Holocaust

Kristallnacht, literally meaning the Night of Broken Glass, but is now known by the politically correct term, Reichspogromnacht, happened in the 2-day period of Nov. 9-10, 1938. It was ostensibly sparked by the assassination of the Third Secretary to the German embassy in Paris, Ernst vom Rath. Nazi Propaganda Minister Goebbels initiated a rampage of destruction which saw the burning of synagogues, the destruction of Jewish businesses,homes, and the manhandling of Jews. The Nazis used Kristallnacht as an opportunity to

proceed with the total exclusion of Jews from society and the removal of their remaining freedom,

while expulsion of Jews from Germany was accelerated. The causes of this event were

partly economic, but had a great deal to do with racial hatred and antisemitism on

the part of Hitler and the Nazis, whose goal was a racially pure German nation.

organized mass murder

Jews would be killed because when hitler came to power hitler had lost lots land and money,jobs,and businesses so hitler thought that they lost the war becuase of the jews so that when he started taking the to concentration camps and torture.

Generally, Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, communists, the physically and/or mentally disabled, and others.

The figure of about 11 million people is sometimes mentioned but it is not all clear what or who this includes and how the figure is arrived at. Sometimes one finds the range 11 to17 million. Other estimates of the direct deaths due to his policies is from 15 to 25 million, because many of the estimated 40 million World War II deaths in Europe are attributable to Hitler (although some may be directly blamed on Italy, the minor Axis powers and Russia).

The victims included ethnic Poles, the Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and most of all, Jews.

(See related links for Holocaust and World War II.)

In post WW 2 Europe, Nuremberg Germany was the city where the allies put Nazi war criminals on trial. The trials exposed to the horror of most people, how many war crimes were committed and how many innocent civilians were put to death. The trials also exposed the Holocaust and the genocide of Jewish people in Europe during the war. Many Nazi's were given death sentences and long prison terms.

Aribert Heim who is believed to still be alive today. The name "Dr. Death" was also used of Josef Mengele.

Individual nations which suffered under Nazi occupation were encouraged to bring to justice thousands of other war criminals who had committed atrocities against their citizens and they did so capturing and imprisoning or executing the war criminals. The person responsible for Israeli agents tracking down Adolf Eichmann in Argentina, kidnapping and bringing him to justice was Simon Wiesenthal who hunted down thousands of Nazi war criminals and bringing them to justice. Adolf Eichmann faced trial by the Israeli gov't. There were thousands of Nazi war criminals who escaped justice running off to friendly countries and and settling in under assumed identities. The U.S. gov't., participated in several conspiracies to help war criminals escape justice. Some of these criminals were scientists and engineers, and the U.S. gov't., had a policy that it was in the interests of this nation to exploit that talent rather than see that justice was done. The U.S. rocket program in the 1950s and 1960s was influenced by German rocket scientists who had participated in war crimes. Only approx. 20% of the 150,000 Nazi war criminals were ever brought to trail. Millions of others escaped punishment. Even today the search continues to bring these war criminals to justice.

The penalties varied. In Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe hiding Jews (or helping Jews to hide) carried the death penalty, often for the whole family giving shelter. In most other Nazi-occupied countries one could be sent to a concentration camp. "The price that rescuers had to pay for their action differed from one country to another. In Eastern Europe, the Germans executed not only the people who sheltered Jews, but their entire family as well. Notices warning the population against helping the Jews were posted everywhere. Generally speaking punishment was less severe in Western Europe, although there too the consequences could be formidable and some of the Righteous Among the Nations were incarcerated in camps and killed" Source: http://www1.yadvashem.org.il/righteous_new/about_the_righteous.html (accessed 21 May 2009)

There were several events that were called "death march". The most famous one was the Bataan Death March in 1942 on the Phillippines. Most of the death marches occurred at Prisoner of War camps in Germany. The Germans kept moving the prisoners out of reach of the advancing Russians. In late January 1945, the Stalag Luft IV in eastern Prussia evacuated approximately 6000 prisoners from the camp within sound of the Russian artillery. On 2 Feb 1945, about 4000 POWs were marched out of Stalag VIIIB(aka Stalag 344). I'm not an expert on the concentration camps but some of them may have moved prisoners. However, their main objective was to elminate the evidences of those who had died.

I recommend by Alan Bullock

The best books are The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer, Hitler the missing years by Ernst Hanfstaengl, At Hitler's Side by Nicholaus von Below,Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer, Berlin Diary by William Shirer, I knew Hitler by Kurk Ludecke. Also any of the Time Life Third Reich books. The Hanfstaengl book in great because he is the only one who gives us a glimpse of Hitler's early years. Berlin Diary is great because Shirer was around so many top Nazis in the early years and has great discriptions of life in Nazi Germany before the war. Speer's book give you an inside look at people and events from first to last. To Temper your reading, read the Bravest Battle about the Jewish fight against the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto and how brave they were in fighting and dying againt their Nazi foes.

Be careful of relying too much on Shirer's testimony. He experienced the Third Reich at first hand - this makes him a great witness and source of evidence but not necessarily a great historian!

Bullock's "A Study in Tyranny" is still regarded as a definite piece (and is highly readable).

Any book by Laurence Rees, he writes in every day language and does not over complicate the issues

The Nuremburg Trials took place from November 1945 to October 1946.

the SS and the Gestapo could arrest anyone that they thought opposed the Nazis or was a threat to them without a trial. This would scare people that opposed them so they would support the Nazis instead

The SS also ran concentration camps which would imprison the other political parties and anyone that was anti-Nazi leaving the Nazis as the only party in the Reichstag

Financial exploitation, slave labor and extermination.

Berlin, the German capital, though he did have a mountain retreat. Hitler, of course, did not think of that time as 'The Holocaust', which is the name given to that time by Jews. Hitler was trying to make most of the world subservient to Nazi Germany, partly by genocide of the Jews.

The treatment of German POWs (prisoners of war) varied depending on their captors. The Soviet Union used most of its German POWs for hard labour, and many of them perished. Many others were kept till 1955 as bargaining counters. On the whole Britain treated German POWs well. Obviously, there were times when a sudden advance led to a large number of soldiers being taken prisoner at the same time. which often caused practical problems.

Very few soldiers (including SS men) were put on trial.

* The SS conducted various experiments with gassing in 1939 (Poznan) and 1941 (Auschwitz). * Routine gassings started on 8 December 1941 at Chelmno using vans. * Routine gassings in fixed gas chambers began at Belzec in March 1942.

Among Hitler's programs that directly effected children were the Hitler Youth (a boy scout like program that provided military preperatory training and in the final stages of the war an actual childrens army to augment the Wermacht), the Lebensborn Program which sought out suitable young women to produce children that met the ideals of the Nazi's racial criteria. These children were raised in SS nurseries in the hopes of creating a master race. Children in occupied countries with Aryan traits were kidnapped for inclusion in the program. Children in the concentration camp system had little value as slave laborers and found themselves to be among the first to be exterminated. The German euthenasia programs also targeted children with birth or mental defects.

they hid or were hid with the help of sympathizers some were able to escape Poland and other countries and got to England and the U.S.of A. among other countries that would help them. how many were successful in avoiding the Nazis God only knows

In the Jewish diaspora, a Jewish quarter is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were often the outgrowths of segregated ghettos instituted by the surrounding Christian authorities or in World War Two, the Nazis. A Yiddish term for a Jewish quarter or neighborhood is "Di yiddishe gas" (Yiddish: די ייִדדישע גאַס ), or "The Jewish street". Many European and Middle Eastern cities once had a historical Jewish quarter and some still have it.

The Jews were the main target in Germany. The German genocide is also called the Holocaust.