Topic 5: Germany and occupied territories during WW2 1939-1945
Nazi policies towards the Jews, 1939-1945 Rationing: Opposition to the Nazis:
> Began in Aug 1939 - bread, meat and dairy products were rationed.
>By 1941, the sale of soap, clothing and shoes were also significantly restricted
Jan 1933 = over 500,000 Jews in Germany. By 1939 = reduced to 200,000. However, the Nazis intensified their
persecution of the Jews in the 1940s, leading to the mass extermination of them. However, during WW2, the Nazis >Food stamps were issued to civilians to buy food.
The Edelweiss Pirates: an anti-Nazi youth group founded in the Rhineland
invaded and successfully invaded countries/parts of countries e.g., Poland, Hungary & Soviet Union (they did not >Theft of the food stamps was illegal + usually ended in imprisonment in a cc. in 1937, opposed the Hitler Youth and Nazi ideology. By 1939, they had 2,000
manage to take over all of the Soviet Union). As a result of taking over this new territory, more Jews came under Nazi >The rations = sufficient for people to maintain a basic level of nutrition. Some historians argue that the members compared to the Hitler Youth's 8 million. They rejected Nazi culture
control. In Poland there were 3 million Jews. The Nazis = considered differing policies regarding the idea of the German people’s diet was reasonable until mid-1944, despite the rationing. through their music and fashion, created anti-Nazi graffiti, and clashed with
resettlement of Jews e.g. the Madagascar Plan (1940: a plan proposed to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of >Many shortages: Toilet paper = almost non-existent, tobacco was so rare that it could be used to buy other Hitler Youth members. During WWII, they sheltered deserters, aided escaped
Europe to Madagascar(was colonised by France - Germany invaded France 1940). However plan = postponed after goods. prisoners, and sabotaged supplies. In 1944, a member was executed for planning
Germany was defeated in the Battle of Britain in Sep 1940 Then = permanently cancelled after the creation of the Final >There were meat shortages due to lack of imports from the USA. Meat rations dropped from 750 grams per to bomb a Gestapo building.
Solution in 1942. Nazis = had spent time + resources on the plan = very frustrating for them. week in 1939 to 250 grams per week in 1945.
>Food consumption fell per person by 24% and, May 1942, the government had to cut rations. Bread was
Ghettos
restricted to ½ a loaf per person per day. The July Bomb Plot of 1944: was one of 11 assassination attempts on
>Black market: hugely inflated price, everything you want - created a larger divide between the rich and poor.
Hitler, led by army leaders opposing his brutality and anti-Semitic policies. As
Immediately after WW2 broke out in Sep 1939 (after the Nazis had successfully invaded Poland), >Led to some decline in German support for the government and the war.
Germany faced defeat, General Beck, Colonel von Stauffenberg, and Dr.
the Nazi policy of isolating Jews from the rest of society intensified - the Nazis began a policy of
‘Ghettoisation’ = meant that all the Jews = forced to relocate to ghettos in the cities of Poland =
Allied bombing on Germany: Goerdeler planned the attack. On July 20, von Stauffenberg placed a bomb at
Jewish quarters’. They were walled/fenced-off areas where Jews were crammed into very poor > From Aug 1940 the British Royal Air Force (RAF) carried out bombing attacks on German cities. Hitler's headquarters but left the room. The bomb was moved, killing four people
housing. Food = restricted & starvation = common. Conditions = very crowded, squalid and >> First targets = military and industrial bases, but from 1942 the British started to bomb civilian areas to but not Hitler. Their attempt to seize control of Berlin failed, leading to the
diseases such as typhus spread quickly. 95% of the wooden shacks the Jews lived in had no destroy German morale. execution of the three leaders. In total, 7,000 arrests were made, and nearly 6,000
running water or sanitation. > Between March-July 1943, 43 German cities were bombed. were executed
• The bombings on the city of Hamburg in the summer of 1943 killed 40,000+ Germans +
forced 1 mil +/- to flee.
In Warsaw (Poland), the Jewish ghetto was surrounded by a 3.5-m-high wall with barbed wire at the top of it and broken • In Dresden 70% of the buildings were destroyed and 150,000 people were killed.
glass on the top of the wall. There were also watch towers. The wall was built by a German company, but the Jewish
community was forced to pay for its construction. 400,000 Jews = crammed into an area covering approximately 1
• From 1944, the Allies began to focus on targets such as railway lines, bridges and The White Rose Movement: founded by Hans and Sophie Scholl, was a
motorways.
student-led resistance group at Munich University. They criticized Nazi policies,
square mile (2.56 square km). Between Jan 1941-July 1942, an average of almost 4,000 Jews died each month from • There were civilian deaths in Cologne, Hamburg and Dresden.
including the treatment of Jews and the war, and distributed six anti-Nazi leaflets
disease and starvation = limited to 250 calories a day. Whereas Germans = living on 2,600+ calories a day. As WW2 • A British survey in 1944 said that the bombing 📉German war production by 1%.
continued, Jews = often moved from the ghettos to concentration camps or extermination camps. • Allied bombing on the Ruhr Valley in 1944 is said to have reduced German metal production between 1942-43. The group also painted anti-Nazi messages in Munich. The
by 40%. This precision bombing crippled the Ruhr. movement was suppressed when the Scholl were caught and executed.
• Overall, in Germany 3.6 mil homes were destroyed, 7.5 mil people were made homeless and
Death Squads (Einsatzgruppen) •
3-400,000 civilians were killed in the bombings. 800,000 people were wounded.
German morale = not completely shattered by the AB.
In June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. Nazis = quickly took over the west of the country + thousands The Swing Youth: a group of middle-class Germans, embraced American
more Jews came under Nazi control. Special units known as Einsatzgruppen, followed the German army, they had
orders to put people to death = 3,000 +/-members. These death squads rounded up all Jewish men, women, and Evacuation: and British swing and jazz music, which the Nazis labeled "degenerate" due to
its association with black Americans. Originating in major German cities, their
children (and other ‘undesirables’ – ‘gypsies’ and communist leaders) and took any valuables they owned. The victims But as AB attacks became more common from 1942, mass evacuation began. Children were sent to rural areas
activities alarmed the Nazis, leading to the closure of their favorite bars. Some
= forced to remove their clothing and march to fields and forests on the outskirts of towns (away from the majority of such as Bavaria.
the population). Here the Jews were shot or gassed, and their bodies were thrown into mass graves. The Jews had to members were arrested and briefly sent to concentration camps.
dig the graves. • 2.5 mil +/- German children = evacuated as part of the KLV programme.
> These children did not stay in individual homes but were placed in one of 9,000 camps supervised by HY
In Sep 1941, in a two-day massacre at Babi Yar, Kiev (in modern day Ukraine), nearly 34,000 Jews were killed. By the
leaders & teachers.
end of 1941, 500,000 Jews had been murdered in this way. Believed = murdered over 1.2 mil people in the Soviet Union Absenteeism: Opposition to the Nazis among the general population was
by 1943. Mobile gas vans = also used to kill people = smothered victims sealed inside them + Jews were burnt alive in
synagogues as well. However = expensive and time consuming. Total War: often subtle, including absenteeism from work (evidenced by 7,000 arrests in
December 1941), sabotaging factory machinery, buying on the black market, and
• In June 1941, Hitler started Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of the USSR.
The Final Solution • If Germany stood any chance of defeating the USSR they would need to make sure they were fully
not reporting the she defied Nazi policies. The continued efforts of Goebbels in
propaganda highlight the regime's need to maintain control, suggesting
On 31 July 1941, Hitler = ordered the Nazi Party to prepare for the ‘final solution to the Jewish prepared in terms of their military equipment. Therefore in Feb 1943 Germany launched a policy called
Question’. At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in Jan 1942 the Nazis decided to change ‘Total War’ this is where all of Germany’s resources and all of its people had to be fully committed to significant underlying resistance.
some of the concentration camps and extermination camps (Auschwitz, Treblinka and Sobibor) fighting for victory - everything had to be used for winning the war.
= the ‘Final Solution’. Between 1942-45, 6 mil +/- Jews = killed = the Holocaust. Another 5 mil • Workers = recruited from the countries Germany had taken over.
(‘gypsies’, homosexuals, priests and people with disabilities) = died • Also in Oct 1941, Hitler announced that Russian prisoners of war (POWs)= transported to Germany to
act as slave labour. Communist Resistance: Even though the communist party (KPD) had
Jews that were sent to the extermination camps were divided into 2 groups. One group = people who were fit enough to do • By 1944, 7 mil + prisoners were working for German industry. been banned in 1933, communist opposition to Hitler’s rule still existed and was
jobs until they were too weak to perform them. Some = forced to take part in medical experiments e.g., how long a human • Aug 1944: a ban on holidays for workers was introduced and the working = 60 h a week. a constant throughout the war years. For example, Uhrig, a German communist
could survive in extreme cold, or to find out the effect on one twin if the other twin was infected with a deadly disease. • Professional sports teams and places of entertainment = shut down, except cinemas - play propaganda organised communist resistance groups in factories, and, by 1941, there were 89
The other group = killed immediately = by poison gas, called Zyklon B = released into these Huge ‘showers’ = built + up to films. factory resistance groups in Berlin. create a mini subtitle.
2,000 Jews at a time could be held. Other prisoners removed the bodies of many ‘useful’ products left such as gold teeth, hair, • Summer of 1944: The Volkssturm (Home Guard) = introduced = made up of boys from the HY + men unfit
glasses = removed. The bodies were transported to huge ovens (crematoria) to be burned. for the regular army. The Volkssturm units fought unsuccessful battles against Allied forces at the end of
the war - Germany imminent defeat.
Kreisau Circle: a group that met a number of times in 1942-3 to discuss how
Propaganda = made to show that these ‘resettlement’ camps were just like normal concentration Role of women: to oppose Nazism. This group (of about 25 people) included German lawyers,
camps. Videos showed that the prisoners were treated well and lived in good conditions = During the war, many men left work to join the armed forces - shortage of workers in and politicians. They did not like the way the Nazis destroyed personal
stopped the German people from reacting negatively to what was happening + also meant that the Jews factories. From 1937 onwards more women began returning to work to fill in for the freedoms. The Gestapo found out and broke the group up. After the July bomb
were willing to help organise the ‘resettlement’ of their fellow Jews.
jobs left by men who had gone to war. In June 1941, the Nazis ordered that any woman who had no plot in 1944 failed, some members of the Kreisau Circle were linked to it and
Nazis losing WW2: Tried to hide what had happened by digging up the railway lines and executed.
children should register for work. When the policy of ‘Total War’ was introduced in 1943 all women aged
destroying some records and the gas chambers. Allied soldiers = shocked by the reality when the
17-45 had to register for work. By 1945 the age had risen to 50. Women also played a role in the army –
camps were liberated (freed) in 1945.
operated searchlights, some guns, telephone, telegraph and transmission operators, and the military
health service.
Christian Resistance to Nazism: Opposition among ordinary Christians
• By mid-1943, 500,000 extra women were
was evident through large attendances at church services and support for
working in industry.
leaders who opposed Nazi policies. In 1943, members of the Protestant
• End of the war, women made up 60% of
Confessional Church openly criticized the Nazis by reading a statement in
Germany’s workers.
churches condemning the treatment of Jews.
Nazi policies towards the Jews, 1939-1945 Rationing: Opposition to the Nazis:
> Began in Aug 1939 - bread, meat and dairy products were rationed.
>By 1941, the sale of soap, clothing and shoes were also significantly restricted
Jan 1933 = over 500,000 Jews in Germany. By 1939 = reduced to 200,000. However, the Nazis intensified their
persecution of the Jews in the 1940s, leading to the mass extermination of them. However, during WW2, the Nazis >Food stamps were issued to civilians to buy food.
The Edelweiss Pirates: an anti-Nazi youth group founded in the Rhineland
invaded and successfully invaded countries/parts of countries e.g., Poland, Hungary & Soviet Union (they did not >Theft of the food stamps was illegal + usually ended in imprisonment in a cc. in 1937, opposed the Hitler Youth and Nazi ideology. By 1939, they had 2,000
manage to take over all of the Soviet Union). As a result of taking over this new territory, more Jews came under Nazi >The rations = sufficient for people to maintain a basic level of nutrition. Some historians argue that the members compared to the Hitler Youth's 8 million. They rejected Nazi culture
control. In Poland there were 3 million Jews. The Nazis = considered differing policies regarding the idea of the German people’s diet was reasonable until mid-1944, despite the rationing. through their music and fashion, created anti-Nazi graffiti, and clashed with
resettlement of Jews e.g. the Madagascar Plan (1940: a plan proposed to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of >Many shortages: Toilet paper = almost non-existent, tobacco was so rare that it could be used to buy other Hitler Youth members. During WWII, they sheltered deserters, aided escaped
Europe to Madagascar(was colonised by France - Germany invaded France 1940). However plan = postponed after goods. prisoners, and sabotaged supplies. In 1944, a member was executed for planning
Germany was defeated in the Battle of Britain in Sep 1940 Then = permanently cancelled after the creation of the Final >There were meat shortages due to lack of imports from the USA. Meat rations dropped from 750 grams per to bomb a Gestapo building.
Solution in 1942. Nazis = had spent time + resources on the plan = very frustrating for them. week in 1939 to 250 grams per week in 1945.
>Food consumption fell per person by 24% and, May 1942, the government had to cut rations. Bread was
Ghettos
restricted to ½ a loaf per person per day. The July Bomb Plot of 1944: was one of 11 assassination attempts on
>Black market: hugely inflated price, everything you want - created a larger divide between the rich and poor.
Hitler, led by army leaders opposing his brutality and anti-Semitic policies. As
Immediately after WW2 broke out in Sep 1939 (after the Nazis had successfully invaded Poland), >Led to some decline in German support for the government and the war.
Germany faced defeat, General Beck, Colonel von Stauffenberg, and Dr.
the Nazi policy of isolating Jews from the rest of society intensified - the Nazis began a policy of
‘Ghettoisation’ = meant that all the Jews = forced to relocate to ghettos in the cities of Poland =
Allied bombing on Germany: Goerdeler planned the attack. On July 20, von Stauffenberg placed a bomb at
Jewish quarters’. They were walled/fenced-off areas where Jews were crammed into very poor > From Aug 1940 the British Royal Air Force (RAF) carried out bombing attacks on German cities. Hitler's headquarters but left the room. The bomb was moved, killing four people
housing. Food = restricted & starvation = common. Conditions = very crowded, squalid and >> First targets = military and industrial bases, but from 1942 the British started to bomb civilian areas to but not Hitler. Their attempt to seize control of Berlin failed, leading to the
diseases such as typhus spread quickly. 95% of the wooden shacks the Jews lived in had no destroy German morale. execution of the three leaders. In total, 7,000 arrests were made, and nearly 6,000
running water or sanitation. > Between March-July 1943, 43 German cities were bombed. were executed
• The bombings on the city of Hamburg in the summer of 1943 killed 40,000+ Germans +
forced 1 mil +/- to flee.
In Warsaw (Poland), the Jewish ghetto was surrounded by a 3.5-m-high wall with barbed wire at the top of it and broken • In Dresden 70% of the buildings were destroyed and 150,000 people were killed.
glass on the top of the wall. There were also watch towers. The wall was built by a German company, but the Jewish
community was forced to pay for its construction. 400,000 Jews = crammed into an area covering approximately 1
• From 1944, the Allies began to focus on targets such as railway lines, bridges and The White Rose Movement: founded by Hans and Sophie Scholl, was a
motorways.
student-led resistance group at Munich University. They criticized Nazi policies,
square mile (2.56 square km). Between Jan 1941-July 1942, an average of almost 4,000 Jews died each month from • There were civilian deaths in Cologne, Hamburg and Dresden.
including the treatment of Jews and the war, and distributed six anti-Nazi leaflets
disease and starvation = limited to 250 calories a day. Whereas Germans = living on 2,600+ calories a day. As WW2 • A British survey in 1944 said that the bombing 📉German war production by 1%.
continued, Jews = often moved from the ghettos to concentration camps or extermination camps. • Allied bombing on the Ruhr Valley in 1944 is said to have reduced German metal production between 1942-43. The group also painted anti-Nazi messages in Munich. The
by 40%. This precision bombing crippled the Ruhr. movement was suppressed when the Scholl were caught and executed.
• Overall, in Germany 3.6 mil homes were destroyed, 7.5 mil people were made homeless and
Death Squads (Einsatzgruppen) •
3-400,000 civilians were killed in the bombings. 800,000 people were wounded.
German morale = not completely shattered by the AB.
In June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. Nazis = quickly took over the west of the country + thousands The Swing Youth: a group of middle-class Germans, embraced American
more Jews came under Nazi control. Special units known as Einsatzgruppen, followed the German army, they had
orders to put people to death = 3,000 +/-members. These death squads rounded up all Jewish men, women, and Evacuation: and British swing and jazz music, which the Nazis labeled "degenerate" due to
its association with black Americans. Originating in major German cities, their
children (and other ‘undesirables’ – ‘gypsies’ and communist leaders) and took any valuables they owned. The victims But as AB attacks became more common from 1942, mass evacuation began. Children were sent to rural areas
activities alarmed the Nazis, leading to the closure of their favorite bars. Some
= forced to remove their clothing and march to fields and forests on the outskirts of towns (away from the majority of such as Bavaria.
the population). Here the Jews were shot or gassed, and their bodies were thrown into mass graves. The Jews had to members were arrested and briefly sent to concentration camps.
dig the graves. • 2.5 mil +/- German children = evacuated as part of the KLV programme.
> These children did not stay in individual homes but were placed in one of 9,000 camps supervised by HY
In Sep 1941, in a two-day massacre at Babi Yar, Kiev (in modern day Ukraine), nearly 34,000 Jews were killed. By the
leaders & teachers.
end of 1941, 500,000 Jews had been murdered in this way. Believed = murdered over 1.2 mil people in the Soviet Union Absenteeism: Opposition to the Nazis among the general population was
by 1943. Mobile gas vans = also used to kill people = smothered victims sealed inside them + Jews were burnt alive in
synagogues as well. However = expensive and time consuming. Total War: often subtle, including absenteeism from work (evidenced by 7,000 arrests in
December 1941), sabotaging factory machinery, buying on the black market, and
• In June 1941, Hitler started Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of the USSR.
The Final Solution • If Germany stood any chance of defeating the USSR they would need to make sure they were fully
not reporting the she defied Nazi policies. The continued efforts of Goebbels in
propaganda highlight the regime's need to maintain control, suggesting
On 31 July 1941, Hitler = ordered the Nazi Party to prepare for the ‘final solution to the Jewish prepared in terms of their military equipment. Therefore in Feb 1943 Germany launched a policy called
Question’. At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in Jan 1942 the Nazis decided to change ‘Total War’ this is where all of Germany’s resources and all of its people had to be fully committed to significant underlying resistance.
some of the concentration camps and extermination camps (Auschwitz, Treblinka and Sobibor) fighting for victory - everything had to be used for winning the war.
= the ‘Final Solution’. Between 1942-45, 6 mil +/- Jews = killed = the Holocaust. Another 5 mil • Workers = recruited from the countries Germany had taken over.
(‘gypsies’, homosexuals, priests and people with disabilities) = died • Also in Oct 1941, Hitler announced that Russian prisoners of war (POWs)= transported to Germany to
act as slave labour. Communist Resistance: Even though the communist party (KPD) had
Jews that were sent to the extermination camps were divided into 2 groups. One group = people who were fit enough to do • By 1944, 7 mil + prisoners were working for German industry. been banned in 1933, communist opposition to Hitler’s rule still existed and was
jobs until they were too weak to perform them. Some = forced to take part in medical experiments e.g., how long a human • Aug 1944: a ban on holidays for workers was introduced and the working = 60 h a week. a constant throughout the war years. For example, Uhrig, a German communist
could survive in extreme cold, or to find out the effect on one twin if the other twin was infected with a deadly disease. • Professional sports teams and places of entertainment = shut down, except cinemas - play propaganda organised communist resistance groups in factories, and, by 1941, there were 89
The other group = killed immediately = by poison gas, called Zyklon B = released into these Huge ‘showers’ = built + up to films. factory resistance groups in Berlin. create a mini subtitle.
2,000 Jews at a time could be held. Other prisoners removed the bodies of many ‘useful’ products left such as gold teeth, hair, • Summer of 1944: The Volkssturm (Home Guard) = introduced = made up of boys from the HY + men unfit
glasses = removed. The bodies were transported to huge ovens (crematoria) to be burned. for the regular army. The Volkssturm units fought unsuccessful battles against Allied forces at the end of
the war - Germany imminent defeat.
Kreisau Circle: a group that met a number of times in 1942-3 to discuss how
Propaganda = made to show that these ‘resettlement’ camps were just like normal concentration Role of women: to oppose Nazism. This group (of about 25 people) included German lawyers,
camps. Videos showed that the prisoners were treated well and lived in good conditions = During the war, many men left work to join the armed forces - shortage of workers in and politicians. They did not like the way the Nazis destroyed personal
stopped the German people from reacting negatively to what was happening + also meant that the Jews factories. From 1937 onwards more women began returning to work to fill in for the freedoms. The Gestapo found out and broke the group up. After the July bomb
were willing to help organise the ‘resettlement’ of their fellow Jews.
jobs left by men who had gone to war. In June 1941, the Nazis ordered that any woman who had no plot in 1944 failed, some members of the Kreisau Circle were linked to it and
Nazis losing WW2: Tried to hide what had happened by digging up the railway lines and executed.
children should register for work. When the policy of ‘Total War’ was introduced in 1943 all women aged
destroying some records and the gas chambers. Allied soldiers = shocked by the reality when the
17-45 had to register for work. By 1945 the age had risen to 50. Women also played a role in the army –
camps were liberated (freed) in 1945.
operated searchlights, some guns, telephone, telegraph and transmission operators, and the military
health service.
Christian Resistance to Nazism: Opposition among ordinary Christians
• By mid-1943, 500,000 extra women were
was evident through large attendances at church services and support for
working in industry.
leaders who opposed Nazi policies. In 1943, members of the Protestant
• End of the war, women made up 60% of
Confessional Church openly criticized the Nazis by reading a statement in
Germany’s workers.
churches condemning the treatment of Jews.
