The First World war had
led to the defeat of Germany by the Allied powers. After the war the victorious
Allies led by Britain and USA forced Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles at
the Paris Peace conference. The major decisions taken at the Paris Peace
Conference imposed humiliating terms and conditions on Germany and the loss of
German overseas territories. The humiliation and resentment eventually led to
the rise of Nazism in Germany and was a contributing factor in the outbreak of
Second World war in Europe.
The Weimar Republic was
formed in Germany in the aftermath of First World war. It was a provisional
government formed of members of the Social Democratic Party and the Independent
Social Democratic Party of Germany. But Germany suffered due to post war
inflation and there was a decline in the standards of living. The Weimar
republic failed to improve the economic and social conditions in Germany which
led to strikes and protests. The Great Depression of 1929 further worsened the
economic crisis in Germany and unemployment peaked in the 1930s.The German
middle class became disillusioned with the Weimar republic and began to look
for a new leadership.
By 1921 Adolf Hitler appeared
on the scene. Through his propaganda and speeches, he condemned the Treaty of
Versailles and assured the people of Germany that the former glory of Germany
would be restored. Though initially he failed to take power but by the
beginning of 1932 the Nazi party of Adolf Hitler became the largest political party.
The Nazi party founded by Adolf Hitler was against democracy, communism and the
Jews in Germany. Particularly Hitler had a hatred towards the Jews since he
believed that they were responsible for Germany’s defeat in the First World war.
At times he would also blame the Jews for his personal crisis.
By 1933 Adolf Hitler
became the Chancellor of Germany and he began a systematic persecution and
extermination of the Jews. Hitler believed in the Aryan race theory and he believed
the Germans belonged to the Aryan race. The Aryan race theory held the Jews as
inferior and the Germans as superior. It was on this basis that Hitler
propagated the German nationalism and Lebensraum (living space) for the
Germans.
With the beginning of the
Second World war in Europe Hitler opted for the final solution known as the
Holocaust with mass killings and Nazi concentration camps in the occupied areas
of Europe. As many as six million Jews and others were exterminated for racial,
political and ideological belief. In September 1939, gas chambers and ghettoes
were built for the mass killing of Jews from the conquered countries of Europe.Hitler
also dismissed non-Germans from official positions and embarked on a systematic
persecution of the Jews, mentally disabled, intellectuals and communists.
The most famous of the
Nazi concentration camp was Auschwitz because it was at Auschwitz alone more
than 2 million people including Jews were put to death by poisonous gases. Even
in other countries of Europe brutal killings of Jews amounted to large scale
deportation of Jews to the Nazi concentration camps. The heaviest deportations
took place during the summer and autumn of 1942 when more than 300,000 were deported.
Those who survived died of starvation and diseases.
With the end of the
Second World war in 1945 the Holocaust came to an end. However, survivors of
the Holocaust recounted atrocities and crimes committed on them by the Nazis.
Over the decades that followed the Nuremberg trials which took place between
1945 and 1949 were held to punish the war criminals. In 1953 the German
government paid monetary reparations to the Jews whose properties and
businesses were confiscated during the Nazi regime.
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