Nazi Persecution of Minorities: Targets and Rationale
The Nazis targeted various groups for persecution, believing in a racial hierarchy where certain races were deemed inferior. They aimed to eliminate those they considered undesirable, including Gypsies, black people, the mentally disabled, homosexuals, and more. The Nazis' actions were driven by their extremist racial ideology, leading to widespread discrimination and violence.
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Nazi Policies towards the Minorities Learning Objectives: Outline who the Nazi s targeted for persecution and why?
LO:Outline who the Nazi s targeted for persecution and why? Who were the undesirables in Nazi Germany? http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/vehicles/Gypsy-Caravan/IMAGES/gypsy-caravan.gif http://weight4us.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/priderainbowtrianglelogo.jpg http://pbmo.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/duffman.png?w=300h=512 http://www.threes.com/cms/images/stories/religion/star%20of%20david.jpg http://bp3.blogger.com/_Z6hp-ERqJXY/RmVfNNuYwII/AAAAAAAAJpQ/VQCtGOXQnyI/s200/Burglar.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Handicapped_Accessible_sign.svg/451px-Handicapped_Accessible_sign.svg.png
LO:Outline who the Nazi s targeted for persecution and why? Who did the Nazis persecute? Who did the Nazis persecute? The Nazis believed that only Germans could be citizens and that non-Germans did not have any right to the rights of citizenship. The Nazis racial philosophy taught that some races were untermensch (sub- human). Many scientists at this time believed that people with disabilities or social problems were genetic degenerates whose genes needed to be eliminated from the human bloodline. The Nazis, therefore: Killed 85 per cent of Germany's Gypsies. Sterilised black people. Killed mentally disabled babies. Killed mentally ill patients. Sterilised physically disabled people and people with hereditary diseases. Sterilised deaf people. Put homosexuals, prostitutes, Jehovah's Witnesses, alcoholics, pacifists, beggars, hooligans and criminals - who they regarded as anti-social - into concentration camps.
The Nazis and Society: A Moral Dilemma? LO:Outline who the Nazi s targeted for persecution and why? "It is now well-established that species evolve through Darwin's principle of 'Survival of the Fittest'. Selective breeding produces superior cattle, horses and other livestock. Mixing different animal species produces mongrel breeds of inferior quality. In just the same way, different races of people have different qualities. Black men, for example, dominate the world of athletics and boxing, and tend to have an excellent sense of rhythm. Jewish people have a talent for business, and Asians have a reputation for working incredibly hard. All of this goes to show that mixing the races - either socially or biologically - is a bad thing. Multicultural societies are weak and divided, and mixed-race people are mongrels"
The Nazis and Society: A Moral Dilemma? LO:Outline who the Nazi s targeted for persecution and why? Which statements in this account generated the most debate? What did you argue about? Imagine someone has just expressed the points of view laid out in the Introduction. Produce a reply of roughly the same length designed to explain why you think their argument is flawed. "60,000 Reichsmark is the lifetime cost of this hereditarily diseased man to the Volksgemeinschaft. Fellow German, that is your money, too."
Treatment of the Disabled timeline LO:Outline who the Nazi s targeted for persecution and why? In July 1933 the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases brought in a compulsory sterilisation programme which targeted people with mental or hereditary illness 18 August 1939 registration of all malformed newborn children was made compulsory. German midwives and doctors were ordered to report any child known to them who was born deaf or blind, with paralysis or with a neurological disorder such as Down s Syndrome. Each case was taken to a panel of experts who marked it with either a plus or a minus. A plus meant the child would be murdered.
LO:Outline who the Nazi s targeted for persecution and why? T4 Programme As early as August 1939 the regime ordered all 'malformed' children in Germany to be registered. In the years that followed, around 5,000 such children were transferred to special 'children's departments' and murdered. Shortly after the start of World War Two, this programme of so- called 'euthanasia' - dubbed 'T4' - was extended to include adult patients in mental institutions. More than 70,000 patients in psychiatric hospitals were murdered, mostly in gas chambers set up in six special killing centres. This programme was cancelled in August 1941, but such patients continued to be killed in great numbers through local, decentralised action. Moreover, soon after the start of the war special SS units murdered thousands of institutionalised patients in the occupied Polish territories, shooting them or killing them in mobile gas chambers.
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/euthan/images/hadamarnurses.jpgThe hospital in Hadamar and the asylum for the mentally handicapped in Grafeneck became official killing centres during the 1930s.
Children on the wards were given lethal cocktail of drugs in either tablet or injection form. Their parents were told they had died of infections. http://www.traditioninaction.org/Cultural/images/E032_Victims.jpg
The persecution of the Roma and Sinti people LO:Outline who the Nazi s targeted for persecution and why? 'Gypsies' were admittedly not persecuted with same intensity or in the same systematic fashion as were the Jews, but they were also shot and deported in huge numbers. Almost 20,000 died in Auschwitz alone. Millions of Eastern Europeans, who were seen by the Nazis as Slavic 'sub-humans', also died as a consequence of brutal occupation of their home countries. Many were deported to Germany as 'foreign labourers', or were ruthlessly forced from their homelands in the second half of the war as a consequence of the 'scorched earth' tactics of the German army. The genocide and mass murder perpetrated by the 'Third Reich' and its allies - maintained until the last days of the war - should always be seen in the context of the Nazis' racist policies.
Members of the Roma community at Auschwitz Concentration camp inmates labelled as Homosexual are made to wear a pink triangle on their outfits
LO:Outline who the Nazi s targeted for persecution and why? Why persecute homosexuals? Why persecute homosexuals? The Nazis believed that male homosexuals were weak, effeminate men who could not fight for the German nation. They saw homosexuals as unlikely to produce children and increase the German birthrate. The Nazis held that inferior races produced more children than "Aryans," so anything that diminished Germany's reproductive potential was considered a racial danger. SS chief Heinrich Himmler directed the increasing persecution of homosexuals in the Third Reich. Lesbians were not regarded as a threat to Nazi racial policies and were generally not targeted for persecution. Similarly, the Nazis generally did not target non-German homosexuals unless they were active with German partners. In most cases, the Nazis were prepared to accept former homosexuals into the "racial community" provided that they became "racially conscious" and gave up their lifestyle.
