The Causes of The Holocaust and The Role of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was born in Austria-Hungry and moved to Germany in 1913 to join the efforts of World War I. Hitler decided to try to take power through a government coup after the war in 1923 and failed. His failure led to his imprisonment where he spent his time writing his book called Mein Kampf. After gaining support he began to campaign about how the Jews are the cause of Capitalism and Communism. Adolf Hitler’s reign began in 1933 when he became the Chancellor of Germany. Throughout his dictatorship, Adolf established a genocide on all people with a Jewish decent living in Europe. A genocide is a deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nationality. Adolf Hitler’s reign and politics were caused by many things. For example, some causes of the Genocide were propaganda, fear, and pressure. Propaganda made skeptical Germans believe that concentration camps were a necessity, instead of being the slaughter houses that they actually were. Fear was another cause of the Holocaust because “fear for the consequences—if not physical harm than sanctions of some other kind—rose to the fore in various situations and at certain times—say, in the early months of Nazi rule characterized by terror to eliminate political opposition and during the war and occupation”. This caused Germans to join the Nazi party rather then resist it and put an end to the Holocaust. For Germany during Hitler’s rule the pressure of not joining the Nazi party was outweighed by the devastation that it caused.

Nazi control under Hitlers rule was based off of a lie. Hitler got his support by saying that the Jewish people were a threat to Germany. On January 30, 1939 Hitler told the people of Germany, “If international finance Jewry within Europe and abroad should succeed once more in plunging the peoples into a world war, then the consequence will be not the Bolshevization of the world and there with a victory of Jewry, but on the contrary, the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe”. What Hitler was saying in his speech is that if Germany was going to be involved in war then it would be the Jews fault. He also said that if this is so then instead of the Jewish people destroying Germany, Germany would destroy the Jewish people. Hitler was using the Jewish people as an excuse to start war and allow for his fellow Germans to follow his ideas and support the cause. Once Hitler had more then enough support from the people and the German military he took over. One of Hitlers first ideas were the Nuremberg Laws.

The Nuremberg laws allowed for the Germans to exclude the Jews from German Society. During this the Jewish people tried to flee from Germany by escaping to other counties such as France and Belgium. Some people escaped but most could not due to the strict immigration policies. For most people it would of taken years to legally get over the border. Some families were so desperate that they would send there children to ensure their safety. For those who could not flee Europe they would be sent to the Ghettos and Concentration camps. Hitler decided to attack Poland sparking the start of World War II. Here Germans gathered the Jewish people and sent them to the overcrowded Ghettos and concentration camps. Hitler established different types of Ghettos. For example, there was the Warsaw ghetto. The Warsaw ghetto “was to become the largest ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe”. Here Hitler had jewish people crowded in rooms allowing them to bring only the minimal with them and almost starving them to death with very little rations. From here Hitler ordered the Jews to be sent to Death camps such as Auschwitz. Auschawitz was a Jewish extermination camp. Here Germans sent them into dark chambers where they were gassed to death. “Between 1.1 and 1.5 million people died at Auschwitz; 90 percent of them were Jews”.

Adolf Hilter had many results of his reign in Germany. Due to the War that Hitler began, Germany had to rebuild massive buildings that were destroyed and knocked down. Hitler also caused Christianity to drop in Europe leading to secularism. According to a map based on weekly attendance in the Europe nations Germany had about less then ten percent of the population going to church. Since Hitler forced Germany and the countries around it to believe in his beliefs and practices they forgot about what they believed in and this led to a secularist country. Hilter also caused the deaths of over two hundred and fifty thousand jews and pows who were in concentration camps. This lead to the famous trials known aa the Nuremberg trials where Nazi leaders were tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity due to the inhuman way that they treated the Jewish people. Most of the leaders along with Adolf Hitlers personal physician who was found guilty preforming human experiments on the prisoners were sentenced to death. Adolf also caused a lot of pain to the people who survived the pain. Most of the people in these camps lost their husbands, wives, parents, and even their kids due to the extermination camps Hitler set up. This caused the survivors to feel guilt that there family members had died and not them. These events led The jewish people to feel humiliated to what had happened to them . Hitler overall caused physical and mental damage to not only the people of the concentration camps but the people of Germany and Germany itself.

Hitler died on April 30,1945. Hitler died by committing suicide. When “Allied forces converged on the capital of Nazi Germany, Hitler killed himself inside his Führerbunker”. Hitler would rather of killed himself then to of surrendered to the allied forces. By committing suicide Adolf left his men in the open. Hitlers wife Braun also decided to kill herslef along with him due to the fact that she would have nothing without him. Hilters propaganda chiefs wife “Magda made one last desperate plea for the Fuhrur to flee Berlin. She knew unless Hitler survived, her husband would refuse to leave the bunker, condemning her and her six children to their deaths”. Hitler abandoned his people when they needed him the most.

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