Hard Power Tactics Used During The Holocaust

Luke Strickland

World History

4/11/23

Mr. Osborne

As many know, The Holocaust was a very dark time for all people of Jewish descent and Germany in general. The Nazis used many parts of both soft and hard power to gain control of Germany and put fear into every resident of Germany. They used many forms of hard power with just a few including numerous different torture methods and threats. Many of the soft power tactics used included things like propaganda and manipulation to coax the people of Germany into believing their views and slowly turning people against the “Jews” and communists. Hard power tactics are described as a wide range of coercive policies, such as coercive diplomacy, economic sanctions, military action, and the

There were many different kinds of camps including concentration camps, extermination camps, forced labor camps, and even prisoner of war camps. Concentration camps are one of the most commonly known of these. Torture was a very large factor in all of the early camps and the inmates inside the camps were all regularly beaten and or humiliated. In addition to this, access to facilities was often withheld as a form of torture and control. In the concentration camps, inmates were subjected to brutal torture and beatings almost daily along with many different forms of hard back-breaking labor. The facilities at these camps like heat, washrooms, and toilets were all very scarce. When present, these facilities were often poorly managed and in very inhumane conditions. The prisoners at these camps were almost always of Jewish descent except for the majority of war-related prisoners and were kept in ordinary prison cells. Auschwitz was the name of a very well-known camp in a Nazi-controlled part of Poland during The Holocaust. In Auschwitz, they used various forms of torture including gas chambers, crematoriums, various beatings, and individual torture. Those who did not die this way would die due to famine or disease. Camps exactly like these were located all throughout

Although the propaganda was a form of manipulation using the media, the Nazis used many other different manipulation and deception tactics to help them control the people in Nazi territories. One way they were able to deceive the public was by forcing prisoners in the concentration camps to send postcards to their loved ones. The leaders of the camps and prisons would force the prisoners to send postcards or letters home stating that the camps had good living conditions and they treated all the prisoners well. This led the public to believe that their loved ones who were locked away in these camps were being cared for when they were actually being tortured, killed, and worked against their will. This greatly helped the Nazi party because since no one thought the concentration camps were wrong they could continue to eliminate Jewish people without anyone batting an eye. Another big way the Nazis manipulated people was through the Nazi youth camps. The youth groups turned the Nazi ideas and ways into a fun summer camp-like idea for young children. Teens at these camps were told to reproduce and that it was okay to do so before marriage because they are “married to the Reich”. The groups of girls seemed to focus more on things such as gymnastics while the boys' camp became a sort of mini military. These camps would make the boys learn to idolize the war until they were chosen to help