Why and how did Nazis kill the Jews?

Answer 1

That is a question people have been asking ever since the war and there is no good answer. The only thing that can be said is that, sadly, what they did is not unique. History is filled with similar acts of savage barbarism committed by all cultures. From the 1930s to the 1950s Stalin killed over 20,000,000 people in Russia. In the 1970s Pol Pot killed over 2,000,000 people in Cambodia, and it only had 6,000,000 to begin with. The ancient Romans, civilised as we consider them to have been, massacred whole poulations when they thought it to be in their interests and enjoyed

watching people fight to the death in the gladiatorial games.

I think fundamentally the answer is that humans are basically savage in their nature and the veneer of civilization is thin. People can be raised and taught good values but if circumstances arise those values can be cast off very easily. One person, or a small group, doing something reprehensible can be made to be ashamed of it by the majority and that shame keeps people in line. But if *everybody* is doing it, then there is no shame in it, and order collapses.

The actions of the Germans can be put down, not to their own cruelness, but to their obedience to authority, This was shown in a psychological experiment by Milgram, who wanted to investigate the reasons for the obeying of authority during Hitlers regime. He discovered that members of the public would give electric shocks they thought were harmful to other people if told to do so by a man wearing a labcoat. This implies that it is our own obedience to authority that can cause behaviour that culminates in the death of millions.

The 'obedience to authority' defense, at least in the German's case, is a flawed one. If the German massacre of 10 million people, 6 million of them Jews, can be attributed to obedience, then it would be fair to assume that there would be few cases of individual Germans murdering Jews without orders to do so. This, unfortunately, is not the case. Individual cases of German soldiers killing Jews without orders is in the tens of thousands. Many of these killings occurred before the holocaust even began - during the time Jews were imprisoned in Ghettos.

While obedience to authority is a way to "justify" German cruelty (see cognitive dissonance) it does not truly explain it.

Germany was spiritually and morally bankrupt as a nation. It had swapped the gospel of Jesus Christ for humanism. The idea of a master race can not take hold in a God fearing, kindly nation. The people of Germany swapped the true Messiah for Adolf Hitler. Their homes had shrines to him and their state churches had Mein Kampf on the alter instead of the Bible. Their rallies were a moving as a church service and their evangelist was the Fuhrer and his message the gosel of hate. Combine Propaganda, godlessness,humanism with hatred and militarism and the world was plunged into darkness and conflict. In his last breaths Hitler was still cursing the Jews before he put a bullet in his head and saw Lucifer face to face. Then he knew God's judgment and met the being that would torment him forever as he had tormented so many others.

However, this "answer" does little to explain the Spanish Inquisition, the massacre of Native Americans by the Puritans, or the crusades; all of which were devout Christians murdering non-Christians because they were different from them.

Germany was in bad shape and Hitler needed a scapegoat to blame every bad thing happening to Germany on. Jews made around 2% of the German population and most of them were much better off than the rest of Germany. Hitler used propaganda to encourage and increase hatred for the Jews.

Nazi's who helped Jews or were sympathetic towards them could be punished or killed - this made sure that most of the Nazi's were cruel to Jews.

I think they did it, as many societies had in the past had done, because they saw Jews as an easy and defenseless group of people who's wealth ( although most of them where probably poor ) - could be re-purposed for the war effort. Therefore they created an almost cult-like society where Jews where demonized - this time not on religious but racial grounds - and used as slave labour and had their property and belongings stolen, so that the Nazi regime could use it for the war. And due to Nazi propaganda and the fact that Jews had probably remained separated from the rest of society for centuries, the Germans had little difficulty in internalizing the disgusting racial lies against the Jews so that they would be more detached from all the atrocities committed against them.

Nazi propaganda told people that the Jews were genetically inferior to the Germans, that they carried disease - and Communism.

Out of blind hatred.

This is a perplexing question that I have been steadily pondering for years. Germany had found herself in a terrible economic state post WWI, and most of the country was living in poverty - like the "I-can't-afford-food poverty." Jewish businesses in general, weathered the storm and continued to operate. Jews tended to be very well educated, motivated, and successful. The Germans saw this as a threat and decided to blame the Jews for all of their problems. The average ignorant German grunt had probably been utterly brainwashed by Adolph Hitler, so he actually believed the Jews were evil. Combine ignorance, depravity, jealousness, hatred, religious prejudice, and Nazi ideals with German ingenuity and efficiency, and you've just baked a hot nasty world war. Honestly though, I'm like you - I can't and probably never will understand how they could have been as disgustingly lowlife, malicious, and putrid as they were - especially the infamous SS. It was really a step backward for humanity, and it just shows you how low we can go. We must never forget, and it must NEVER happen again.

The key problem wasn't so much poverty or jealousy, I think. The real trouble was that the Nazi regime subscribed to conspiracy theories. These claimed that the Jews were scheming to dominate the whole world, mainly by spreading Communism. Despite all the talk about the Jews being inferior, these conspiracy theories claimed that the Jews were diabolically cunning, that they hated Germany and were in competition with Germany's bid to dominate Europe or the world.

As for the question of ignorance, it was often wilful. Until about 1930 Germany prided itself on an outstanding education system ... To cap it all, the commanders three of the four Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units), which slaughtered Jews in open air killings in the former Soviet Union, had doctorates! One, Otto Rasch, even had two ... and is generally referred as Dr. Dr. Rasch. A further 11 senior officers in the mobile killing units also had doctorates.

Answer 2

Initially the Germans would round up a number of Jews lead them Into the Woods or somewhere isolated and in some cases in the streets. They would then be shot one by one. Eventually the Nazis started the concentration camps as it was less of a psychological burden to the Wehrmacht and SS soldiers and to cut costs and improve killing efficiency.

Answer 3

Because Hitler was a cry baby from World War I, he just wanted some body to blame.

That is so immature. Hitler believed that all of their problems were derived from Jewish people in Europe. He also believed they were impure mutts. He convinced others that Jewish people were causing trouble, taking all the jobs, and so on and so forth.

Answer 4

The why? Hitlers philosophy, expounded upon in his sick masterpiece of mental twistedness called "Mein Kampf", was that any problem the German people had could be traced to the Jews, or what he generally called "International Jewry". The how? Whatever was most expedient at the moment. For large scale killing, (sometimes thousands a day) the Nazis decided on chambers filled with poisonous gas as the most efficient method.

Answer 5

Main reason was that like others they didn't suit the Nazi Ideology. The Nazi Ideology is a superior race known as the ayran race. The ayran race are people who are blond and got blue eyes and Jews don't come under this circumstance, so that they are killed.