What was the reason for the extermination of the Jews?

Answer 1

A few: the Jews were accused of owning the means of Industry, they refused to believe and worship Hitler, The SS had been brainwashed into feeling threatened by the Jews combining within camps.
Jewish people were singled out for extermination because the leaders of the Nazi movement accused them of being the reason for the economic condition of post World War I Germany.

Answer 2

People kill Jews now and killed Jews in the past because they hated them. They were killed for being Jews. They existed. Their crime consisted of being what they were. They were considered to be pure evil, to those for whom the Jews' living constituted a capital crime. Those who operated outside of reason, didn't need any sane reason.

However, the Anti-Semites have provided innumerable incredibly varied and equally ridiculous reasons for hating Jews and killed them on account of these hatreds.

Please see the Related Questions which addresses such hatred.

Answer 3

Historians have listed six explanations as to why some people hate the Jews:
1) Economic: Some people hate Jews because "they possess too much wealth and power."
2) Chosen People: Some hate the Jews because Jews claim that they are the chosen people (Exodus ch.19 and other passages).
3) Scapegoat: Jews seem to be a convenient group to single out and blame for the troubles of society.
4) Deicide: Some hate the Jews "because they killed Jesus."
5) Outsiders: Some hate the Jews "because they are different than us." (Xenophobia.)
6) Racial Theory: Some hate the Jews "because they are an inferior race."

As we examine the explanations, we must ask: Are they causes for anti-Semitism or excuses for it? The difference being, that if one takes away the cause, then anti-Semitism should no longer exist. If one can show a contradiction to the explanation, it demonstrates that the "cause" is not a reason, it is just an excuse.Let's look at some of the contradictions:

Economic -- The Jews of 17th- 19th century Poland and Russia were dirt poor and had no influence, and yet they were hated.

Chosen People -- a) In the late 19th century, most Jews of Germany denied "Chosenness;" and they assimilated. Yet the Holocaust started there.

b) Christians and Moslems also profess to being the "Chosen people," but the world and the anti-Semites tolerate them.

Scapegoat -- Any group must already be hated to be an effective scapegoat. The Scapegoat theory does not cause anti-Semitism. Rather, anti-Semitism is what makes the Jews a convenient target. Hitler's ranting and ravings would not be taken seriously if he said, "It's the bicycle riders and the midgets who are destroying our society."

Deicide -- a) the Christian Bible says the Romans killed Jesus, with Jews mentioned as accomplices. (The claims that Jews directly killed Jesus came several hundred years later). Why are the alleged accomplices persecuted, but there hasn't been an anti-Roman movement through history?

b) Jesus himself said, "Forgive them [i.e., the Jews], for they know not what they do." And the Second Vatican Council in 1963 officially exonerated the Jews as the killers of Jesus. Neither of these events lessened anti-Semitism.

Outsiders -- With the Enlightenment in the late 18th century, many Jews rushed to assimilate. Anti-Semitism should have stopped. Instead, for example, the Nazis proclaimed in essence: We hate you, not because you're different, but because you're trying to become like us! We cannot allow you to "infect" the Aryan race with your "inferior genes."

Racial Theory -- The overriding problem with this theory is that it is self-contradictory: Jews are not a race. Anyone can become a Jew - and members of every race, creed and color in the world have done so at one time or another.

Answer 4

People killed Jews because they hated them. It really is that simple. As for the reasons of that hate, they are numerous and varied. Please see the below Related Questions to read about those reasons.

• Why do people hate the Jews?
• Why did Adolf Hitler kill the Jews?
• Why did the Nazis kill the Jews?

Answer 5

This question implicitly has two parts. The first is a question as to the rationales that the Nazis believed in to justify Anti-Semitic beliefs and the second is a question as to why the Nazis felt the need to kill the Jews as a way to solve these Anti-Semitic concerns.

The Reasons for Anti-Semitism in Germany during that period are numerous, but some of the more important reasons were the following:

1) Decay of the German State: During the 1800s, Jews 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. The Nazis 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 stuck out like a sore thumb 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 Nazis capitalized on this cosmopolitan sensibility by claiming that Jews' allegiances were not to the German State, but to secret Jewish Councils organizing world events.

3) Economy: Whether it was true or not, there was perception among Germans and the Nazis 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. 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 were corrupt and thieving by their irreversible nature and that they could not be "cured" and brought up as proper Europeans. This formalized Racial Anti-Semitism in Germany and made the situation much more dire for German Jews.

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.

Why was killing the Jews necessary?
The answer to the second part, while cold, is brutally honest. The Nazis encouraged the German population to believe that this myriad of Anti-Semitic issues was ingrained in German Society by making it part of the national curriculum and teaching it to millions of German children. The Nazis proposed that the only way to improve Germany was to remove the Jews entirely. There were two options for such a removal: exile or genocide. Since no country was willing to take the Jewish population en masse (and this includes the United States and United Kingdom due to prevailing stereotypes there) the Nazis made the executive decision to commit genocide to "save Germany".

Answer 6

Hilter believed that the Jewish people were to blame for losing the first world war.