BF2S Forums Change of Pace... WW2 what was it that lead up to the genecide

Blamed them for Germany's defeat in World War 1.

It was a few things.  The anti-jewish sentiment prevalent in much of Europe was the foundation.  Hitler used the Jews as both a target and scapegoats.  He perpetuated the myth of the Aryan "übermensch" and wanted the Jews removed from society, so as not to "infect" the gene pool.  The Nazis actually accelerated the killings when they realized they were losing.

Macbeth wrote:

Blamed them for Germany's defeat in World War 1.

QFT

plus after WWI he blamed them, or rather the ultra rich Jewish people for state of the German economy.
He took their power, and their property and then began printing money to fuel the economic recovery and the expansion of the military.
Ultimately he scaped goated them to unify the German people against a single cause, and that ultimately lead to the goal of eliminating all Jewish people.

And he got away with it because much of the christian world, and muslim world, liked what he was doing to the Jews. It was only during and after the war that Britain and the US used the Jewish holocaust like Lincoln used slavery in the civil war. IMO

Maybe the Nazis were just trying to top England, France, Russia, Spain and Portugal. It's kind of silly to think the reasons the Nazis persecuted Jews were very different from the reasons everyone else did.

AussieReaper wrote:

Macbeth wrote:

Blamed them for Germany's defeat in World War 1.

Jews fought alongside Germans in WWI. Some of the military heroes of WWI were Jewish. Look up fighter aces that painted the Star of David on their aircraft...

They were targeted because they were easy to identify, taking away their land and possessions was what lead to the genocide. Not for power, not for religious reasons, but out of greed.

Not only that, but Jews have always been discriminated in Europe. Guess which race owned the banking community lulz.

san4 wrote:

Maybe the Nazis were just trying to top England, France, Russia, Spain and Portugal. It's kind of silly to think the reasons the Nazis persecuted Jews were very different from the reasons everyone else did.

This.

Germany was trying to get all the Jews out of Europe...with the tacit support of the other major European powers. At first, they were more than willing to send them to a new homeland (thus the support in Europe for a Jewish State in the Levant). Madagascar and South America were also prime candidates. But none of the powers that controlled those areas wanted the Jews there, either.

So the Nazis felt they had only one real option left to get the Jews out of Europe: what became the "final solution". Not that they weren't killing Jews (and other "undesirables") by the boatload already...it just took them a while to get the system down to mass-produce murder.

san4 wrote:

Maybe the Nazis were just trying to top England, France, Russia, Spain and Portugal. It's kind of silly to think the reasons the Nazis persecuted Jews were very different from the reasons everyone else did.

^ this.

cpt.fass1 wrote:

Of the Jewish People.. I've really been thinking about this a lot lately and it's never really been address other then the Nazi's scapegoated them and persecuted them..

So why were they the prime target?

Were they in fact shipped to Germany from the other European countries?

The Jews at the time were poorely integrated in their "host societies", thus they were easily identifiable, which helps when you need a scapegoat. Possibly also because of this, there had been a general anti Semitic tendency for ages, not just in Germany. Anti Semitism could also be "rethorically supported" in a predominantly Christian Europe, as they "killed Christ". Apart from that, Jews are on average about the smartest people on the planet. Because of that they held a unequal ammount of high financial or administrative positions, especially in Germany. Again this makes them the most accesible scapegoat in times of economic crisis.

Normal distrust of people who are 'different' or 'not from around these parts', the jews tended to set themselves apart from the local population, they tended to be transient.

Germany was looking for scapegoats after WW1. To start with they just wanted them out of Germany, if they could get an onward visa they were pretty much free to go, but nowhere - including the US - would take them.

The jewish 'God's Chosen People' thing was incompatible with Hitler's 'Master Race' idea, one of the two had to go.

Zionist agitation to be given sole control of the holy land - holy to two other major religions - pissed off an awful lot of people.
When your backs against a wall you find out who your friends are.
Pissing off Christian Europe, particularly the Catholics, and the entire ME didn't leave them many friends.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2009-05-13 06:19:24)

I really wonder where the whole Anti Semitic thing comes from.. They are the only religion that I can think of that has actually coined a phrase.

The real crazy thing about it, is if they didn't inslave the jews and start killing them. Germany's chances of winning would have probably gone up, on one hand.. But then again you also have a people who aren't really "German" who might have betrayed the people.

Because they had lots of money, and Germany was broke post WW1.

Some of the old Jewish families are insanely rich. I'm pretty good mates with a kid from the Saatchi family and he's got more in his personal bank account than most people turn over in a year.

FatherTed wrote:

Because they had lots of money, and Germany was broke post WW1.

Some of the old Jewish families are insanely rich. I'm pretty good mates with a kid from the Saatchi family and he's got more in his personal bank account than most people turn over in a year.

It was sort of what led to Switzerland becoming a land of banks and stuff. All the Jewish families use to put their money there, but then a load of them were wiped out, and the money was simply kept in Switzerland.