What motivated the Germans to conduct the Holocaust?

Answer 1

Also could be: He exploited German anti-Semitism to enable his genocidal plans.

Answer 2

There was no point, not one that can be understood rationally. Hitler believed that non-Germans, Jew in particular, were sub-human trash who had no right to exist and whose very existence threatened the mighty and superior German race. (See, it makes no sense) Therefor, in order to eliminate this threat to Germans, and to secure their wealth and property for Germany, he tried to kill them all. He also tried to kill all the Poles and Gypsies and Slavs for the same reasons. Michael Montagne

Answer 3

Answer 1

Hitler had many psychological problems. He held a personal vendetta against the Jewish people. Also selecting an enemy like the Jews made sense politically. At the time, as today, may people incorrectly believed that most economic assets were controlled by Jews. The differences in culture also allowed them to be singled out easily. Jews were also associated with communism, in most cases wrongly. The real answer to this question is a very long and complex one, and involves a look into the mind of a madman and a genius...But what it does prove that any sovereign nation should not be run by a single person, especially one with deep and complex psychological issue.

Answer 2

Problem of Non-Culpability

The way that this question is phrased would offend numerous people because it assumes that the Jews were guilty of committing some sort of offense and were therefore rightfully castigated. While it is not true to say that Jews were innocent lambs, the Jews did not do half of the negative nonsense that is attributed to them in order to "justify" Anti-Semitism and violence against them. Jews have been punished for being different, unique, and misunderstood and ever did anything worth punishing them for in the same way that Africans (on the whole) never did anything to merit enslavement. These actions were taken on account of bigotry and self-supremacy, not based on any system of equitable justice.

Issues Asserted by Hitler

Hitler's primary issues with Jews were the unfounded and erroneous assertions of which the following is a general list:

1) Decay of the German State: During the 1800s, Jews and other minorities began to become more integrated in German National Life. They served in its government, its military divisions, and its industry. As was typical of Western Europe, the Jews had more of a hand in the higher echelons of government than their population percentage would account for. Hitler saw this increasing Jewish percentage in the government as a slow takeover of German policy and a corruption of the German people. They contrasted the great victories under Bismarck with the depressing failure of World War I and noted how a much larger percentage of soldiers in the latter war were Jewish. There was also the sentiment than in the early 20th century, values were beginning to ebb (this is similar to current politics in the United States) and the Jewish integration in the German apparatus (becoming teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc.) was to blame for this recession of values as opposed to modernity as a process.

2) Nationalism: Germany was brought together under the Nationalist conception that all peoples with German culture, history, and language should be united regardless of which principality currently held control. The German self-conception also had an ethnic component, holding that the perfect German was blond and blue eyed. Regardless of the fact that the majority of Germans were dark haired, Jews and Gypsies stuck out like sore thumbs because they overwhelmingly had darker hair. In addition, the idea of a German Jew was still rather new and both Jews and non-Jews tended to see the Jews in Germany as being part of a vast Jewish network and that these Jews just happened to be in Germany. The same perception existed for Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Communists. Hitler capitalized on this cosmopolitan sensibility by claiming that these people's allegiances were not to the German State, but to secret councils made up of these minorities that conspired against the German people.

3) Economy: Whether it was true or not, there was perception among Germans and Hitler in particular that Jews were wealthy individuals and had a higher per-capita income than the Germans. In many ways (because of the above two reasons) Germans felt that the Jews were "stealing" their money while they were poor and suffering.

4) Pseudo-Science: The late 19th and early 20th century was filled with radical new ideas concerning Social Darwinism, a movement that Hitler was a part of. It was believed by the Pseudo-Scientific community (which was rather in vogue) that different groups of people or races exhibited different emotional traits that were linked to physical differences. This led to the belief that Jews and Gypsies were corrupt and thieving by their irreversible nature and that they could not be "cured" and brought up as proper Europeans. This formalized Racism in Germany and made the situation much more dire for German minorities.

5) Heresy: Although not as much an issue in World War II as it may have been 500 years prior, Jews were still considered the heretics who murdered the LORD and Savior. This helped to justify Anti-Semitism as the Jewish comeuppance for their accepting of the Christ Bloodguilt.

Answer 4

It was because Hitler hated anybody without blond hair and blue eyes , which he didn't even have himself , but killed everybody who didn't.

Hitler as a young boy also idolized a mayor who blamed Jews for all their problems. Hitler's mother died of Breast cancer, who was under the care of a Jewish doctor.

Answer 5

Hitler despised followers of the Jewish faith. He blamed them for the troubles Germany had been through, and blamed them for Germany's loss in World War I. Once he has persuaded the citizens of Germany and had complete control he had the Holocaust conducted.

Answer 6

The Nazis believed that Germany's economic problems of the 1920's and 1930's were caused by Jewish people.