1.When and how did
2.What actions might he have taken? What were the political costs of his choices?
3.Upon what was the determination made not to bomb
Does the evidence as presented justify such a decision?
4.As Commander-In-Chief was F.D.R.'s insistence that the way to help Jews was by defeating the
Nazi regime a valid interpretation of information presented to him?
5.Since this is an issue of morality, either one is in favor of genocide or against it, what decisions could
have been made which were moral?
2.Tell students that according to historian Henry R. Huttenbach, Allied soldiers were not informed of the task
of freeing Nazi concentration camps; in fact, field maps did not include locations of the camps. He writes,
"Nowhere can one find the liberation of the camps as part of the assignment of the military. . . The
liberation, at best, was a byproduct of the military success
in liberating
strategic military planning." (Dimensions, Vol 9, number 1, p. G9)
3.If they have not done so for homework, have the students read "The Response of the American Soldiers"
from Liberation as well as the reading by Crawford, Collins, and other readings from "The Liberators."
Discuss the reactions of the Americans at the time they encountered the camp and its victims. How were
the camps a different experience for the soldier than what he had faced in battle? How did he react to Nazi
soldiers? Civilians? Why were many liberators reluctant to speak about what they had seen, while others
felt compelled to do so? What role might the liberators play in refuting the deniers of the Holocaust? What
information would you need to assess the believability of towns people's claims that they were ignorant of
what was taking place at the camps?
4.If they have not done so for homework, have students read "The Anguish of Liberation" and "Aftermath:
The Survivors" as well as the readings by Meed, Cohen and Strochlitz. What were the reactions to being
liberated? What problems did the survivor face? What attitudes did they have toward the Nazis? The
German people? Why did they fear for their future? What were the distinct problems faced by younger
survivors? What problems did women have that were unique to their gender? What about men? Why were
many survivors reluctant to speak about their experiences, while others felt compelled to do so?
3.Place the quote from George Will on the board and have students discuss the methods used by deniers.
"Holocaust deniers play upon contemporary society's tendency toward historical amnesia, and its fuzzy
notion of ‘tolerance' that cannot distinguish between an open mind and an empty mind. . . When in doubt,
doubt." (Holocast and Human Behavior, Facing History and Ourselves, p. 494)
3.Place the quote from George Will on the board and have students discuss the methods used by deniers.
"Holocaust deniers play upon contemporary society's tendency toward historical amnesia, and its fuzzy
notion of ‘tolerance' that cannot distinguish between an open mind and an empty mind. . . When in doubt,
doubt." (Holocast and Human Behavior, Facing History and Ourselves, p. 494)
3.Place the quote from George Will on the board and have students discuss the methods used by deniers.
"Holocaust deniers play upon contemporary society's tendency toward historical amnesia, and its fuzzy
notion of ‘tolerance' that cannot distinguish between an open mind and an empty mind. . . When in doubt,
doubt." (Holocast and Human Behavior, Facing History and Ourselves, p. 494)
The National
Socialist German Workers' Party or NSDAP , known as
the Nazi Party, controlled
from 1933 to 45. Nazis labeled and isolated Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, political prisoners, and the
mentally and physically disabled. Some were passively killed by starvation and widespread disease. Millions were
murdered in attacks by the Gestapo , the SA , and the SS , in mass killings of the
Einsatzgruppen, in and around Nazi concentration, and later death camps.
Although Adolf Hitler is often perceived as the chief perpetrator, there were others. Perpetrators were Nazi party
leaders, bankers, professors, military officials, doctors, journalists, engineers, judges, authors, lawyers, salesmen,
police, and civil servants. Perpetrators committed crimes against Jews and other undesirables for many reasons.
They wanted power. They believed in an ideology of racial cleansing. They profited financially, displaced their
anger from their own failures, or were perhaps "following orders."
Hitler's war
against
propaganda, and ever present violence.
Legal policies
Nazis began to whittle away at the rights of Jews and other party enemies soon after Hitler became Chancellor in
January of 1933. One example is the treatment of German Jews. A series of laws were created banning
"non-Aryans" from civil service, the legal, medical, and dental professions, teaching positions, cultural and
entertainment enterprises, and the press. At the 1935 party rally, the Nuremberg Laws were announced,
completing the disenfranchisement of the Jews. Jews no longer were German citizens; they were subjects. They
were forbidden to marry Aryans and forbidden to fly the Reich and national flags. Jews were separated politically,
socially, and legally from the Germans.
The full Nuremberg Laws are listed.
A third phase of restricting Jewish rights took place in 1938-39. In July 1938, Jews were required to carry
identification cards. Later, Jewish children were banned from school and curfews were instituted. Jews were also
excluded from businesses, parks, resorts, and forests. A one billion mark penalty was levied against the Jews for
"the hostility of Jewry toward the German people and Reich...."
The list of discriminatory decrees against Jews as presented at the Nuremberg Trials.
Propaganda
Propaganda employs techniques which assume that the masses are not individuals capable of forming their own
opinions. Propaganda relies on emotion rather than on logic, concentrates on a few points which are presented in
simple terms, and then hammers those points repeatedly.
Adolf Hitler helped establish the Nazi party in 1920 and was the propaganda director of the Party before
becoming its leader. In his book, Mein Kampf (My Struggle), written in 1924, Hitler wrote:
The function of propaganda is to attract supporters, the function of organization to win
members... Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and
makes them ripe for the victory of this idea....
Until 1929, the technical equipment available to the Nazi propagandists was rather primitive, so propaganda
trucks carried posters and people shouting slogans. As microphones, loudspeakers, and other mass media
developed, so did the sophistication of Nazi propaganda.
Hitler, a highly skilled orator, spoke at a number of mass rallies. These mass
meetings created a sense of community, kept emotional levels high, and were a
psychologically fertile environment in which to deliver propaganda. Rallies often
took place in the evening when Hitler thought that people were most suggestible
and least resistant. Carefully timed stage effects including: marching music,
spotlights, torchlight processions, parades, flags fluttering, shouts of "Heil!," and
impassioned oratory created the feeling of national unity, strength, and purpose.
A series of quotes from Mein Kampf describes in greater depth
Hitler's attitude about propaganda.
Propaganda was used throughout the Nazi Party's lifetime, in its rise to power
and while Hitler was Führer . Several weeks after Hitler was named
Chancellor, Joseph Goebbels was appointed the Minister of People's
Enlightenment and Propaganda. He had total control of radio, press, publishing, cinema, and the other arts.
The weekly newspaper, Der Stürmer, was an antisemitic newspaper with a circulation of around 500,000
at its peak in 1927. Julius Streicher, a friend of Hitler, was the founder of the antisemitic journal.
Samples of Julius Streicher's antisemitic remarks.
A brief introduction to Der Stürmer from the Mining Company.
Photographs of many examples of Nazi propaganda are also available at
the
Violence--terror and death
Hitler's philosophy about terror was clear-cut:
We must be ruthless...Only thus shall we purge our people of their softness...and their
degenerate delight in beer-swilling...I don't want the concentration camps transformed into
penitentiaries. Terror is the most effective political instrument...It is my duty to make use
of every means of training the German people to cruelty, and to prepare them for
war...There must be no weakness or tenderness.
The SS (Schutzstaffeln or guard squadrons), the SA (Sturmabteilung or storm troops), the SD
(Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS or security service of the SS), and the Gestapo (Geheime Staats
Polizei or Secret State Police) were all Nazi instruments of terror.
The SA was founded in 1921 as the Nazi Party militia. It lured new recruits with promises of adventure:
participating in parades and secret meetings, painting slogans on buildings, fighting with opponents, and wearing
the Brown Shirt uniforms. The SA recruited 15,000 members by 1923, and by the end of 1933, the SA was
four-and-a-half million men strong.
The SS began in 1925 as a small personal guard unit to protect Hitler and other party leaders. It developed into
the elite corps, the Black Shirts, under the direction of Heinrich Himmler. There were about 100,000 members in
1933. A power struggle occurred in 1934, called the "Night of the Long Knives," between the SA and the SS.
The SS won. Himmler was made chief of the German police as well as the head of the SS, able to act within the
law as head of the police and outside the law as head of the SS. Germany was truly a police state in which almost
any act of terror could now be interpreted as legal.
The German people were in the hands of the police, the police were in the hands of the
Nazi Party, and the Party was in the hands of a ring of evil men....
--Prosecutor
Himmler established the Nazi Party's intelligence service in 1931, appointing Reinhard Heydrich as its chief. This
section of the SS was created to uncover the Party's enemies and keep them under surveillance. After the
outbreak of the war, the SD was assigned operational tasks, joined the Einsatzgruppen, and played a central
role in organizing and implementing the "Final Solution."
The Gestapo was composed of professional police agents, unlike the SS or SA. The Gestapo, in addition to their
own agents, had block wardens, who kept close watch on the tenants of their block. The Gestapo was
everywhere. Even a hint of criticism of the National Socialist Regime could result in arrest.
The Nazi party military and police agencies wielded their power violently, leaving a wake of terror and fatalities.
Joseph Goebbels and Reinhard Heydrich orchestrated a night of terror in
smashing windows of Jewish businesses and homes, looting, physically beating Jews, and arresting thousands of
Jews who were then sent to concentration camps. On November 9 and 10, 1938, Kristallnacht, or "The Night
of Broken Glass," was a turning point in the escalation of terror against Jews.
A series of photographs of the destruction of Kristallnacht.
Kristallnacht is explained in greater detail and the origin of the term is discussed.
Concentration camps were a part of the perpetrators' systematic reign of
terror. The SA and the SS units, during the first months following the Nazi
seizure of power, established the camp at
Communists, Socialists, labor leaders, and other political opponents were the
prisoners. Jews and homosexuals were sent next. By 1934, a unit of the SS,
named the Death's Head Formations, was in charge of all the concentration
camps. Prisoners were starved, forced into labor, tortured, and sometimes
murdered in these camps.
Following the
successful German invasion of
more than two million additional Jews under their administration. Heydrich
was in charge of the Einsatzgruppen, (Special Duty groups), a military group
which was responsible for implementing the Final Solution.
In
Einsatzgruppen were to move Jews from the countryside to larger cities,
where ghettos were established. Their tactics included mocking, beard cutting,
beating, torture, and arrest. As Jews were evacuated from the smaller towns,
some were randomly seized from the streets and their homes, deported for forced labor, and brutally shot or
beaten to death.
Scenes of executions by mobile killing squads and a map from an Einsatzgruppe report.
The deportation and "resettlement" of Jews and ghetto structure are thoroughly described. Primary
source material is included.
Detailed information about the Einsatzgruppen is given with primary source material.
A growing collection of documents related to the Einsatzgruppen is available at this site.
The day after the
army advanced into the
kill masses of Jews. From 1941-42, the Einsatzgruppen massacred over one million Jews with guns or in mobile
killing vans.
While the Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews in the
murder massive numbers of Jews in the rest of
Six major
annihilation camps were established in what is now
Majdanek,
and Treblinka. Trains transported Jews, first from the Polish ghettos, and then
from
thousands of Jews, whose bodies were then burned in huge crematoria and in open pits. Himmler's perverted
logic twisted these unbelievable atrocities into acts of greatness:
Most of you know what it means when 100 corpses are lying side by side, or 500 or 1000.
To have stuck it out and at the same time--apart from exceptions caused by human
weakness--to have remained decent fellows, that is what has made us hard. This is a page
of glory in our history which has never been written and is never to be written....
Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962) was instrumental in implementing the Final Solution, organizing
transports of Jews from all over
head of IVB4, the Jewish department of the Office for Reich Security, Eichmann served as
secretary at the Wannsee Conference. He was arrested at the war's end in the American zone
of
Secret Service discovered Eichmann in
to
Visit the PBS site on the Eichmann trial for more information, transcripts,
photographs, and a teacher's guide.
Hans Frank (1900-1946) Governor-General of occupied
member of the Nazi Party from its earliest days and Hitler's personal lawyer, he announced,
"
Reich." By 1942, more than 85% of the Jews in
camps. Frank was tried at
Hans Frank's' biography from the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust.
Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) held the title of Reich Minister for People's Enlightenment
and Propaganda from 1933 until his suicide in May, 1945. He had total control of the radio,
the press, publishing houses, and the cinema. He was highly skilled at mass persuasion and
played an important role in creating and maintaining the Führer's image. He staged the book
burning in
Joseph Goebbels' biography gives more detail about his life and involvement in Nazi
Joseph Goebbels' biography from the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust.
Photographs of Joseph Goebbels from his teenage years to his death.
Hermann Göring (1893-1946) was Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, President of
the Reichstag, Prime Minister of Prussia, and Hitler's designated successor. He created the
secret police and helped set up the early concentration camps for political opponents. In 1936,
as Plenipotentiary for the implementation of the Four Year Plan, he had dictatorial control in
directing the German economy, and personally amassed a fortune. Göring directed the
Luftwaffe campaigns against
death. He committed suicide while in prison.
An excellent biography of Hermann Göring is available from the book Who's Who in
Nazi
An outline of Göring's life from the Mining Company.
Rudolf Hess (1894-1987) was the mentally unstable number three man in
Hitler's
He is best known for a surprise flight to
A short
biography of Rudolf Hess is available at the "
Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942) became the chief of the SD. His more notorious
achievements included the establishment of
ghettos in
Einsatzgruppen, and the convening of the Wannsee Convention. His assassination in 1942
caused merciless German reprisals, continuing after his death the terror and intimidation that
characterized his life.
Biography of Reinhard Heydrich from the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust.
This biography examines Heydrich's role within the Nazi regime.
Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) was an unsuccessful chicken farmer and fertilizer
salesman who became a leader in the Nazi party in the mid-1920s. As head of the SS as well
as the Gestapo, he was a cold, efficient, ruthless administrator. He was the organizer of the
mass murder of Jews, the man in charge of the concentration and death camps.
Selected quotations of Himmler.
Biography, documents, and photographs of the life of Heinrich Himmler.
This biography from Who's Who in Nazi Germany summarizes Himmler's role in the
Holocaust.
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was leader of the Nazi Party and Reich Chancellor of the Third
Reich from 1933 to 1945. His tyrannical reign was marked with a passion for destruction,
ruthless hatred, and the massacre of millions of innocent people.
This 24-page Web site traces Hitler's life from childhood to achieving dictatorial
control over
This biography of Adolf Hitler gives insight into this Nazi leader.
An in-depth study of Hitler's early life is found in this site.
Charles W. Arnade, professor of International Studies at the
Joseph Mengele (1911-1978?) SS physician at
experiments, especially on twins and Gypsies. He "selected" new arrivals by simply pointing to
the right or the left, thus separating those considered able to work from those who were not.
Those too weak or too old to work were sent straight to the gas chambers, after all their
possessions,
including their clothes, were taken for resale in
some time in a British internment hospital but disappeared, went underground, escaped to
Interpol, Israeli agents, and Simon Wiesenthal.
In 1986, his body was found in
Jürgen Stroop (1895-1951) was the SS major general responsible for the destruction of the
supervised the deportation of thousands of Jews
from
and executed in