'Within the context of 1888-1990 and with specific reference to the Nazi Era, to what extent were the lives of Germany’s Jews impacted as a result of changes in government?'
By huwthomas
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Historian Heinrich Treitschke wrote a long essay in 1880 in which he claimed that the fundamental differences between German Jews and Christians could not be reconciled, and that the Jews had "usurped too large a place in our life
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A series of "temporary laws" confirmed by Czar Alexander III of Russia in May, 1882 ("May Laws")
The laws which adopted a systematic policy of discrimination, with the object of removing the Jews from their economic and public positions. -
First International Anti-Jewish Congress convened at Dreseden, Germany
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Expulsion of about 10,000 Russian Jews, refugees of 1881-1884 pogroms, from Germany.
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Restaurants and hotels tried toattract the Anti-Semitic public by proclaimingthemselves as judenrein (free from Jews).
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Period: to
Within the context of 1888-1990 and with specific reference to the Nazi Era, to what extent did the lives of the Jewish population throughout Europe and the Middle East deteriorate?
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Biographer Lamar Cecil had identified Wilhelm's "curious but well-developed anti-Semitism." Cecil notes that in 1888 a friend of Wilhelm, "declared that the young Kaiser's dislike of his Hebrew subjects, one rooted in a perception that they possessed an o
Cecil concludes: '"Wilhelm never changed, and throughout his life he believed that Jews were perversely responsible, largely through their prominence in the Berlin press and in leftist political movements, for encouraging opposition to his rule. For individual Jews, ranging from rich businessmen and major art collectors to purveyors of elegant goods in Berlin stores, he had considerable esteem, but he prevented Jewish citizens from having careers in the army and the diplomatic corps.' -
The Reichstag resounded with anti-Jewish denunciations from Stocker and his coadjutors, Bôckel and Liebermann von Sonnenberg.
Newspapers were founded for purely anti-Jewish purposes, sxipplemented by comic papers and caricatures. -
Hermann Ahlwardt was appointed the position left by Stocker
He issued a shoal of villainous pamphlets, and was repeatedly prosecuted for libel and con- victed, but his influence only increased. In February, 1889, a band of 500 youths raided the streets in the south-east of Berlin, plundering wherever they could ; amid wild shouts of "Juden heraus ! " (Out with the Jews) -
The accession of William II. brought another brief respite, but in June, 1889, a fresh campaign was opened by the Catholic Germania and the Conservative Kreuz- zeitung. An Anti-Semitic Congress held at the same time at Bochum demanded that the Jews should
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At Christmas, 1892, tickets weredistributed and stamps affixed everywhere with theinscription : ' Don't buy from Jews ! ' The personalmockery and maltreatment of individual Jews byAnti-Semitic roughs, among whom there were oftenso-called educated people,
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Antisemitism mounts in France as Jews are blamed for the collapse in 1889 of the Panama Canal Co., whose bankruptcy has cost many French investors their savings
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The Protocols of the Elders of Zion appeared in print in Russia for the first time. The Protocols argued that a worldwide conspiracy existed among Jewish leaders to set Christian nations against one another and dominate the world. It circulated widely in
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Houston Stewart Chamberlain was an Englishman who had married Richard Wagner's daughter. In 1900, Chamberlain published his work, "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century," in which he contrasted the "average" German as honest and loyal, the beneficiary
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Renewed restrictions of Jews in Russia.
Frequent pogroms (massacres) occurred against Jewish shtetls (ghettos) throughout Russia and Ukraine from 1903-1906. Jewish women were raped and beaten, thousands were mas- sacred. -
600,000 Jews were forcibly moved from the western borders of Russia towards the interior.
About 100,000 Jews died of exposure or starvation. -
On 2 December 1919, Wilhelm wrote to Field Marshal August von Mackensen, denouncing his abdication as the "deepest, most disgusting shame ever perpetrated by a person in history, the Germans have done to themselves", "egged on and misled by the tribe of J
He further added...'Let no German ever forget this, nor rest until these parasites have been destroyed and exterminated from German soil!" He advocated a "regular international all-worlds pogrom à la Russe" as "the best cure" and further believed that Jews were a "nuisance that humanity must get rid of some way or other. I believe the best would be gas!" -
The defeat of Germany in World War I and the continuing economic difficulties were blamed in that country on the “Jewish influence.”
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WILHELM II. German Kaiser: "A Jew cannot be a true patriot...''
..'He is something different, like a bad insect. He must be kept apart, out of a place where he can do mischief - even by pogroms, if necessary. The Jews are responsible for Bolshevism in Russia, and Germany too. I was far too indulgent with them during my reign, and I bitterly regret the favors I showed the prominent Jewish bankers."
(CHICAGO TRIBUNE, July 2, 1922) -
Economic restrictions on Jews in Poland.
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Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany
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Emergency powers granted to Hitler as a result of the Reichstag fire.
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First concentration camp, Dachau, is established.
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German Parliament passes Enabling Act giving Hitler dictatorial powers.
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Nazi Party is declared the only legal party in Germany
Also, Nazis pass Law to strip Jewish immigrants from Poland of their German citizenship. -
Nazis prohibit Jews from owning land
Also, Jews are prohibited from being newspaper editors -
Period: to
Nazi persecution of Jews
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Jews are banned from the German Labor Front
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The Night of Long Knives occurs...
Hitler, Göring and Himmler conduct a purge of the SA (storm trooper) leadership -
German President von Hindenburg dies. Hitler becomes Führer
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No one ever accused Der Sturmer of subtlety in its anti-Semitic attacks. The newspaper of Julius Streicher, Der Sturmer employed cartoons frequently to portray Jews as being less than human. Here, in a 1934 issue, the cartoon praises the Nazi Ministry of
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Nuremberg Race Laws against Jews decreed
Jews no longer allowed to be German citizensJews not allowed to have sexual-relationships with non-Jews Jews not allowed to marry non-Jews -
The German Gestapo is placed above the law.
As a result, the activities of the Gestapo would not be questioned by law and as such, the persecution of Jews could go unnoticed. -
Olympic games begin in Berlin.
Hitler and top Nazis seek to gain legitimacy through favorable public opinion from foreign visitors and thus temporarily refrain from actions against Jews -
Jews are banned from many professional occupations
Professions included teaching Germans, and from being accountants or dentists. They are also denied tax reductions and child allowances. -
Issuance of a secret order from Reinhardt Heydrich
Essentially committed Jewish women who had sexual relations with Germans to concentration camps. -
Buchenwald concentration camp opens.
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After the Anschluss, the SS is placed in charge of Jewish affairs in Austria
Adolf Eichmann establishing an Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna. Himmler then establishes Mauthausen concentration camp near Linz. -
All male Jews forced to add the name Israel and all female Jews the name Sara to their non-Jewish first names.
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Kristallnacht - The Night of Broken Glass.
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3 December Jewish businesses and shops closed and forced to sell for a fraction of their value.
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No person embraced the stab-in-the-back thesis with more enthusiasm than Adolf Hitler. "...if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bols
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Jews forced to hand in all gold and silver objects and jewels in their possession.
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Anti-Jewish laws introduced in the Protectorate (Czechoslova)
Outbreak of World War II, Poland overrun by German army: pogroms in Poland; beginning of the Holocaust. -
Jewish Ghetto at Lodz, Poland is sealed off.
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Warsaw ghetto is sealed off
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Severe riots against Jews in Iraq in consequence of Rashid Ali al-Jilani's coup d'état.
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Heydrich is appointed by Goering to carry out The Final Solution
Essentially, the extermination of all Jews in Europe -
Wearing of the Jewish star is decreed throughout the Greater Reich.
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First experiments with gassing are made at Auschwitz.
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Treblinka death camp opens.
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In the early years of the Nazi movement, Rosenberg was one of Hitler's premier racial theorists. Like Hitler, he was very familiar with the works of Gobineau, Chamberlain and many others. During the war, as "Reich Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territor
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Jews in the Warsaw ghetto launch uprising against Nazi deportations.
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476 000 Jews are deported from Hungary to Auschwitz
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17 January Soviet troops liberate Warsaw.
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American troops liberate Bergen-Belsen death camp
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Hilter commits suicide
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Social persecution of the Jews in West Germany...The American authorities ran a highly ambitious and punitive programme which resulted in many incarcerations and convictions, with numerous, low-ranking officials banned and punished. Citizens were confront
However, there is evidence of social persecution of the Jewish population as there was a considerable backlash, and perceived fairness was low. The Jewish Advisor to the American Military Government concluded in 1948 that “... if the United States Army were to withdraw tomorrow, there would be pogroms on the following day.” -
In 1949, a quarter of the West German population described themselves as anti-Semites.
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In a 1952 survey of West Germany, one-third said they were definitely anti-Semites, compared to only a quarter of the population in 1949.
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Anti-Semitic persecutions in the 1950s: initiated in the Soviet Union and immediately following the anti-Semitic Slanský trial in Prague in 1952, the GDR prepared its own propaganda trial.
Many members of the Jewish community were interrogated, detained, and harassed. Jews were accused of “cosmopolitanism” and defamed as “agents of the West” and traitors intent on undermining the socialist state -
Many Jews fled to West Berlin at the beginning of 1953
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Jewish cemeteries: many Jewish cemeteries were neglected, desecra-ted and repeatedly vandalized.
The state’s indifference to Jewish ceme-teries and to their desecration are emblematic of the problematic and inconsequential nature of the “anti-fascism” it so touted. -
Restitution: East Germany never compensated Jews whose private property had been seized by the Nazis. The state did provide some benefits to survivors of the Holocaust, but those benefits were less generous than benefits provided to the members of the for
However, this continued for the majority of East Germany's rule under Communists -
Anti-Zionism: politics and the media in East Germany portrayed Israel as an aggressor and compared it to the Nazi state. East Ger-many never established diplomatic relations with Israel, instead, it provided support to Palestinian terrorist groups in the
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The memory of the Holocaust: East Germany suppressed the significance of anti-Semitism in Nazi ideology. The life stories of individuals who had been persecuted by the Nazis as Jews were disregarded or neglected.
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Arabic version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion published in Egypt.
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Fresh wave of anti-Semitism in Poland; emigration of most of the remaining Jews of Poland.
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Spread of Neo-Nazi publications in US and other parts of the world denying the Holocaust
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Eleven Israeli athletes massacred at the Munich Olympic Games, which continue after a brief memorial ceremony.
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By 1980, however, the tracking of various population samples showed that anti-Semitism had decreased. Surveys conducted after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 revealed a huge gap in anti-Semitic attitudes between East and West Germany.
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Steven Cokely, an adviser to the mayor of Chicago and his link to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, accuses Jewish doctors of purposely infecting blacks with the AIDS virus in order to further a plan for world domination
