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In 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, the Russians greatly outnumbered the Germans. But the Russians' technology was very outdated, the Germans were able to surprise attack Moscow, and due to weather issues the attacks were stalled.

Hitler is the starter of the Holocaust, I don't know if it was called that back then, but it was a massacre about six million Jews, and others.

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World War II: Summary, Combatants & Facts | HISTORY

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World War II was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. Rising to power in an unstable Germany, Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi Party) rearmed the nation and signed treaties with Italy and Japan to further his ambitions of world domination. Hitler’s invasion of Poland drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, and World War II had begun. The majority of the world’s countries eventually formed two opposing alliances: the Allies and the Axis.

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This article explains what happened, when it happened, and why. In January 1933, the Holocaust era started, and in May 1945, the Holocaust ended.

This relates to Anne Frank, because she lived through the Holocaust, in her diary, she mentions the start of it.

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The Holocaust (1933-1945) was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum defines the years of the Holocaust as 1933-1945. The Holocaust era began in January 1933 when 1 Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. It ended in May 1945, when the Allied Powers defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. The Holocaust is also sometimes referred to as "the Shoah," the Hebrew word for "catastrophe."

When they came to power in Germany, the Nazis did not immediately start to carry out mass murder. However, they quickly began using the government to target and exclude Jews from German society. Among other antisemitic measures, the Nazi German regime enacted discriminatory laws and organized violence targeting Germany's Jews. The Nazi persecution of Jews became increasingly radical between 1933 and 1945. This radicalization culminated in a plan that Nazi leaders referred to as the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." The "Final Solution" was the organized and systematic mass murder of European Jews. The Nazi German regime implemented this genocide between 1941 and 1945.

Why did the Nazis target Jews?

The Nazis targeted Jews because the Nazis were radically antisemitic. This means that they were prejudiced against and hated Jews. In fact, antisemitism was a basic tenet of their ideology and at the foundation of their worldview.

The Nazis falsely accused Jews of causing Germany's social, economic, political, and cultural problems. In particular, they blamed them for Germany's defeat in World War I (1914-1918). Some Germans were receptive to these Nazi claims. Anger over the loss of the war and the economic and political crises that followed contributed to increasing antisemitism in German society. The instability of Germany under the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), the fear of communism, and the economic shocks of the Great Depression also made many Germans more open to Nazi ideas, including antisemitism.

However, the Nazis did not invent antisemitism. Antisemitism is an old and widespread prejudice that has taken many forms throughout history. In Europe, it dates back to ancient times. In the the myth that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. Suspicion and discrimination rooted in religious prejudices continued in legal restrictions on Jews. This, however, did not mean the end of antisemitism. In addition to religious antisemitism, Middle Ages (500-1400), prejudices against Jews were primarily based in early Christian belief and thought, particularly early modern Europe (1400-1800). At that time, leaders in much of Christian Europe isolated Jews from most aspects of economic, social, and political life. This exclusion contributed to stereotypes of Jews as outsiders. As Europe became more secular, many places lifted most other types of antisemitism

The Nazi Party promoted a particularly virulent form of racial antisemitism. It was central to the party's race-based worldview. The Nazis believed that the world was divided into distinct races and that some of these races were superior to others. They considered Germans to be members of the supposedly superior "Aryan" race. They asserted that "Aryans" were locked in a struggle for existence with other, inferior races. Further, the Nazis believed that the so-called "Jewish race" was the most inferior and dangerous of all. According to the Nazis, Jews were a threat that needed to be removed from German society. Otherwise, the Nazis insisted, the "Jewish race" would permanently corrupt and destroy the German people. The Nazis' race-based definition of Jews included many persons who identified as Christians or did not practice Judaism.

Where did the Holocaust take place?

The Holocaust was a Nazi German initiative that took place throughout German- and Axis-controlled Europe. It affected nearly all of Europe's Jewish population, which in 1933 numbered 9 million people.

The Holocaust began in Germany after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933. Almost immediately, the Nazi German regime (which called itself the Third Reich) excluded Jews from German economic, political, social, and cultural life. Throughout the 1930s, the regime increasingly pressured Jews to emigrate.

But the Nazi persecution of Jews spread beyond Germany. Throughout the 1930s, Nazi Germany pursued an aggressive foreign policy. This culminated in World War II, which began in Europe in 1939. Prewar and wartime territorial expansion eventually brought millions more Jewish people under German control.

Nazi Germany's territorial expansion began in 1938-1939. During this time, Germany annexed neighboring Austria and the Sudetenland and occupied the Czech lands. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany began World War II (1939-1945) by attacking Poland. Over the next two years, Germany invaded and occupied much of Europe, including western parts of the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany further extended its control by forming alliances with the governments of Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. It also created puppet states in Slovakia and Croatia. Together these countries made up the European members of the Axis alliance, which also included Japan.

By 1942-as a result of annexations, invasions, occupations, and alliances-Nazi Germany controlled most of Europe and parts of North Africa. Nazi control brought harsh policies and ultimately mass murder to Jewish civilians across Europe.

The Nazis and their allies and collaborators murdered six million Jews.

Geography of the Holocaust

How did Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators persecute Jewish people?

Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators implemented a wide range of anti-Jewish policies and measures. These policies varied from place to place. Thus, not all Jews experienced the Holocaust in the same way. But in all instances, millions of people were persecuted simply because they were identified as Jewish.

Throughout German-controlled and aligned territories, the persecution of Jews took a variety of forms:

Legal discrimination in the form of antisemitic laws. These included the Nuremberg Race Laws and numerous other discriminatory laws.

These included Various forms of public identification and exclusion. antisemitic propaganda, boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses, public humiliation, and obligatory markings (such as the Jewish star badge worn as an armband or on clothing).

The most notable example is There were also isolated incidents and other Organized violence. Kristallnacht.pogroms (violent riots).

Physical Displacement. Perpetrators used forced emigration, resettlement, expulsion, deportation, and ghettoization to physically displace Jewish individuals and communities.

in overcrowded Internment. Perpetrators interned Jews ghettos, concentration camps, and forced-labor camps, where many died from starvation, disease, and other inhumane conditions.

Widespread theft and plunder. The confiscation of Jews' property, personal belongings, and valuables was a key part of the Holocaust.

Jews had to perform Forced labor. forced labor in service of the Axis war effort or for the enrichment of Nazi organizations, the military, and/or private businesses.

Many Jews died as a result of these policies. But before 1941, the systematic mass murder of all Jews was not Nazi policy. Beginning in 1941, however, Nazi leaders decided to implement the mass murder of Europe's Jews. They referred to this plan as the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question."

What was the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question"?

The Nazi "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" (" Endlösung der Judenfrage ") was the deliberate and systematic mass murder of European Jews. It was the last stage of the Holocaust and took place from 1941 to 1945. Though many Jews were killed before the "Final Solution" began, the vast majority of Jewish victims were murdered during this period.

Nazi Germany committed mass murder on an unprecedented scale. There were two main methods of killing. One method was As part of the "Final Solution," mass shooting. German units carried out mass shootings on the outskirts of villages, towns, and cities throughout eastern Europe. The other method was asphyxiation with poison gas. Gassing operations were conducted at killing centers and with mobile gas vans.

Mass Shootings

The Nazi German regime perpetrated mass shootings of civilians on a scale never seen before. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, German units began to carry out mass shootings of local Jews. At first, these units targeted Jewish men of military age. But by August 1941, they had started massacring entire Jewish communities. These massacres were often conducted in broad daylight and in full view and earshot of local residents.

Mass shooting operations took place in more than 1,500 cities, towns, and villages across eastern Europe. German units tasked with murdering the local Jewish population moved throughout the region committing horrific massacres. Typically, these units would enter a town and round up the Jewish civilians. They would then take the Jewish residents to the outskirts of the town. Next, they would force them to dig a mass grave or take them to mass graves prepared in advance. Finally, German forces and/or local auxiliary units would shoot all of the men, women, and children into these pits. Sometimes, these massacres involved the use of specially designed mobile gas vans. Perpetrators would use these vans to suffocate victims with carbon monoxide exhaust.

at these killing sites. At Maly Trostenets, thousands of victims were also murdered in gas vans.

The German units that perpetrated the mass shootings in eastern Europe included (special task forces of the SS and police), units. The provided logistical support and manpower. Some Wehrmacht units also carried out massacres. In many places, local auxiliary units working with the Einsatzgruppen Order Police battalions, and Waffen-SS German military ( Wehrmacht ) SS and police participated in the mass shootings. These auxiliary units were made up of local civilian, military, and police officials.

As many as 2 million Jews were murdered in mass shootings or gas vans in territories seized from Soviet forces.

Killing Centers

In late 1941, the Nazi regime began building specially designed, stationary killing centers in German-occupied Poland. In English, killing centers are sometimes called "extermination camps" or "death camps." Nazi Germany operated five killing centers: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. They built these killing centers for the sole purpose of efficiently murdering Jews on a mass scale. The primary means of murder at the killing centers was poisonous gas released into sealed gas chambers or vans.

German authorities, with the help of their allies and collaborators, transported Jews from across Europe to these killing centers. They disguised their intentions by calling the transports to the killing centers "resettlement actions" or "evacuation transports." In English, they are often referred to as "deportations." Most of these deportations took place by train. In order to efficiently transport Jews to the killing centers, German authorities used the extensive European railroad system, as well as other means of transportation. In many cases the railcars on the trains were freight cars; in other instances they were passenger cars.

The conditions on deportation transports were horrific. German and collaborating local authorities forced Jews of all ages into overcrowded railcars. They often had to stand, sometimes for days, until the train reached its destination. The perpetrators deprived them of food, water, bathrooms, heat, and medical care. Jews frequently died en route from the inhumane conditions.

The vast majority of Jews deported to killing centers were gassed almost immediately after their arrival. Some Jews whom German officials believed to be healthy and strong enough were selected for forced labor.

My mother ran over to me and grabbed me by the shoulders, and she told me "Leibele, I'm not going to see you no more. Take care of your brother."
- Leo Schneiderman describing arrival at Auschwitz, selection, and separation from his family

At all five killing centers, German officials forced some Jewish prisoners to assist in the killing process. Among other tasks, these prisoners had to sort through victims' belongings and remove victims' bodies from the gas chambers. Special units disposed of the millions of corpses through mass burial, in burning pits, or by burning them in large, specially designed crematoria.

Nearly 2.7 million Jewish men, women, and children were murdered at the five killing centers.

What were ghettos and why did German authorities create them during the Holocaust?

Ghettos were areas of cities or towns where German occupiers forced Jews to live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. German authorities often enclosed these areas by building walls or other barriers. Guards prevented Jews from leaving without permission. Some ghettos existed for years, but others existed only for months, weeks, or even days as holding sites prior to deportation or murder.

German officials first created ghettos in 1939-1940 in German-occupied Poland. The two largest were located in the occupied Polish cities of Warsaw and Lodz (Łódź). Beginning in June 1941, German officials also established them in newly conquered territories in eastern Europe following the German attack on the Soviet Union. German authorities and their allies and collaborators also established ghettos in other parts of Europe. Notably, in 1944, German and Hungarian authorities created temporary ghettos to centralize and control Jews prior to their deportation from Hungary.

The Purpose of the Ghettos

German authorities originally established the ghettos to isolate and control the large local Jewish populations in occupied eastern Europe. Initially, they concentrated Jewish residents from within a city and the surrounding area or region. However, beginning in 1941, German officials also deported Jews from other parts of Europe (including Germany) to some of these ghettos.

Jewish forced labor became a central feature of life in many ghettos. In theory, it was supposed to help pay for the administration of the ghetto as well as support the German war effort. Sometimes, factories and workshops were established nearby in order to exploit the imprisoned Jews for forced labor. The labor was often manual and grueling.

Life in the Ghettos

Life in the ghettos was miserable and dangerous. There was little food and limited sanitation or medical care. Hundreds of thousands of people died by starvation; rampant disease; exposure to extreme temperatures; as well as exhaustion from forced labor. Germans also murdered the imprisoned Jews through brutal beatings, torture, arbitrary shootings, and other forms of arbitrary violence.

Jews in the ghettos sought to maintain a sense of dignity and community. Schools, libraries, communal welfare services, and religious institutions provided some measure of connection among residents. Attempts to document life in the ghettos, such as the Many ghettos also had underground movements that carried out armed resistance. The most famous of these is the Oneg Shabbat archive and clandestine photography, are powerful examples of Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943. spiritual resistance.

Liquidating the Ghettos

Beginning in 1941-1942, Germans and their allies and collaborators murdered ghetto residents en masse and dissolved ghetto administrative structures. They called this process "liquidation." It was part of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." The majority of Jews in the ghettos were murdered either in mass shootings at nearby killing sites or after deportation to killing centers. Most of the killing centers were deliberately located near the large ghettos of German-occupied Poland or on easily-accessible railway routes.

Who was responsible for carrying out the Holocaust and the Final Solution?

Many people were responsible for carrying out the Holocaust and the Final Solution.

At the highest level, inspired, ordered, approved, and supported the genocide of Europe's Jews. However, Hitler did not act alone. Nor did he lay out an exact plan for the implementation of the Final Solution. Other Nazi leaders were the ones who directly coordinated, planned, and implemented the mass murder. Among them were Adolf Hitler Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and Adolf Eichmann.

However, millions of Germans and other Europeans participated in the Holocaust. Without their involvement, the genocide of the Jewish people in Europe would not have been possible. Nazi leaders relied upon German institutions and organizations; other Axis powers; local bureaucracies and institutions; and individuals.

German Institutions, Organizations, and Individuals

(the SD), the the Nazi leaders relied on many German institutions and organizations to help them carry out the Holocaust. Members of Nazi organizations initiated and carried out many anti-Jewish actions before and during World War II. These organizations Schutzstaffel , Protection Squadron). Once the war began, the SS and its police affiliates became especially deadly. Members of the Sicherheitsdienst Gestapo ,Criminal Police (Kripo), and the Order Police played particularly active and deadly roles in the mass murder of Europe's Jews. Other German institutions involved in carrying out the Final Solution included the German military; the German national railway and healthcare systems; the German civil service and criminal justice systems; and German businesses, insurance companies, and banks.

chose to implement the regime's policies. Ordinary Germans also participated in the Holocaust in a variety of ways. Some Germans cheered as Jews were beaten or humiliated. Others denounced Jews for disobeying racist laws and regulations. Many Germans bought, took, or looted their Jewish neighbors' belongings and property. These Germans' participation in the Holocaust was motivated by enthusiasm, careerism, fear, greed, self-interest, antisemitism, and political ideals, among other factors.

Non-German Governments and Institutions

Nazi Germany did not perpetrate the Holocaust alone. It relied on the help of its allies and collaborators. In this context, "allies" refers to Axis countries officially allied with Nazi Germany. "Collaborators" refers to regimes and organizations that cooperated with German authorities in an official or semi-official capacity. Nazi Germany's allies and collaborators included:

The European Axis Powers and other collaborationist regimes (such as Vichy France). These governments passed their own antisemitic legislation and cooperated with German goals.

These organizations helped round up, intern, and deport Jews even in countries not allied with Germany, such as German-backed local bureaucracies, especially local police forces. the Netherlands.

Local auxiliary units made up of military and police officials and civilians. These German-backed units participated in massacres of Jews in eastern Europe (often voluntarily).

The terms "allies" and "collaborators" can also refer to individuals affiliated with these governments and organizations.

Individuals across Europe

Throughout Europe, individuals who had no governmental or institutional affiliation and did not directly participate in murdering Jews also contributed to the Holocaust.

One of the deadliest things that neighbors, acquaintances, colleagues, and even friends could do was denounce Jews to Nazi German authorities. An unknown number chose to do so. They revealed Jews' hiding places, unmasked false Christian identities, and otherwise identified Jews to Nazi officials. In doing so, they brought about their deaths. These individuals' motivations were wide-ranging: fear, self-interest, greed, revenge, antisemitism, and political and ideological beliefs.

Individuals also profited from the Holocaust. Non-Jews sometimes moved into Jews' homes, took over Jewish-owned businesses, and stole Jews' possessions and valuables. This was part of the widespread theft and plunder that accompanied the genocide.

Most often individuals contributed to the Holocaust through inaction and indifference to the plight of their Jewish neighbors. Sometimes these individuals are called bystanders.

Who were the other victims of Nazi persecution and mass murder?

The Holocaust specifically refers to the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews. However, there were also millions of other victims of Nazi persecution and murder. In the 1930s, the regime targeted a variety of alleged domestic enemies within German society. As the Nazis extended their reach during World War II, millions of other Europeans were also subjected to Nazi brutality.

The Nazi regime also targeted Germans whose activities were deemed harmful to German society. These included men accused of homosexuality, persons accused of being professional or habitual criminals, and so-called asocials (such as people identified as vagabonds, beggars, prostitutes, pimps, and alcoholics). Tens of thousands of these victims were incarcerated in prisons and concentration camps. The regime also forcibly sterilized and persecuted Afro-Germans.

People with disabilities were also victimized by the Nazi regime. Before World War II, Germans considered to have supposedly unhealthy hereditary conditions were forcibly sterilized. Once the war began, Nazi policy radicalized. People with disabilities, especially those living in institutions, were considered both a genetic and a financial burden on Germany. These people were targeted for murder in the so-called Euthanasia Program.

The Nazi regime employed extreme measures against groups considered to be racial, civilizational, or ideological enemies. This included Roma (Gypsies),

How did the Holocaust end?

so-called The Holocaust ended in May 1945 when the major Allied Powers (Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union) defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. As Allied forces moved across Europe in a series of offensives, they overran concentration camps. There they liberated the surviving prisoners, many of whom were Jews. The Allies also encountered and liberated the survivors of death marches. These forced marches consisted of groups of Jewish and non-Jewish concentration camp inmates who had been evacuated on foot from camps under SS guard.

But liberation did not bring closure. Many Holocaust survivors faced ongoing threats of violent antisemitism and displacement as they sought to build new lives. Many had lost family members, while others searched for years to locate missing parents, children, and siblings.

How did some Jews survive the Holocaust?

Despite Nazi Germany's efforts to murder all the Jews of Europe, some Jews survived the Holocaust. Survival took a variety of forms. But, in every case, survival was only possible because of an extraordinary confluence of circumstances, choices, help from others (both Jewish and non-Jewish), and sheer luck.

Survival outside of German-Controlled Europe

Some Jews survived the Holocaust by escaping German-controlled Europe. Before World War II began, hundreds of thousands of Jews emigrated from Nazi Germany despite significant immigration barriers. Those who immigrated to the United States, Great Britain, and other areas that remained beyond German control were safe from Nazi violence. Even after World War II began, some Jews managed to escape German-controlled Europe. For example, approximately 200,000 Polish Jews fled the German occupation of Poland. These Jews survived the war under harsh conditions after Soviet authorities deported them further east into the interior of the Soviet Union.

Survival in German-Controlled Europe

A smaller number of Jews survived inside German-controlled Europe. They often did so with the help of rescuers. Rescue efforts ranged from the isolated actions of individuals to organized networks, both small and large. Throughout Europe, there were non-Jews who took grave risks to help their Jewish neighbors, friends, and strangers survive. For example, they found hiding places for Jews, procured false papers that offered protective Christian identities, or provided them with food and supplies. Other Jews survived as members of partisan resistance movements. Finally, some Jews managed, against enormous odds, to survive imprisonment in concentration camps, ghettos, and even killing centers.

Aftermath

While the Holocaust ended with the war, the legacy of terror and genocide did not. By the end of World War II, six million Jews and millions of others were dead. Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators had devastated or completely destroyed thousands of Jewish communities across Europe.

In the those Jews who survived were often confronted with the traumatic reality of having lost their entire families and communities. Some were able to go home and chose to rebuild their lives in Europe. Many others were afraid to do so because of aftermath of the Holocaust, postwar violence and antisemitism. In the immediate postwar period, those who could not or would not return home often found themselves living in displaced persons camps. There, many had to wait years before they were able to immigrate to new homes.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the world has struggled to come to terms with the horrors of the genocide, to remember the victims, and to hold perpetrators responsible. These important efforts remain ongoing.

Last Edited: Nov 5, 2021

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

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Introduction to the Holocaust: What was the Holocaust?

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Learn about the Holocaust, the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

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Hitler hated certain types of people, these people included Jews, Marxists, and others. He repeated this quote many times in his lifetime, "Never Again." Hitler meant this for the "Criminals" or the people who would never be allowed to sabotage the German army.

This is the start of the Holocaust, where Jews and many others suffered; some sent to death camps and concentration camps.

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nonfiction

Hitler greeting German troops in Poland, Oct. 5, 1939. Credit... Associated Press

When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.

HITLER
Downfall 1939-1945
By Volker Ullrich

"Never Again." Adolf Hitler repeated that slogan over and over. He did so from his first election campaigns in the 1920s until his final appeal to the German people urging them to resist Allied invaders in 1945. Familiar to us when we think about the Holocaust, Hitler's words referred to German victims, however, not murdered Jews. They incorporated the promise that the revolution establishing the Weimar Republic in November 1918 would "never be repeated in German history." What are the implications of Hitler's vow "Never Again"?

"Never Again" identified specifically domestic enemies, so-called "November criminals," Marxists, Jews and others, who would never be allowed to sabotage Germany as they allegedly had at the end of World War I or to reroute German history into what Hitler regarded as parliamentary chaos and moral degeneration. The recovery of German fortunes depended on crushing left-wing forces. As soon as he had seized power, Hitler promised heads "rolling in the sand."

"Never Again" also embellished the fantasy that the Allies, acting in concert with the "November criminals," had very nearly succeeded in eradicating the German nation in 1918-19. Figures of Germans rounded up, deported or exterminated and reduced to ashes littered Nazi propaganda. With this embattled worldview, Hitler led the revitalized Third Reich with the clear aim to pre-emptively and repeatedly strike at declared enemies in what he considered to be a remorseless struggle for existence. As he explained to the Nazi elite in April 1944, "Exterminate, so that you yourself will not be exterminated!" "Never Again" preparedthe horrific scale of German violence in the years 1939-45.

Volker Ullrich, a distinguished German journalist, reintroduces Adolf Hitler, his fantasies and designs, and his wartime relationship to Germans, in "Hitler: Downfall 1939-1945," the second volume of his skillfully conceived and utterly engrossing biography. In his account, Hitler emerges as the central figure guiding the course of the war. Hitler's commitment to expand Germany's living space and his resolve to destroy rather than defeat Germany's enemies so that they "will never again rise up" show how his ideas about 1918 directly influenced the conduct of World War II. For Hitler to achieve these aims, Ullrich stresses his "tendency to go for broke," in part because the German leader was afraid that he would arrive too late. This audacity propelled German soldiers across the globe with early and astonishing success. It also "proved to be his undoing" because it "led him to overstretch himself." The author argues that the turning point was not Stalingrad in January 1943 but the failure of Operation Barbarossa, stalled on the outskirts of Moscow, in December 1941. By that point the Germans had suffered more than 750,000 casualties. From then on, the "downfall," both Hitler's and Germany's, became painfully clear.

All the major decisions of the war were Hitler's, and these were often made on extremely short notice: the decision to invade Poland and then Western Europe, the priority of the push against the Soviet Union, the declaration of war against the United States, the fateful choice to divert Army Group A from Stalingrad. "Everyone is waiting with bated breath for the Führer's coming decisions" is how Joseph Goebbels, the powerful propaganda chief, pointedly described the general situation. Hitler's generals followed him, usually eagerly, always obediently; opposition to orders was rarely voiced, and the plot to assassinate Hitler 76 years ago lacked all but a small handful of brave, doomed supporters.

Hitler was also the driving force behind the Holocaust. Ullrich quotes one of his henchmen at Nuremberg: "He causes ... the motion that is transferred to figures whose dynamics release other dynamics, but the central figure Hitler with his surprising impetuses always remains the actual motor of the rotating stage."

Hitler's toxic anti-Semitism set the pace and set the stage. He repeatedly returned to his "prophecy" of January 1939 in which he predicted the annihilation of the Jews in the event of a new world war. By February 1942 the conditional future tense of the prophecy was expressed in the present tense, and in May 1944, Hitler spoke in the past tense. With every speech he tightened the circle of complicity. Ullrich makes the persuasive case that Hitler abandoned a "territorial solution," in which Jews would somehow be pushed into the far reaches of Russia, for physical annihilation at the end of 1941. (Either "solution" was genocidal.) Goebbels set the scene of a meeting of party leaders in Hitler's private apartment in the Reich Chancellery on Dec. 12, immediately after Germany's declaration of war on the United States, and with the Soviet Union suddenly on the offensive: "The Führer has decided on a total cleanup" of "the Jewish question." What had been postponed would happen now. Ullrich accepts the historian Saul Friedländer's conclusion that the line had been crossed from "local murder operations" to "overall extermination" in newly purposed death camps.

"Without Hitler," Ullrich asserts, "there would have been no Holocaust." But, he adds, without thousands of accomplices there could have been no Holocaust. Ullrich extends the list from the party apparatus to the Wehrmacht, and to railway officials, career diplomats and foreign collaborators, as well as "untold numbers" of ordinary Germans, both men and women, who "bought up the household items" of deported Jews "at bargain prices" in public auctions.

Ullrich attentively scans the crowd because it was the crowd that legitimated the leader. Until the very end, astonishing numbers of Germans retained faith in Hitler. It was only when American and British soldiers arrived, Ullrich notes, that "portraits of Hitler disappeared from offices and private homes, copies of 'Mein Kampf' were removed from bookshelves and uniforms, party insignia and swastika banners were burned." But Hitler himself ultimately lost faith in the Germans, inviting his nation's apocalyptic self-destruction in what Ullrich calls a "staged exit." The people had "proven themselves to be 'weaker' than their opponents." Already when he launched Barbarossa in June 1941, Hitler gambled: "We must achieve victory" or "be wiped out." Going for broke, it was all or nothing, Nazi roulette.

Ullrich concludes this accomplished biography with lessons about "how quickly democracy can be prised from its hinges when political institutions fail" and "how thin the mantle separating civilization and barbarism actually is." The history of the Third Reich teaches us about "what human beings are capable of when the rule of law and ethical norms are suspended." The inhumane enlarged the idea of the human. To these lessons we can add that it is precisely the allure of national and racial uplift and the temptation to constitute "us" by excluding "them" that diminish law and morality. Readers and writers persistently return to the rise and fall of Hitler - Ullrich's biography is the latest on a long shelf. There is the force of Hitler's personality and the consequence of the will of a single individual, of course. But we also return because the Third Reich reveals the power of public fantasies. The liberal mind-set is not the default position.

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nonfiction When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. HITLER Downfall 1939-1945 By Volker Ullrich "Never Again." Adolf Hitler repeated that slogan over and over. He did so from his first election campaigns in the 1920s until his final appeal to the German people urging them to resist Allied invaders in 1945.

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The Nazi's had many ways to hold Jewish citizens. The Nazi's had many different camps, death camps, forced labor, concentration camps, hybrid camps, and many more.

This article tells you about the many camps/getos the Nazi's had. I included this article because it is important to know and understand what these people went through.

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The Nazis created at least 44,000 camps, including ghettos and other sites of incarceration, between 1933 and 1945. The camps served various functions, from imprisoning “enemies of the state” to serving as way stations in larger deportation schemes to murdering people in gas chambers.

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Anne Frank lived back when the Holocaust started and was still alive when it ended. She and her family, some of her friends, hide in the 'Secret Annex' of an old office building, the Annex was giant.

This relates to the topic because Anne Frank was a living girl during the Holocaust. Anne and the people that she was with got very lucky, when all the Jews where being whisked away, they were safe and well fed.

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Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz

Anne Frank and her family fled Germany after the Nazis seized power in 1933 and resettled in the Netherlands, where her father, Otto, had business connections. The Germans occupied Amsterdam in May 1940, and two years later German authorities with help from their Dutch collaborators began rounding up Jews and ultimately deported them to killing centers.

In July 1942, Anne, her sister, Margot, her mother, Edith, and her father went into hiding. They huddled into a secret attic apartment behind the office of the family-owned business at 263 Prinsengracht Street, which would eventually hide four Dutch Jews as well.

While in hiding, Anne kept a diary in which she recorded her fears, hopes, and experiences. She received her first diary on her 13th birthday, June 12, 1942. She wrote:

I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely, as I have never been able to do in anyone before, and I hope that you will be a great support and comfort to me.

I expect you will be interested to hear what it feels like to hide; well, all I can say is that I don't know myself yet. I don't think I shall ever feel really at home in this house but that does not mean that I loathe it here, it is more like being on vacation in a very peculiar boardinghouse. Rather a mad way of looking at being in hiding perhaps but that is how it strikes me. [July 11, 1942] The fact that we can never go outside bothers me more than I can say, and then I'm really afraid that we'll be discovered and shot, not a very nice prospect, needless to say. [July 11, 1942]

Anne also wrote short stories, fairy tales, and essays. In her diary, she reflected on her "pen children," as she called her writings. On September 2, 1943, she began to meticulously copy them into a notebook and added a table of contents so that it would resemble a published book. She gave it the title "Stories and Events from the Annex." Occasionally she read a story to the inhabitants of the annex, and she wrote about her intention to send one of her fairy tales to a Dutch magazine. Increasingly, she expressed her desire to be an author or journalist.

On March 28, 1944, a radio broadcast from the Dutch government-in-exile in London urged the Dutch people to keep diaries, letters, and other items that would document life under German occupation. Prompted by this announcement, Anne began to edit her diary, hoping to publish it after the war under the title "The Secret Annex." From May 20 until her arrest on August 4, 1944, she transferred nearly two-thirds of her diary from her original notebooks to loose pages, making various revisions in the process.

Just imagine how interesting it would be if I were to publish a romance of the "Secret Annex." The title alone would be enough to make people think it was a detective story. But, seriously, it would be quite funny 10 years after the war if we Jews were to tell how we lived and what we ate and talked about here. Although I tell you a lot, still, even so, you only know very little of our lives. [March 29, 1944]

On April 17, 1944, Anne began writing in what turned out to be her final diary notebook. On the first page she wrote about herself: "The owner's maxim: Zest is what man needs!" A few months later, she and the other inhabitants of the annex celebrated the Allied invasion of France, which took place on June 6, 1944. They were certain the war would soon be over.

In one of her last diary entries, dated July 15, 1944, Anne wrote:

I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death, I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out. yours, Anne M. Frank.

On August 4, 1944, Anne, her family, and the others in hiding were arrested by German and Dutch police officials. Her last entry was written on August 1, 1944.

The Diary Survives

The Franks and the four others hiding with them were discovered by the German SS and police on August 4, 1944. A German official and two Dutch police collaborators arrested the Franks the same day. They were soon sent to the Westerbork transit camp and then to concentration camps.

Anne's mother Edith Frank died in Auschwitz in January 1945. Anne and her sister Margot both died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in February or March 1945. Their father, Otto, survived the war after Soviet forces liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.

Otto Frank later described what it was like when the Nazis entered the annex in which he had been hiding. He said an SS man picked up a portfolio and asked whether there were any jewels in it. When Otto Frank said it only contained papers, the SS man threw the papers (and Anne Frank's diary) on the floor, walking away with silverware and a candlestick in his briefcase. "If he had taken the diary with him," Otto Frank recalled, "no one would ever have heard of my daughter."

Miep Gies, one of the Dutch citizens who hid the Franks during the Holocaust, kept Anne Frank's writings, including her diary. She handed the papers to Otto Frank on the day he learned of his daughters' deaths. He organized the papers and worked doggedly to get the diary published, first in Dutch in 1947. The first American edition appeared in 1952.

The Diary of Anne Frank did not become a best-seller until after it was adapted for the stage, premiering in 1955 and winning a Pulitzer Prize the next year. The book remains immensely popular, having been translated into more than 70 languages and having sold more than 30 million copies.

There are three versions of the diary. The first is the diary as Anne originally wrote it from June 1942 to August 1944. Anne hoped to publish a book based on her entries, especially after a Dutch official announced in 1944 that he planned to collect eyewitness accounts of the German occupation. She then began editing her work, leaving out certain passages. That became the second version. Her father created a third version with his own edits as he sought to get the diary published after the war.

The third version is the most popularly known. Not all of the versions include Anne's criticism of her mother or the references to her developing curiosity about sex -- the latter of which would have been especially controversial in 1947.

The home where the Franks hid in Amsterdam also continues to attract a large audience. Now known as the Anne Frank House, it drew more than 1.2 million visitors in 2017.

New Educational Resource
Diaries as Historical Sources Lesson
Students study examples of diaries written by young people during the Holocaust, particularly examining the ways in which Anne Frank, the most famous diarist of the Holocaust, thought about her audience while writing. By analyzing these diaries as sources, students are encouraged to think of themselves as historical actors and to consider how they are documenting their experiences for future historians.

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The Diary of Anne Frank is often the first exposure readers have to the history of the Holocaust. Learn about Anne's diary, including excerpts and images.

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For the survivors of the Holocaust, returning to normal life was next to impossible; most of their homes had been looted or taken over. In 1946, some of the worst anti-Jewish riots took place.

This Article relates to this topic because these were the survivors. They must have been so thankful to be alive, but they feel guilty because their friends didn't survive.

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The Survivors For the survivors, returning to life as it had been before the Holocaust was impossible. Jewish communities no longer existed in much of Europe. When people tried to return to their homes from camps or hiding places, they found that, in many cases, their homes had been looted or taken over by others.

Returning home was also dangerous. After the war, anti-Jewish riots broke out in several Polish cities. The largest anti-Jewish pogrom took place in July 1946 in Kielce, a city in southeastern Poland. When 150 Jews returned to the city, people living there feared that hundreds more would come back to reclaim their houses and belongings. Age-old antisemitic myths, such as Jews' ritual murders of Christians, arose once again. After a rumor spread that Jews had killed a Polish boy to use his blood in religious rituals, a mob attacked the group of survivors. The rioters killed 41 people and wounded 50 more. News of the Kielce pogrom spread rapidly, and Jews realized that there was no future for them in Poland.

Many survivors ended up in displaced persons' (DP) camps set up in western Europe under Allied military occupation at the sites of former concentration camps . There they waited to be admitted to places like the United States, South Africa, or Palestine. At first, many countries continued their old immigration policies, which greatly limited the number of refugees they would accept. The British government, which controlled Palestine, refused to let large numbers of Jews in. Many Jews tried to enter Palestine without legal papers, and when caught some were held in camps on the island of Cyprus, while others were deported back to Germany. Great Britain's scandalous treatment of Jewish refugees added to international pressures for a homeland for the Jewish people. Finally, the United Nations voted to divide Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state. Early in 1948, the British began withdrawing from Palestine. On May 14, 1948, one of the leading voices for a Jewish homeland, David Ben-Gurion, announced the formation of the State of Israel. After this, Jewish refugee ships freely landed in the seaports of the new nation. The United States also changed its immigration policy to allow more Jewish refugees to enter.

Although many Jewish survivors were able to build new lives in their adopted countries, many non-Jewish victims of Nazi policies continued to be persecuted in Germany. Laws which discriminated against Roma (Gypsies) continued to be in effect until 1970 in some parts of the country. The law used in Nazi Germany to imprison homosexuals remained in effect until 1969.

Key Dates

August 3, 1945
Harrison issues report on Jews in Germany
US special envoy Earl Harrison heads a delegation to the displaced persons' camps in Germany. Following World War II, several hundred thousand Jewish survivors are unable to return to their home countries and remain in Germany, Austria, or Italy. The Allies establish camps for displaced persons (DPs) for the refugees. Most Jewish DPs prefer to emigrate to Palestine but many also seek entry into the United States. They remain in the DP camps until they can leave Europe. Harrison's report underscores the plight of Jewish DPs and leads to improved conditions in the camps. At the end of 1946 the number of Jewish DPs is estimated at 250,000.

July 11, 1947
Refugee ship sails for Palestine despite British restrictions
Many Jewish DPs seek to emigrate to Palestine, despite existing British emigration restrictions. (In 1920, Great Britain received a mandate from the League of Nations to administer Palestine, and administered the territory until 1948.) Despite the restrictions, the refugee ship Exodus leaves southern France for Palestine, carrying 4,500 Jewish refugees from DP camps in Germany. The British intercept the ship even before it enters territorial waters off the coast of Palestine. The passengers are forcibly transferred to British ships and deported back to their port of origin in France. For almost a month the British hold the refugees aboard ship, at anchor off the French coast. The French reject the British demand to land the passengers. Ultimately, the British take the refugees to Hamburg, Germany, and forcibly return them to DP camps. The fate of the refugee ship Exodus dramatizes the plight of Holocaust survivors in the DP camps and increases international pressure on Great Britain to allow free Jewish immigration to Palestine.

November 29, 1947
United Nations votes for partition of Palestine
In a special session, the United Nations General Assembly votes to partition Palestine into two new states, one Jewish and the other Arab. Less than six months later, on May 14, 1948, prominent Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion announces the establishment of the State of Israel and declares that Jewish immigration into the new state will be unrestricted. Between 1948 and 1951, almost 700,000 Jews immigrate to Israel, including more than two-thirds of the Jewish displaced persons in Europe. Holocaust survivors, the passengers from the Exodus, DPs from central Europe, and Jewish detainees from British detention camps on Cyprus are welcomed to the Jewish homeland.

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The Survivors For the survivors, returning to life as it had been before the Holocaust was impossible. Jewish communities no longer existed in much of Europe. When people tried to return to their homes from camps or hiding places, they found that, in many cases, their homes had been looted or taken over by others.

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Conquest- controlling, or taking over

Counteroffensive- attacking back at someone who attacked first

Parliamentary- law, a way of rule, deserving of

Antisemitic- Hatred towards Jewish people

Asphyxiation- being deprived of oxygen

Ghettos- a holding place for Jews during the Holocaust

Clandestine- secretive, kept hidden

Camps- Nazi's kept the Jews here during the war, and Holocaust