The crimes that Nazis committed were not isolated killings rather it was linked to a system of belief and a set of practices. According to this belief, there was no equality between people, but only a racial hierarchy. In this view, blond, blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryans were at top, while Jews were located at the lowest rung. The Nazi argument was simple:  the strongest race would survive and the weak ones would perish. The Aryan race was the finest. It had to retain its purity, become stronger, and dominate the world. 

Dwelling into Nazi’s Perspective 

Jews as the Ultimate Enemy: Jews came to be regarded as an anti-race, the arch-enemies of the Aryans. All other colored people were placed in between depending on their external features. 

• • This Nazi ideology was synonymous with Hitler’s worldview.
• Distorted Darwinism: Hitler’s racism was borrowed from thinkers like Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Darwin gave the concept of natural selection and evolution. And Spencer later added the idea of survival of the fittest. 
  • Darwin had only talked about the natural process of selection and not selection by humans. However, his ideas were used by racist thinkers and politicians to justify imperial rule over conquered peoples. 
• Lebensraum: The other aspect of Hitler’s ideology related to the geopolitical concept of Lebensraum, or living space. 
• • He believed that new territories had to be acquired for settlement. This would enhance an area of the mother country. 
• Geopolitical Vision: It would also enhance material resources and power of Germany. Hitler intended to extend German boundaries by moving eastwards.
  • Poland became a laboratory for his experimentation.

Establishment of a Racial State 

Superior Race Ideology: Nazis wanted only a society of ‘pure and healthy Nordic Aryans’. They alone were considered ‘desirable’. 

• • Only they were seen as worthy of prospering and multiplying against all others who were classed as ‘undesirable’. 
• Elimination of Undesirables: They wanted an exclusive racial community of pure Germans by physically eliminating all those who were seen as ‘undesirable’ in the extended empire. 
  • Not only Jews, but many Gipsies and Blacks living in Nazi Germany were considered as racial ‘inferiors’ who threatened the biological purity of ‘superior Aryan’ race.
    •  Even Russians and Poles were considered subhuman. They were widely persecuted. 
• Forced Sterilization and Exploitation: Even those Germans who were seen as impure or abnormal had no right to exist. Under the ‘Euthanasia Programme’ many Germans who were considered mentally or physically unfit were killed. 
  • Captured civilians from Poland and other parts of Russia were forced to work as slave labour. Many of them died simply through hard work and starvation. 

Solving the ‘Jewish problem’ 

Historical Antisemitism: The Jews remained worst sufferers in Nazi Germany. Nazi hatred of Jews had a precursor in traditional Christian hostility towards Jews. 

• • They had been stereotyped as killers of Christ and usurers. Until mediaeval times Jews were barred from owning land and survived mainly through trade and money-lending.
  • They lived in separately marked areas called ghettos.
• Nazi Ideology and Jewish People: Hitler’s hatred of Jews was based on pseudoscientific theories of race, which held that conversion was no solution to ‘the Jewish problem’.
  • It could be solved only through their total elimination.
• Persecution and Extermination of  Jews: From 1933 to 1938 the Nazis terrorized, pauperized, and segregated the Jews, compelling them to leave the country. 
  • From 1939-1945 Jews were taken to concentration camps and gassed in gas chambers. 

Racial Utopia

Genocide as Conquest: For Nazis, genocide and war had become two sides of the same coin. Occupied Poland was divided up and much of north-western Poland was annexed to Germany. 

• • Poles were forced to leave their homes and properties behind. 
• General Government: Polish people were herded like cattle in another part called the General Government, the destination of all ‘undesirables’ of the empire. 
  • The General Government also served as the killing fields for the Jews. It had the largest ghettos and gas chambers. 
• Eradication of Polish Intellectuals: Members of Polish intelligentsia were murdered in large numbers to keep the entire people intellectually and spiritually servile. 
• Children as Racial Prey: Polish children who looked like Aryans were forcibly snatched from their mothers and examined by ‘race experts’ and sent to new families if they passed, or else they languished in orphanage homes or killed in gas chambers. 

Role of Youth in Nazi Germany

Purging the Schools: To establish a strong Nazi society, it was imperative to control the mind from an early age. 

• • For a Nazi ideology to be taught in school, firstly all schools were ‘cleansed’ and ‘purified’. 
  • The teachers who were Jews or seen as ‘politically unreliable’ were dismissed and children were segregated. 
  • Germans and Jews could not sit together or play together. All ‘undesirable children’ – Jews, the physically handicapped, Gypsies – were thrown out of schools.
  • Only ‘Good German’ children were subjected to a process of Nazi schooling, a prolonged period of ideological training. 

• A Culture of Hate: School textbooks were rewritten. Racial science was introduced to justify Nazi ideas of race. 
  • Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews, and worship Hitler. Sports was seen as a way to nurture the spirit of violence and aggression among children. 
  • Hitler believed that boxing could make children iron-hearted, strong, and masculine.
• Youth Organisations: They were made responsible for educating German youth in the ‘spirit of National Socialism’. Ten-year-olds had to enter Jungvolk. 
  • At the age of 14, all boys had to join Nazi youth organization, ‘Hitler Youth’. Here they learned to worship war, glorify aggression and violence, condemn democracy, and hate Jews, communists, Gypsies, and all those categorized as ‘undesirable’. 
  • At the age of 18, after a period of rigorous ideological and physical training, they joined the Labour Service and had to serve in the armed forces and enter one of the Nazi organizations. 
• Youth League: It was founded in 1922. It was later renamed as Hitler Youth. To unify youth movement under Nazi control, all other youth organizations were systematically dissolved and finally banned. 

Nazi Cult of Motherhood

Role of Genders: In Nazi Germany, it was repeatedly told that men and women were different. And the fight for equal rights for men and women would destroy society. 

• • Boys were taught to be aggressive, masculine, and steel-hearted while girls were told that they had to become good mothers and rear pure-blooded Aryan children.
• Nazi Ideal Women: Girls had to maintain purity of race, distance themselves from Jews, look after home, and teach their children Nazi values. They had to be bearers of Aryan culture and race. 

• Cult of Motherhood: Hitler said, ‘In my state mother is most important citizen.’ But in Nazi Germany, all mothers were not treated equally. 
  • Women who bore racially undesirable children were punished and those who produced racially desirable children were awarded. Bronze Honour Crosses for four children, silver for six, and gold for eight or more children were given.
• Punishment: Any deviation from the prescribed code of conduct was publicly condemned and considered a criminal offense. 
  • Those ‘Aryan’ women who maintained contact with Jews, Poles, and Russians were jailed and paraded through the town with shaved heads, blackened faces, and placards hanging around their necks announcing ‘I have sullied the honor of the nation’. 

Nazi Propaganda 

Nazism worked on the minds of the people, tapped their emotions, and turned their hatred and anger at those marked as ‘undesirable’. The use of language and media is very important to further a specific agenda and propaganda. The Nazi State understood this very well. 

• Masking Atrocities: They used deceptive terms for various practices they followed. 
  • Ex: They never used words ‘kill’ or ‘murder’ in their official communications. Mass killings were termed special treatment, final solution (for Jews), euthanasia (for disabled), selection, and disinfection. ‘Evacuation’ meant deporting people to gas chambers. 
  • Gas chambers were labelled ‘disinfection-areas’, and looked like bathrooms equipped with fake showerheads.
• Media Manipulation: Media was carefully used to win support for the regime and popularise its worldview. Nazi ideas were spread through visual images, films, radio, posters, catchy slogans and leaflets. 
  • In posters, groups identified as ‘enemies’ of Germans were stereotyped, mocked, abused, and described as evil. 
  • Socialists and liberals were represented as weak and degenerate. 
• Propaganda films were made to create hatred for Jews. The most infamous film was ‘The Eternal Jew’. Orthodox Jews were stereotyped and marked. 
  • They were referred to as vermin, rats and. They portrayed themselves as the only party that could alone solve all their problems. 

Conclusion

Nazism, a toxic blend of racial superiority, expansionist ambitions, and distorted ideology, transformed Germany into a monstrous regime. Under Hitler’s leadership, the nation devolved into a machinery of mass murder and war. Systematic persecution and extermination of Jews, along with subjugation of other groups, stand as a stark indictment of humanity’s capacity for evil. This dark chapter in history serves as a perpetual warning against dangers of unchecked hatred and the erosion of human rights.

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