The Rise of The Nazi Party and The Holocaust

Do you think there was any influence of Americans on the rise of Nazi Germany? One can say, America was the reason why the Nazi Party gained its power. America has had a past with discrimination. And the Nazi Party didn’t gain its power out of anywhere. Americans/America had a great influence on the Growth of Nazi power. American Journalists, Companies, Government, and laws, all played a major role in letting Hitler become a Chancellor. After World War I, Germany was in a state of despair. It had lost over 2 million men out of the total population of 68 million at the start of the war. Germany was officially required to pay 33 billion USD. This caused hyperinflation in Germany. At a point, “literally took a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread” says Stephen Schuker, professor of history at the University of Virginia and author of American ‘Reparations’ to Germany. However, now, there was freedom of arts and politics and even sexual life. It was a ‘party town’ as Andrew Nagorski states it in his book, Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power. This brought in many excited Americans such as journalists, diplomats, and many businessmen. America has had a history of strong racial discrimination. Whether it’d be against the Native Americans or African Americans. The Nazi’s were influenced by such racism and used it for their own Anti-Semitism campaign.

According to John Toland, author of book Adolf Hitler, wrote “Hitler’s concept of concentration camps, as well as the practicality of genocide, owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity”(p. 202). Hitler studied the American-Indian genocide since it is estimated that it killed approximately 10 million Indians up to 100 million Indians. Hitler studied the fastest ways to exterminate a race in camps by starvation and diseases, which we saw used in the Jewish Camps. Another racial injustice studied by the Party was African Americans. In the book, Hitler’s American Model by James Q Whitman, “Jews of Germany were hounded, beaten, and sometimes murdered, by mobs and by the state alike. In the same years, the blacks of the American South were hounded, beaten, and sometimes murdered as well” (3), showed the situations of Germany were the same as Slavery history of America. Another significant similarity is that the Nazi Officials wondered if it was a necessity to write crimes such as interactions with jews, into laws, or “if education and enlightenment would suffice to prevent it” (95). Very similar to how Americans in the South were just born with the education of how African Americans are not to be interacted with.

The Party also studied Thomas Jefferson’s and Abraham Lincolns ideas to relocate African Americans, as stated in chapter 2 of Hitler’s American Role Model. The significance of these ideas is related to the method Germany used to locate and relocate Jews. Slavery was a huge part of American history. The Nazi’s studied the era of slavery and even claimed that “American race law looked too racist” (Hitler’s American Model, 5). Yet, after deciphering the American race law, aka Jim Crow Laws, the Nuremberg laws were passed, which allowed them to prosecute Jewish people during the Holocaust and WWII. The Nazi implemented a version of anti-miscegenation law which prohibited interracial marriage in the United States. Though, they had a problem, how do you determine a Jew, from a non-Jew? After studying American Law again, the One-Drop rule any black ancestry was considered black. Henceforth, the Nazi’s changed the rule a little bit and made it any Jew with 3 or more Jewish Grandparents is considered Jewish, which leads to Whitman (Hitler’s America Model) stating “that American racial classification law was much harsher than anything the Nazis themselves were willing to introduce in Germany.” This is a huge deal as it shows that the Nazi’s even though they later introduced the camps, at first, they weren’t as racist as even the America during it’s Jim Crow-era. With the party scene currently in Germany, brought in Journalists.

The Journalists would write about the new government, which would include interviews with Hitler himself. Though it should’ve been obvious of the upcoming events like another World War under Hitler’s rise, journalists such as Dorothy Thompson misjudged Hitler and wrote an article to call him pathetic and futile. The opening lines itself in the article were “ WHEN I WALKED into Adolph Hitler’s salon in the Kaiserhof hotel, I was convinced that I was meeting the future dictator of Germany, In something like fifty seconds I was quite sure that I was not. It took just about that time to measure the startling insignificance of this man who has set the world agog.” This already makes the reader of the article feel much relieved. She continued, “He is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature, a man whose framework seems cartilaginous, without bones,” and “He is inconsequent and voluble, ill-posed, insecure. He is the very prototype of the Little Man. A lock of lank hair falls over an insignificant and slightly retreating forehead. . . .The nose is large, but badly shaped and without character. His movements are awkward, almost undignified and most un-martial. . . .The eyes alone are notable. Dark gray and hyperthyroid—they have the peculiar shine which often distinguishes geniuses, alcoholics, and hysterics.” She did not stop there and kept bashing him on the New York Times newspaper how pathetic he was and “cannot carry on a conversation with Adolph Hitler, He speaks always as though he were addressing a mass meeting. In personal intercourse, he is shy, almost embarrassed.” She called him the “Little Man” throughout her article, in hopes to nullify the dangers Hitler might posses when he takes over Germany, even though he clearly states his intentions, during the interview, to abolish the Government legally.

This led to her expulsion from Germany itself. Popular American media sources such as herself gave the world a deceiving characterization of Hitler. Although Anti-Semitism local newspapers were common throughout the United States, Henry Ford’s The Dearborn Independent newspaper really stood out. Since he was also a huge automotive car manufacturer, all of his dealerships would have the newspaper throughout the United States and in fact other countries to influence them to be hostile against Jews. These specific articles were called “The International Jew”. Hitler was well aware of this newspaper, and was impressed by some of the ideas posed in the articles. After all, Henry Ford is the only American mentioned in the Mein Kampf “only a single great man, Ford, [who], to [the Jews’] fury, still maintains full independence…[from] the controlling masters of the producers in a nation of one hundred and twenty million.” This goes to show how disastrous fake newspapers and article against a race or group can be. One can even state that Ford gave Hitler some of the ideas to eradicate the Jewish Ethnicity. Such newspaper still exists sometimes giving us deceiving news or even discriminating against a group of people in the newspaper.

The American views on the European Jewish Comunity had been changing as well. With the rise of Hitler and his election of becoming a chancellor, many Jews were trying to escape Europe. A huge controversy remains as to why America stopped accepting refugee’s escaping from Hitler’s Regime. Nine Hundred and thirty-seven Jews were aboard the SS St. Louis trying to escape Europe and the Third Reich overall. When the ship arrived in Havana, 29 passengers were allowed to leave the ship, the rest ended up returning back to Europe. This made every Anti-Semitism newspaper in America and Europe. Hitler used this as propaganda to state that even a superpower such as the USA was not able to help them escape the Third Reich. This is particularly been happening recently with the Trump Administration ban on immigration from mid-eastern countries in particular. This means no one from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen were able to come to America for 90 days.

Donald Trump also stated that he would give priority to Cristian Refugees over other religions. Many American banks were being exposed to seizing numerous amounts of accounts held by Jews. A recent unclassified source from the US Treasury states that the Chase bank had a local branch in Paris, which worked “in close collaboration with the German authorities” in seizing over 100 accounts held by Jews. A New York Daily News report of 1998 wrote that the Cheif manager of Chase bank in Paris wrote to his supervisor in Manhatten that he had “very special esteem” with top German officials and “a rapid expansion of deposits.” A federal investigation states that Chase bank wasn’t the only bank involved in seizing accounts. It was five banks in total, Chase Manhattan, J.P. Morgan, Guarantee Trust o. Of New York, Bank of the City of New York, and American Express. They were handing over the Jewish bank accounts to the Nazi Party. Later in 2004, The Guardian posted “George Bush’s grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.” Prescott Bush worked for the Brown Brothers Harriman was a cover to a German Industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance the Party before Hitler became the chancellor. Bush founded his own bank, UBC with the help of the Brown Brothers Company. He later on “bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal, and US treasury bonds to Germany, both feeding and financing Hitler’s build-up to war.” This was a huge blow to the allied powers, especially when their own money was being sent over to Germany to help them gain power and build up an army. The bank was later caught red-handed 8 months after America had already entered the war.

This shows that people will do anything that involves money, even if it means going against your own country. One of the greatest advantages for the Nazi Party was when the Stock Market Crashed on October 29, 1929. Germany’s economy was very poor before the Great Depression, and it hurt the country even more. German exports dried up because of the worldwide financial market crashed. As the exports dropped, the production levels fell, which led to higher unemployment rates. The crash made the already hyperinflated economy, get worst, hence many middle-class men were now poor, because of an event that didn’t even take place in their own country. The workers desperately needed a solution. This is when the Nazi party sprang into action and used it’s propaganda to influence the workers to join the party. While the Nazi party was taking advantage of the depression, the government was crumbling and splitting up because of the depression. At last, due to the need of a great financial program, and outrageous opposition against the Reichstag, Bruening requested the dissolvement of Reichstag and re-election to be held.

Hence, the Nazi Party’s time to campaign, and with the vast amount of workers in favor of the Nazi Party, Hitler had no problems becoming the chancellor. In conclusion, the Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression indirectly influenced the rise of the Nazi Party enormously. If the Great Depression had never happened, the Nazi Party’s power would be 100,000 people instead of the 8.5 million. They would’ve never been able to win the 107 seats without the help of the poor, as Hitler states it. It was no question that multiple American companies were helping the Nazi Power become powerful. It wouldn’t really be much of an uprise to mention Ford as he already published Anti-Semitism Papers. Though another surprising car company was General Motors, to help out Nazi Power. They both provided the party with cars. However, according to investigations by James Mooney, GM had a meeting with Hitler to discuss the creation of engines for the Nazi Fighter Planes. It didn’t stop there, GM and Ford then supplied the party with most of the vehicles used for war and before the war. And they both used french slaves to build the vehicles for them to defeat their own country. To review, America had way more influence that one might have thought. Everything from American people, till the American Government indirectly helped out the Nazi Party. Nazi party got its laws from the US, and it got it’s fame from the US as well. They got help from multiple different American Companies when it came to goods for the wars and just goods in general. They also got support from Journalists, when they undermined his seriousness, and when local American Newspaper would release Anti-Semitism Articles.

Numerous famous people also had a significant influence on the Nazi Party. One must wonder what would have happened if none of these scenarios didn’t happen. Would the Nazi Party still have taken over Germany’s Government and started a WWII, or would WWII have been prevented if American’s just never got involved from the start? That is an unsolvable mystery, though we now know what really caused the Nazi Power Rise. US.

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