Holocaust why it happened

This means that they were prejudiced against and hated Jews. In fact, antisemitism was a basic tenet of their ideology and at the foundation of their worldview. Some Germans were receptive to these Nazi claims. Anger over the loss of the war and the economic and political crises that followed contributed to increasing antisemitism in German society. The instability of Germany under the Weimar Republic — , the fear of communism , and the economic shocks of the Great Depression also made many Germans more open to Nazi ideas, including antisemitism.

However, the Nazis did not invent antisemitism. Antisemitism is an old and widespread prejudice that has taken many forms throughout history. In Europe, it dates back to ancient times. In the Middle Ages — , prejudices against Jews were primarily based in early Christian belief and thought, particularly the myth that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus.

At that time, suspicion and discrimination rooted in religious prejudices continued in early modern Europe — Leaders in much of Christian Europe isolated Jews from most aspects of economic, social, and political life. This exclusion contributed to stereotypes of Jews as outsiders. As Europe became more secular, many places lifted most legal restrictions on Jews. This, however, did not mean the end of antisemitism.

In addition to religious antisemitism, other types of antisemitism took hold in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. These new forms included economic, nationalist, and racial antisemitism.

In the 19th century, antisemites falsely claimed that Jews were responsible for many social and political ills in modern, industrial society. Theories of race, eugenics , and Social Darwinism falsely justified these hatreds. Nazi prejudice against Jews drew upon all of these elements, but especially racial antisemitism. Racial antisemitism is the idea that Jews are a separate and inferior race.

The Nazi Party promoted a particularly virulent form of racial antisemitism. The Nazis believed that the world was divided into distinct races and that some of these races were superior to others.

According to the Nazis, Jews were a threat that needed to be removed from German society. Almost immediately, the Nazi German regime which called itself the Third Reich excluded Jews from German economic, political, social, and cultural life. Throughout the s, the regime increasingly pressured Jews to emigrate. But the Nazi persecution of Jews spread beyond Germany. Throughout the s, Nazi Germany pursued an aggressive foreign policy.

Prewar and wartime territorial expansion eventually brought millions more Jewish people under German control.

During this time, Germany annexed neighboring Austria and the Sudetenland and occupied the Czech lands. Over the next two years, Germany invaded and occupied much of Europe, including western parts of the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany further extended its control by forming alliances with the governments of Italy , Hungary , Romania , and Bulgaria.

It also created puppet states in Slovakia and Croatia. Together these countries made up the European members of the Axis alliance , which also included Japan. By —as a result of annexations, invasions, occupations, and alliances—Nazi Germany controlled most of Europe and parts of North Africa. Nazi control brought harsh policies and ultimately mass murder to Jewish civilians across Europe. The Nazis and their allies and collaborators murdered six million Jews. Geography of the Holocaust.

Between and , Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators implemented a wide range of anti-Jewish policies and measures. These policies varied from place to place. Thus, not all Jews experienced the Holocaust in the same way. But in all instances, millions of people were persecuted simply because they were identified as Jewish.

Throughout German-controlled and aligned territories, the persecution of Jews took a variety of forms:. Many Jews died as a result of these policies.

But before , the systematic mass murder of all Jews was not Nazi policy. It was the last stage of the Holocaust and took place from to Though many Jews were killed before the "Final Solution" began, the vast majority of Jewish victims were murdered during this period. There were two main methods of killing. One method was mass shooting. German units carried out mass shootings on the outskirts of villages, towns, and cities throughout eastern Europe.

The other method was asphyxiation with poison gas. Gassing operations were conducted at killing centers and with mobile gas vans.

The Nazi German regime perpetrated mass shootings of civilians on a scale never seen before. At first, these units targeted Jewish men of military age.

But by August , they had started massacring entire Jewish communities. These massacres were often conducted in broad daylight and in full view and earshot of local residents.

Mass shooting operations took place in more than 1, cities, towns, and villages across eastern Europe. German units tasked with murdering the local Jewish population moved throughout the region committing horrific massacres.

Typically, these units would enter a town and round up the Jewish civilians. They would then take the Jewish residents to the outskirts of the town.

Next, they would force them to dig a mass grave or take them to mass graves prepared in advance. Sometimes, these massacres involved the use of specially designed mobile gas vans. Perpetrators would use these vans to suffocate victims with carbon monoxide exhaust.

Germans also carried out mass shootings at killing sites in occupied eastern Europe. Typically these were located near large cities. At these killing sites, Germans and local collaborators murdered tens of thousands of Jews from the Kovno, Riga, and Minsk ghettos.

He introduced anti-Semitic laws which discriminated against Jewish people living in the areas he controlled. Some of these laws meant that Jewish children could no longer go to school, keep pets or have a bicycle.

The Nazis believed that Jews were a problem that needed to be removed. Hitler also wanted to make Germany bigger, so he invaded neighbouring countries and took them over. Popular protest which threatened his popularity, eventually forced Hitler to abandon his euthanasia experiment, or at least take it underground.

Never again would Hitler initial any document connecting himself to mass killings. Nevertheless, historians have been able to establish with convincing certainty that the order to exterminate millions of Jews came directly from Hitler. He was informed by his superior, Hinrich Lohse, that it was "the Fuehrer's wish.

The Fuehrer has placed the execution of this difficult order on my shoulders. On October 25, a directive addressed to Hinrich Lohse regarding the use of special "gassing vans", came by way of German judge, Dr.

Erhard Wetzel. Wetzel had been summoned to the Chancellery and informed that the directive he was to prepare was, in fact, a "Fuehrer order. Zyklon B was a fumigant. It wasn't a practical agent for mass murder. Ordinarily, Zyklon B a hydrogen cyanide preparation was used as an insecticide. Hydrogen cyanide, however, is actually more dangerous to humans than insects. When the level of HCN reaches only parts per million, it will kill a person within a few minutes.

The amount of hydrogen cyanide required to kill a person of average weight is only 60 mg. Because Zyklon was, in fact, so toxic, its manufacturers warned personnel not to reenter a room fumigated with the gas for 20 hours after airing. In addition, a compound was added to the preparation emitting a powerful, intolerable odor - a warning agent that the gas was present.

When purchasing Zyklon B for the death camps, the SS ordered the manufacturer to remove the warning compound, a clear indication of its intended use.

The death chambers were outfitted with special ventilation systems to remove any remaining gas. In addition, those prisoners charged with removing the bodies the sonderkommando wore gas masks. Zyklon B will explode - at 60, parts per million. It only takes a concentration of parts per million to kill a person in just a few minutes.

Less than half that amount will kill in less than an hour. Clearly, the concentration of Zyklon used in the gas chambers was far below flammability or explosion levels. The use of gas chambers by the Nazis is proven by a wide array of evidence. Testimony by the perpetrators themselves as well as the first-hand accounts of prisoners, especially members of the "Sonderkommando" groups of inmates forced to remove the dead from the gas chambers and dispose of their bodies constitute only a part of the evidence.

Documents including blueprints of the killing installations as well as orders for construction materials and Zyklon B the deadly hydrogen cyanide preparation used for gassings at Auschwitz and Majdanek Photos clandestinely taken by prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau even show the disposal of corpses removed from the gas chamber.

The manufacture, distribution and use of the deadly gas was clearly demonstrated at the "Zyklon B Trial" in March , Hamburg, Germany. Two of the defendants, Bruno Tesch and Karl Weinbacher, the owner and a major executive of a company that manufactured the gas were sentenced to death after notes of their trips to Auschwitz disproved their contention that they were unaware that the poison was used to kill inmates.

Jean-Claude Pressac, a one-time skeptic of the gas chambers, had undertaken a careful study of Auschwitz in which he analyzed a wide variety of camp documents, photos, reports and blueprints. Pressac, who had at one time been intrigued by the Holocaust-denying theories of Robert Faurisson, concluded that his original skepticism could no longer be supported in the face of the evidence.

In , the Klarsfeld Foundation published his study, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, in which Pressac demonstrates the use of the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau in the murders of hundreds of thousands of people.

Incidentally, Jews were not the first people gassed by the Nazis. The first victims of Nazi gassings were German mental patients condemned by Hitler's "Euthanasia" order of Zundel was on trial on charges stemming from the distribution of Holocaust revisionist literature.

With his client footing the bill, Leuchter visited the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek death camps. Upon returning to the United States, he published a lengthy report which concluded that the facilities he examined "could not have then been Leuchter had no credentials as an engineer, and in fact, held only a Bachelors Degree in history. Leuchter's bizarre explanation that anyone who went to college knew enough Mathematics and Science to be an engineer, raised even more eyebrows.

Judge Ronald Thomas listened to excerpts from the "Leuchter Report," then castigated the author for his methodology which he labeled "preposterous," before ruling that "Leuchter has no expertise. This propaganda not only gave justification for the invasion of the Soviet Union, but directly linked the invasion to Jews.

Following behind the Germany Army throughout the invasion and subsequent partial occupation, the Einsatzgruppen conducted mass shootings of communists , Jews and any others thought to be enemies of the Nazi state.

As the invasion of the Soviet Union slowed and the tide of war turned against the Nazis, actions against the Jews were further intensified. These actions culminated in the Wannsee Conference of January , which coordinated the Nazis genocidal policy towards the Jews and resulted in the establishment of six extermination camps.

The Nazis reacted to some events in the war by escalating their actions against Jews. One example of this is the murder of Reinhard Heydrich and the subsequent mass killings of civilians and the liquidation of the village of Lidice.

The report details the involvement and collaboration of local Lithuanians in Kovno. The Nazis did not carry out the Holocaust alone. Their descent into genocide was assisted and carried out by collaborators: individuals, groups and governments that helped the Nazis to persecute and murder their victims. Without the aid of these collaborators, the Nazis would not have been able to carry out the Holocaust to the same extent or at the same pace.

On the home front in Germany, some civilians actively collaborated with the Nazis to implement their antisemitic persecutory polices, such as denunciating Jewish neighbours or colleagues, or helping to implement antisemitic laws.

This form of collaboration reinforced antisemitic laws and obedience to the regime, which allowed the Nazis to slowly push and escalate the boundaries of acceptable levels of persecution. The most active, direct and deadly collaboration took place in the countries occupied by, or aligned with, the Nazis across Europe. In the Seventh Fort, a concentration camp in Lithuania, Lithuanian police and militia acted as guards and participated in daily mass rapes, tortures, and murders.

In Lvov, which is now part of modern-day Ukraine, pogroms organised by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian National Militia resulted in the deaths and torture of thousands of Jews in June and July In Romania, the Antonescu regime widely collaborated with the Nazis to murder their Jewish inhabitants.

Approximately , Romanian Jews were killed in the Holocaust. The motivations behind these acts of collaboration are complex. Some acted in accordance with historic antisemitic views, others were motivated by potentials for economic gain, others did so out of fear.

Whatever their motivation, the effects of widespread collaboration for the Jewish population in the occupied countries of Europe were lethal. Image shows a copy of the Editorship Law.

On 3 October , shortly after its defeat, France introduced its first antisemitic law under occupation - the Statut de Juifs. Section: How and why did the Holocaust happen? What was the Holocaust? Life before the Holocaust Antisemitism How did the Nazis rise to power? Life in Nazi-controlled Europe What were the ghettos and camps? How and why did the Holocaust happen? Resistance, responses and collaboration Survival and legacy Resources Educational Resources Timeline Survivor testimonies About us How to use this site.

Advanced content hidden Showing advanced content. The Holocaust was the culmination of a number of factors over a number of years. This section aims to explore how these individual factors contributed to the Holocaust.