Nazi Policies Towards Jewish People & the Final Solution (Edexcel IGCSE History: Paper 1: Depth Studies): Revision Note
Exam code: 4HI1
Summary
During the Second World War, Germany's expansion brought millions more Jewish people under Nazi control
In 1939, Germany occupied western Poland and brought around 1.8 million Jewish people under Nazi control
After invading the Soviet Union in 1941, Germany controlled almost all of Poland's 3 million Jewish people
The Nazis forced Jewish people into ghettos in Polish cities
Overcrowding, starvation and disease killed thousands every month
After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, mobile killing squads called the Einsatzgruppen killed a million people
These included Jewish people, Communist officials and Roma and Sinti people
In January 1942, senior Nazis met at Wannsee to organise the "Final Solution"
This was a deliberate policy of genocide
It led to the murder of around six million Jewish people
The Nazis also murdered millions of non-Jewish people, including Soviet prisoners of war, Polish civilians and Roma and Sinti people
The targeted genocide of Jewish people is known as the Holocaust
Ghettos and death squads
A new stage of persecution
By the outbreak of war, persecution in the 1930s and mass emigration had reduced the Jewish population inside Germany to fewer than 200,000
However, as Germany invaded new countries, it soon brought millions more Jewish people under Nazi control
This included around 3 million in occupied Poland
Because emigration could not remove such large numbers of people, the Nazis turned to new and more brutal methods
The ghettos
The Germans forced Jewish people into walled ghettos, which they called "Jewish Quarters"
Families were crammed into poor housing with restricted food supplies
One of the largest ghettos, in Warsaw, was surrounded by a 3.5-metre wall topped with barbed wire and broken glass
The local Jewish community was forced to pay for its construction
Diseases such as typhus spread rapidly
In the Warsaw Ghetto, almost 4,000 Jewish people died every month between January 1941 and July 1942 from disease and starvation
In July 1942, following the introduction of the Final Solution, the Germans announced that Warsaw's Jewish population would be "resettled" in the east
Over 250,000 people were transported to death camps, where most of them were killed
Death squads
After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, special mobile units called the Einsatzgruppen followed the German army into occupied Soviet territory
They had orders to kill Jewish people, along with Communist Party officials and Roma and Sinti people
These death squads:
rounded up their victims
forced them to remove their clothing
marched the victims to fields or forests outside towns
shot or gassed the victims
buried their victims in mass graves
It is thought that the Einsatzgruppen murdered around 1.2 million civilians in the Soviet Union by 1943
Examiner Tips and Tricks
Genocide did not begin the moment war broke out; it developed in stages. A strong answer can trace that development back to the legal policies against Jewish people discussed in the Nazi Germany, 1933–39 topic.
Extend the "staircase" of escalating persecution you learnt in that section to include ghettos and the Einsatzgruppen, before reaching the Final Solution.
The Final Solution
The Wannsee Conference, January 1942
Key Nazi officials met at Wannsee to discuss the "Jewish question"
They wanted a more efficient way to deal with Jewish people under Nazi control
Techniques such as ghettos took housing and resources away from German citizens
The Einsatzgruppen were limited in how many Jewish people they could kill at once
They wanted a method that could be used to murder all of Europe's Jewish people
The meeting, chaired by Reinhard Heydrich and minuted by Adolf Eichmann, organised the "Final Solution", which meant that:
all Jewish people in Nazi-controlled territory must be killed
the Nazis would begin to build extermination camps (death camps)
Six extermination camps were built, the largest being Auschwitz-Birkenau
Railway networks were built to transport Jewish people from ghettos to the extermination camps
Many camps had gas chambers, disguised as shower blocks
The camps contained large crematoriums or used open air fires to burn the bodies of those killed
Heinrich Himmler was selected to oversee the Final Solution
Examiner Tips and Tricks
Students often think that concentration camps and extermination camps were the same. Avoid confusing the two to demonstrate strong own knowledge.
A concentration camp, such as those you learnt about in the Nazi Germany, 1933–39 topic, imprisoned and worked people, some of whom survived
An extermination camp, such as Treblinka or Sobibor, was built for the sole purpose of killing people on arrival
Some sites, including Auschwitz, combined both functions
The Holocaust
The Final Solution resulted in the transportation of millions of Jewish people to extermination camps across Europe
Many Jewish people died within days of arriving at the death camps, either by the gas chambers or disease
Other Jewish people were forced to work in the death camps, doing roles such as:
removing the bodies from the gas chambers
operating the crematoriums
The Holocaust is the name given to the systematic murder of approximately six million Jewish people by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during the Second World War
The Nazis also murdered other groups including:
Roma and Sinti people
Slavs
people with disabilities
gay men
political prisoners
Secrecy and Jewish resistance
To hide the mass murder, the Nazis made propaganda films showing the "resettlement" camps as well-run labour camps
They showed people being treated decently
This discouraged public reaction in Germany
The Nazis forced Jewish councils in the ghettos to draw up deportation lists
The councils were often deceived about where people were being sent
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943
Began on 19th April 1943 when Nazi soldiers attempted to transport the survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto to extermination camps
Around 700 Jewish people fought with the Nazi soldiers
They used guerrilla warfare tactics
The uprising lasted around four weeks
The uprising failed because:
the Nazis heavily had far more troops and weapons than the Jewish people, including:
2,000 soldiers
artillery
tanks
the Jewish fighters were poorly equipped and had little military training
The Treblinka Uprising, 1943
Treblinka was one of the Nazi extermination camps built after the Wannsee Conference
The uprising happened on 2nd August 1943
Around 1,000 Jewish people in the camp:
captured weapons
set fire to buildings
ran towards the main gate
Several hundred Jewish people escaped from Treblinka
Around half were found and killed by the Nazis
The Treblinka extermination camp was closed shortly after the revolt
How did the Holocaust end?
As it became clear Germany was losing the war, the Nazis tried to hide what had happened
They dug up railway lines and destroyed records
Whilst Allied leaders knew about the Holocaust, soldiers were shocked by what they found when they liberated the camps in 1944 to 1945
Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, was hanged for war crimes in 1947
How did Nazi persecution of Jewish people change during the Second World War?
Before the war, persecution had mainly meant legal punishment and economic and social discrimination inside Germany
It aimed at pressuring Jewish people to emigrate
During the war, persecution became a deliberate, organised policy of mass murder
This started on a smaller scale through the Einsatzgruppen, and developed into the industrialised killing of the extermination camps
The scale of persecution also changed enormously
The number of victims rose from thousands in Germany before 1939 to millions across occupied Europe by 1945
Worked Example
'The Wannsee Conference of January 1942 marked the most important change in the Nazi persecution of Jewish people.'
How far do you agree? Explain your answer.
You may use the following in your answer:
the Final Solution
the work of the Einsatzgruppen.
You must also use information of your own.
(16)
Partial answer:
However, the work of the Einsatzgruppen shows that mass killing was already Nazi policy before Wannsee. From June 1941, these mobile death squads followed the German army into the Soviet Union and shot Jewish people, Communist officials and Roma and Sinti people by the hundreds of thousands, murdering an estimated 1.2 million civilians by 1943. This means that the decision to exterminate Jewish people on a mass scale was experimented with before the Wannsee Conference took place. It shows that the Nazi policy increasingly moved towards destroying the Jewish population, rather than encouraging Jewish people to leave German-occupied territory.
Examiner Tips and Tricks
Great 16-mark answers try to have balance in their argument. Whilst you may agree that the Wannsee Conference was a significant turning point in the persecution of Jewish people, you must also examine how violence was always a part of the Nazi policy towards Jewish people.
As there is no year limit on this question, you could also examine events such as 'Kristallnacht', which also shows how the Nazis killed Jewish people before the Final Solution.
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