What 4 main factors led to the Holocaust?

Answer 1

Firstly, there was a war on at the time and it is easier to hide such actions under the umbrella of a war situation, without the war, the Holocaust could not have happened. (The first phase of the Holocaust was carried out at the front)

The political climate was another factor, the Nazis had always campaigned under a banner of antisemitism and the idea of national unity, (which meant without the undesirables) and 'living space' which bring in the third factor.

Hitler wanted more space for proper German people to live, to do this he had to concentrate the people who currently lived on that land into smaller places, there soon became too many people in too small an area.

Possibly the largest factor was the fact that there was no food to feed these people. When planning the invasion of the USSR, the Germans knew that they would not have enough food to feed everyone and they faced the choice of who not to give food to...

(this of course is not an exhaustive list)

----------------------------------------------------

There is no first factor when it comes to the holocaust. If a starting point is needed one must begin at the onset of the German Empire. That would be 1871. For centuries, since the middle ages, Jews were considered less than full citizens of Germany and groups such as the Völkisch Movement in the 19th century, with political pressure acted to force emigration, isolate, deny citizenship, exclude and eventually use violence to that end. Without this baseline attitude toward Jews they would not and could not be targeted for the next biggest factor. At the end of WWI a surrender was effected by Germany and the subsequent reparations plunged the new Weimar Republik into a crushing depression and hyper inflation. The war was blamed entirely on Germany and the Central Powers. Even with nearly a million men in theater the Kaiser withdrew all German forces. Mainly due to the flu pandemic, many of these men were not able to fight. Germans, including a certain corporal named Adolph Hitler blamed Jews, communists and Bolshevism for this betrayal of German nationalism and pride. Jews became the focal point of the Natonal Socialist Party as the scapegoats in losing WWI. Let just suffice to say the overwhelming factors behind Jewish persecution happened well before WWII. The next factor would be the emergence of Eugenics. The systematic purification of the Aryan Race was the aim of Health Courts or Erbgesundheitgerischte. This started in 1933 six years before World War 2 began in Europe with the invasion of Poland. Romani, Jews, developmentally disabled persons, and the ethnically impure were sterilized, deported or forced into work camps and ghettos. If you could prove your Jewish grandparents had converted prior to January 18, 1871 you could be considered for Gemeinschaftsfremde or community of aliens. At least in this classification you could be instructed on how to be a good Nazi instead of a work camp and death. Another example of Jewish repression far in advance of WWII. At this point the escalation of violence and animosity toward Jews is apparent. The last blow was the Final Solution. Endlösung, Shoah, Holocaust, or genocide take your pick. A culmination of all of the above factors, the need for Germany to get lebensraum or to retrieve historically Germanic territory, the reclassification of Jewish from a religion to a race, retaliation for WWI, Prewar anti Jewish legislation such as revoking their right to own weapons, hold public office, own newspapers and their denied admission into the Volksgemeinschaft or community of people. All of this and more resulted in Kristallnacht. A response to a German diplomat being killed in Paris was all that Hitler and the SA needed. Violence was the answer, almost every synagogue in the country was vandalized, hundreds of shops were destroyed, 30,000 Jews were placed in concentration camps and it all happened in 1938. Before the invasion of Poland. Many say that the public didn't know. Others say they were aware but bought into the final solution, eugenics and extreme nationalistic ideas. The systematic and efficacious manner with which 6,000,000 Jews and millions of others such as Gypsies, Christians, Homosexuals, Communists, Soviets, Poles, the mentally retarded, political dissidents and anyone thought ethnically impure that is estimated to be as many as 11,000,000 genocide victims must bring one pause. Every government agency was involved yet not one group came to the defense of those who were persecuted. World War Two was not the first thing, it was not the fifth thing, it was not a factor in the Holocaust whatsoever. Hide behind that supposition at your peril.

--------------------------------------

Obviously it was the culmination of many factors that led to the Holocaust, without all of these factors it might never have happened, but this is pointless speculation.

As is any attempt to look for the origins of the Holocaust in Imperial Germany. It was the opinion of the first generation of post war historians that you could trace the origins of the Holocaust from the origins of the Nazi party, this is quite frankly not true. It was only in 1941 that the focus moved from mis-treatment and sterilization (and deportation) to a swifter method of extermination.

Despite what Daniel Goldhagen may have you believe, there was nothing especially German about the Holocaust, if one were to predict in 1932 where the Holocaust would occour, it would still be in Poland, but at the hands of the Poles, not the Germans.

Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews. As soon as I have the power to do so, I will have gallows built in rows - at the Marienplatz in Munich, for example - as many as traffic allows. Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in Munich has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews.

This was an interview given by Adolph Hitler as reported by a Munich journalist named Joseph Hell. The year was 1922. It is up to the reader whether the FACTORS that lead to Shoah began, was enacted or was executed in 1941 in Poland. Most prognostications on an eventual or inevitable genocide in central Europe would be hard pressed to look to the Poles after reading Hitler's true feelings on the matter this early in his life. This was 2 years before he wrote Mein Kampf. An account of this can be read in Hell's book Aufzeichnung which in German means, written account.