How did World War I cause the Holocaust?

Answer 1

After World War 1, the Treaty of Versailles punished Germany by forcing them to pay for war debts to countries such as France and Great Britain. It also forced Germany to limit its military and weakened the German economy. Germany went through many hard times, and at the same time Adolf Hitler saw the perfect time to make an appeal for power in Germany. In an almost desperate attempt to relieve their troubled economy, people turned to the promises that Hitler had proposed. He disobeyed the Versailles Treaty by rearming the German military. Hitler eventually started to demand more from other countries and no one seemed to stop him. Hitler despised the Versailles Treaty and annexed Austria, which was also in violation of the treaty. Hitler began to make claims on Sudetenland, and was given to him as a way to "prevent any further demands" and to "ensure peace between countries". This shows how the treaty from the outcome of World War 1 eventually led to angst between countries and leaders and how World War 2 was brought out of these bitter feelings and harsh situations.

Answer 2

i believe ww1 lead to the Holocaust because after germanys defeat in ww1 they were forced to accept the versailles treaty which meant they had to take full responsibility for the war, reduce their armed forces, and pay enormous reparations to the allied powers. This resulted in countless germans jobless with little to no money. Well clearly this caused alot of problems in Germany. So hitler came along and proposed this idea that the Jews were the reason for their lose. And so when he started up these concentration camps to exterminate the jews... this employed many Germans out of jobs

Answer 3

World War 1 did not cause the Holocaust. The question is based on the mistaken assumption that there is a clear causal link between the two and some kind of inevitability ... World War 1 didn't even bring the Nazis to power, and the view that World War 1 caused World War 2 is one-sided and arguably false.

I think a more fruitful approach is something along the lines of Arno Mayer's view that the whole period from c. 1910 (or even 1900) to 1945 was one of profound crisis in Europe, with the old elites (especially the aristocracy) clinging like desperados to their highly privileged role in society and terrified of anything that was or even looked like revolution. The old elites were finding it extremely difficult in many countries to adapt to the industrial world ... As a result they were willing, in some countries, to throw their full weight behind extreme right-wing movements.

Obviously, the problems of the old elites were particularly acute in countries that had fared badly in World War 1, especially Germany. Please bear in mind that this is a hypothesis by Arno Mayer and a few other historians. It isn't a 'proven fact'.

Answer 4

Probably the most profound effect of the Nazi's anti-Jewish policies was to drive out of Europe many of the leading scientists, many of whom emigrated to the US and made crucial contributions to the Manhattan Project, which built the A-Bombs which brought a dramatically swift end to the war with Japan.

Other than that, though, the Holocaust and the anti-semitism of Nazi Germany had little real impact on the war. Driving out or putting in camps the Jews denied the Germans the use of that source of manpower. For instance, in the First World War, Hitler's company commander, the officer who recommended Corporal Hitler for the Iron Cross medal was a Jew. So there were very few, if any Jewish troops in the German ranks. And some manpower had to be expended to run the camps and the death factories. But many of these were too old for fighting at the front, or had other health problems which disqualified them for the hard life of a front line soldier. Even if the camp personnel had all been young and healthy there were''t really enough of them that they would have made any appreciable difference on the battlefield. Also, there was little money spent on the camps, and the Nazis had carefully calculated to the last pfenning, based on life expectancy in the camps (about nine months for those assigned to work), how much profit could be wrung from the people they were working to death. So, the camps probably actually turned a profit, what with ripping the gold teeth and fillings out of peoples' heads, and selling their clothes and shoes and suitcases and so on.

German industry ran on slave labor during the war, and so did German agriculture. Many of these workers were not Jews, but "guest workers" from nations the Germans had overrun, from which they extracted able-bodied people who were forced to do factory work for the Germans, so the German able-bodied men could go fight. This was probably a mistake, because quality control would obviously not be a high priority with such workers, and they took every opportunity to sabotage the goods they produced, if they thought they could get away with it without being killed. Many Jews from the Nordhausen camp did lanor and die in the factory, built inside a hollowed-out mountain in the Harz Mountains of Germany, where the B-1 "Buzz Bombs" and V-2 missiles were made. Around 20,000 of these died. Again, probably not the best idea for a labor source. Not what you could call positively motivated.

On the Allied side no one was fighting to save the Jews or end the Holocaust, because literally no one knew it was going on. The Germans did not advertise this industrial-scale program of murder. Even when a few camp inmates escaped and told the tale, few believed it - it was to monstrous to believe even of the enemy. Gradually knowledge permeated into the top echelons of the US and Britain, but really did nothing to change the direction of effort or the plans for prosecuting the war. All that would end the Holocaust was the complete defeat of Nazi Germany, and the Allies were already bending every effort in a single-minded drive to accomplish that goal. The average person in Allied countries did not learn of the Holocaust until the last month or so of the war in Europe, as the camps began to be overrun by Allied troops. Of course people were horrified and the soldiers even more determined and resolute to bring a swift end to such fiendishness.

But on a strategic or tactical level, the existence of the Holocaust really had little impact on the war.

Answer 5

World War One did not lead to the Holocaust. There is no direct connection between these two horrific events. For example, one can debate whether the Treat of Versailles led to the Second World War, however, even that is not true. Both England and France could have easily defeated Hitler long before WW 2 ever began. There are multiple examples that create quite a distance from the Holocaust and WW 1.

Answer 6

World War I created World War II; without World War II the Holocaust would not have happened.