Anti-Semitism In Ww2

668 Words3 Pages

Throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the unrest and turmoil in Europe created serious tension among society. High-ranking political figures needed to find a way to calm the European population down by giving them somebody to blame for the current and developing problems, since they feared that they would be forced to take responsibility for the chaos. These leaders held the Jewish population accountable for the deteriorating quality of life in Europe, especially in regards to the economic instability. Anti-Semitism initially spread in Europe when the Dreyfus Affair gained publicity in 1894. The French had suffered a devastating loss to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War, and French politicians were under scrutiny for …show more content…

Hatred of the Jewish population was spreading from France, and it began to infiltrate Germany. Hitler utilized this by aligning himself with the Catholic Church and creating a negative image of the Jewish population. Christianity was beginning to break away from Judaism, so Hitler began to portray the Jews as the killers of Jesus. Hitler also blamed the loss of World War I on the Jews, as well as blamed them for the economic turmoil that Germany was facing after the Treaty of Versailles. He labeled Jews as money hungry individuals since they were able to have well-paying occupations that were outside of Christian law. As Hitler continued to spread these theories, many documents expressing Jewish conspiracy theories stating that they planned to take over the world emerged in the press. This portrayal of the Jews allowed Hitler to move towards ideas of the German population being the master race. Since Hitler emphasized that the Germans were above everyone else, he stated that the threat of outside groups, such as the Jews, would prevent them from reaching their superior status. After gaining support of his ideas from the German population and claiming his power, the Nazi Party passed Anti-Jewish policies from 1933 to 1939. These laws were intended to exclude Jews from accessing political and social communities in Germany. These laws stated that German citizenship was to be based