the fate of history in the twentieth century
- Index
Summary
The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in 1933, had promised for years in their speeches, leaflets, and in their published program that they would persecute the Jews as soon as they had the opportunity to do so. When attainment of power provided them with that opportunity, they proceeded rapidly with a long sequence of measures designed to deprive the Jewish population of the country of their rights as citizens, to hound them in all sorts of ways, and then to boast in public of all the steps they were taking to carry out the promises they had made on this subject. In a country where fully equal legal rights for Jews were as recent as the 1919 constitution and where anti-Semitism had a long and highly respected tradition, these actions actually helped the Nazis in their consolidation of power.
During the years 1933–39, as Germany prepared for a series of wars designed to provide its people with what was referred to as Lebemraum, “living space,” ever harsher measures were taken against the less than 1 percent of the population which was Jewish. About half the approximately 550,000 Jews left Germany. However, many were reluctant to leave a place their ancestors had lived in for generations, and others who wanted to leave found the doors of possible lands of refuge closed at a time of worldwide economic depression, when countries were reluctant to accept refugees whose property had been confiscated by the land of their birth. The dramatic escalation of persecution in November 1938, when most Jewish houses of worship in Germany were deliberately destroyed and over 20,000 Jews were taken to concentration camps, both led more Jews to try to emigrate and induced some countries to relax their tight restrictions on immigration.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Germany, Hitler, and World War IIEssays in Modern German and World History, pp. 217 - 244Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995