The Mass Extermination of Jews during the Second World War

Holocaust Document Analysis With the end of World War I, came the down fall of Germany. The signing of the Treaty of Versailles forced Germans to take blame for the war and pay large reparation to the victorious countries. Germany lost everything they owned and spiraled downhill. With the whole country down in the slums, any sight of hope sparked a wild fire; the emergence of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party did just that. Hitler, a German Nationalist, began rising to power due to his promises to fix the corruption and create the rebirth of Germany, which included his idea of a perfect Aryan race. Many groups of people, including the Jewish, Russians, and Slavics, contaminated Hitler’s pure race. With the rise of the “Jewish Question”, what to do with this hated group of people, the only answer was the extermination of the vermin like European Jews. “Getting rid of lice is not a question of ideology. It is a matter of cleanliness” (Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Himmler). The mass extermination of the Jews called for thousands of SS officers to run the concentration camps and gas chambers. The Holocaust happened due to the horrific orders that no one dared to break, in order to rebuild the strength of Germany. As a Nationalist, Hitler believed that Germans were superior to others. In his beliefs if he molded Germany to be a perfect race, they would be far more superior then anyone in the world. In order to have his perfect Aryan race, he wanted to get rid of anyone that stood in his way. The large populations of Jews were like lice to Hitler and he wanted them all gone. “And we say that the war will not end as the Jews imagine it will, namely with the uprooting of the Aryans, but the result of this war will be the complete annihilation of Jews” (The Holocaust, Hitler). Being persuasive with the people of Germany, it was no problem for him to gain loyalty from his officers. Hitler was able to gain officers that respected his orders and never dared to break them.