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History of Hitler and the Nazi Party http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/cgibin/data.show.pl?di=record&da=photos&ke=3 3 The 20th century has been the age of mass murder: the Armenian genocide, Stalin's "terror famine" against the peasantry, the Cambodian killing fields, and, more recently, the slaughter in Bosnia and Rwanda. So, the Jewish tragedy is hardly unique. But Hitler's genocidal campaign is singular for its technological thoroughness. Under the Nazis every living Jew old and young, male and female was slated for destruction. Three quarters of Hitler's victims died within an eleven-month period alone (March 1942-February 1943). From 1907-1913, young Adolf Hitler, born in Braunau, Austria in 1889, spent six bitter years living on failed dreams in a succession of rented rooms, flop houses, and one modern and comfortable men’s hostel in Vienna, Austria. In Vienna, the Jewish people constituted 10% of its population. Part of the Jewish population of the city was unusually successful by European standards: they spoke German perfectly, dressed in the fashion of the day, and viewed the splendor of Vienna with the pride and arrogance of the native born. They were doctors, lawyers, journalists, writers, and store owners. Poor Jews also lived in Vienna. Mostly Orthodox Jews from the empire's rural provinces, they dressed in black coats and black hats and with their earlocks and long beards; the so-called "ostJuden" (or eastern Jew) became the object of intense loathing by the Christian population of Vienna (as well as by some Viennese Jews, themselves poor immigrants from the provinces but one generation before). In sum, the gentile population of Vienna very much feared being physically overwhelmed by a populace they viewed as foreign and repulsive: namely, the poor Jews from the provinces who came to the city in the effort to find work and survive. It was precisely this fear that so heightened the virulent anti-Semitism that was a Viennese specialty, and that would erupt on the streets of the former imperial capital when the Nazis took over in March 1938. Deathly Silence, Everyday People in the Holocaust is a discussion of history: Hitler, WW1, The Treaty of Versailles, Holocaust Summary, The Rise of Hitler, Beer Hall Putsch and World Depression. http://www.tulane.edu/~so-inst/d2.htm This might help you understand the rise of Adolph Hitler from The History Place. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/index.htm Rise of the Nazis. http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/nazirise.htm Few would have thought that the Nazi Party, starting as a gang of unemployed soldiers in 1919, would become the legal government of Germany by 1933. In fourteen years, a once obscure corporal, Adolf Hitler, would become the Chancellor of Germany. http://www.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_hitler.html The Beer Hall Putsch http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/putsch2.htm By Nov. 1923, the Nazis, with 55,000 followers, were well organized and Hitler knew he had to act or risk losing the leadership of his Party. They decided to kidnap the leaders of the Bavarian government and force them at gunpoint to accept Hitler as their leader. Then, they would win over the German army, proclaim a nationwide revolt and bring down the German democratic government in Berlin. They learned these Bavarian leaders would gather in a Munich beer hall on Nov. 8, so Göring’s troops surrounded the place and at 8:30 p.m. Hitler and his troops burst into the beer hall and panicked the people. Hitler forced his way to the podium and shouted that the National Revolution had begun, and everyone must remain there quietly. He said a new provisional government had been formed, and its police occupied the area. None of that was true, but he didn’t care. To discover if the Bavarian sided with him, and what came of Hitler’s Revolution, click here http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/putsch.htm Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) A former chicken farmer who controlled the SS formations, police force, concentration and labor camps and various offices for the resettlement of ethnic Germans. He was the senior SS officer responsible for implementing the "Final Solution." In late 1944 he ordered an end to the gassings and in 1945 he tried to negotiate with the Allies. After a failed escape attempt, he committed suicide. Himmler, second to Hitler in power, was SS leader, head of the Gestapo and the WaffenSS, and minister of the interior. He obsessed about killing the Jews for "racial purity." He too, committed suicide before being tried for his crimes. http://www.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_himmler.html Hermann Göring or Goering (1893-1946) commanded the German air force, and was in charge of Germany's economy and the "Jewish Question." As Hitler’s successor, Göring was originator of “The Final Solution” (the Final Solution of the Jewish Question). He was sentenced to death in 1946, but committed suicide before his execution. http://www.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_goering.html Rudolf Hoß, (1894-1987), http://www.mazal.org/archive/H%D6SS/TEXT/HOS1-000.htm Deputy Führer and considered to be the No. 3 man in Hitler's Germany after Göring. Rudolf Hoss, also spelled Höss or Hoess, was the original Commandant of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Approximately 1 million Jews were murdered in the gas chambers built by Hoß in the period comprised between the summer of 1941 and late 1944 when the gas chambers were destroyed by order of Heinrich Himmler. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/biographies/hess.htm Rudolf Hoß joined the Nazi party in 1922. In 1923, he was implicated in a murder and imprisoned to serve a life sentence. In 1928, he was released as a result of a general amnesty. After training, he was rewarded for his loyalty, promoted, and given the commandant's job at Auschwitz, where he remained until December of 1943. Then he was promoted to chief of the Central Administration for Camps. http://ftp.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?people/h/hoess.rudolf.ferdinand/hoess.01 Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) Nazi Minister of Propaganda. http://motlc.wiesenthal.org/text/x08/xm0869.html Goebbels saw the Jews as the enemy of the people, and instigated the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938. Kristallnacht: a massive, coordinated attack on Jews throughout the German Reich on the night of November 9, 1938, into the next day. It is Kristallnacht or The Night of Broken Glass. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/knacht.htm Goebbels , chief propaganda writer for Hitler, conceived the idea of the Kristallnacht pogroms in November 1938 and, following these pogroms, drastically reduced organized Jewish activities and freedom of movement in the sphere that he controlled. http://motlc.wiesenthal.org/pages/t026/t02614.html http://www.tulane.edu/~so-inst/d5.htm Goebbels, the “father of modern propaganda” (his personal label), spread defamations, libels and lies; he was convinced that people would believe the lies if they were repeated often enough. The bigger the lie, the better chance it had of being believed. He relentlessly depicted "the Jew" as an abominable creature and the principal enemy of the German people. As he used the media to spread lies and anti-Semitism, he gained support of the masses. As Nazi Germany collapsed in 1945, he and his family committed suicide. Adolf Eichmann - Nazi whose assignment was to round up the Jews and implement the Final Solution. Eichman typified the bland, colorless bureaucrat who was deeply involved in the mass killings. In 1961, Israel located, captured, tried, convicted, and executed Eichmann. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-eichmann.htm Eichmann took a keen interest in Auschwitz from its founding and visited there on numerous occasions. He helped Höss select the site for the gas chambers, approved the use of ZyklonB, and witnessed the extermination process. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-zyklon.htm Reinhard Heydrich – 1904-1942 Ordered the death squads to relocate all Jews to the ghettos. This was considered the first phase of the Holocaust. Heydrich died in a surprise attack by Czech partisans in 1942. http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/pages/t059/t05939.html Following the invasion of Poland, Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's No. 2 in command of the SS, was given control of Nazi security which combined the SS Security Service (SD), Secret State Police (Gestapo), Criminal Police (Kripo), and foreign intelligence service. This enormous organization terrorized the entire continent of Europe and conducted mass murder on a scale unprecedented in human history. http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/pages/t025/t02549.html Heydrich was also the architect of the Wannsee Conference plan to exterminate the Jews. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/biographies/heydrich.htm Wannsee Conference http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/Holocaust/resource/gallery/wan.htm On Jan. 20, 1942, Heydrich convened the Wannsee Conference in Berlin with 15 top Nazi bureaucrats to coordinate the extermination of the entire Jewish population of Europe and the Soviet Union, an estimated 11,000,000 persons. "Europe would be combed of Jews from east to west," Heydrich bluntly stated. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-wannsee.htm On May 27, 1942, Heydrich was attacked in Prague by Free Czech agents who were trained in England and brought to Czechoslovakia to assassinate him. They shot at Heydrich as his car slowed to round a sharp turn, then threw a bomb which exploded, mortally wounding him. Heydrich managed to get out of the car, draw his pistol and shoot back at the assassins before collapsing in the street. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-lidice.htm Heydrich survived for several days, but died on June 4 from blood poisoning brought on by fragments of auto upholstery, steel, and his own uniform that had lodged in his spleen. In Berlin, the Nazis staged a highly elaborate funeral with Hitler calling Heydrich "the man with the iron heart." Sophie Ehrhardt A university professor and assistant to Dr. Robert Ritter. http://www.holocaust-trc.org/cf_sinti.htm She applied the pseudo-science of race hygiene to register Gypsies. This provided the data the German police used to implement segregation, sterilization and deportation of Gypsies. She was never prosecuted for her role in this process. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005143 GYPSIES FACE RISING TIDE OF RACISM IN EASTERN EUROPE Roma (Gypsies) originated in the Punjab region of northern India as a nomadic people and entered Europe between the eighth and tenth centuries C.E. They were called "Gypsies" because Europeans mistakenly believed they came from Egypt. This minority is made up of distinct groups called "tribes" or "nations." http://www.tulane.edu/~so-inst/d13.htm#gypsies GENOCIDE OF EUROPEAN ROMA (GYPSIES), 1939-1945 It is not known precisely how many Roma were killed in the Holocaust. While exact figures or percentages cannot be ascertained, historians estimate that the Germans and their allies killed between 25 and 50 percent of all European Roma. Of the approximately one million Roma living in Europe before the war, up to 220,000 were killed. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005143 Josef Mengele (1911-1978?) http://motlc.wiesenthal.org/pages/t049/t04989.html senior medical physician at Auschwitz II (Birkenau), was responsible for grisly medical experiments on prisoners. After the war, he escaped to South America, eluded capture and died of natural causes in Brazil in 1979. An SS officer, Mengele worked in Auschwitz extermination camp, carrying out medical experiments and selecting hundreds of thousands Of Jews for gassing. His experiments on the prisoners were unequaled in their cruelty. Josef Mengele http://candles-museum.com/mengele.htm Much debate is focused on MENGELE the infamous doctor of Auschwitz, commonly referred to as the "Angel of Death". His most famous role was played out as the selector on the platform at Auschwitz whose whims sent one either to the gas chambers or to the camp. While at Auschwitz, Mengele promoted medical experimentation on inmates, especially dwarfs and twins. He is said to have supervised an operation by which two Gypsy children were sewn together to create Siamese twins; the hands of the children became badly infected where the veins had been resected. Twins Experiments by Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death. http://motlc.wiesenthal.org/pages/t049/t04989.html http://www.modcult.brown.edu/students/angell/mengele.html Hans Rauter - An Austrian and Nazi police leader in the Netherlands. He succeeded in deporting 100,000 of the 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands. This was the highest percentage on the western rim of Europe. http://isd.usc.edu/~anthonya/war/febstrik.htm