Holocaust

NAME

COURSE

INSTRUCTOR

DATE

The holocaust

The Holocaust was a genocide that was bureaucratic, systematic, and state-sponsored, in which around eleven million people were killed by the German military under Adolf Hitler’s command and its collaborators. This inhumane act committed by the Nazi regime lead to the murder and persecution of approximately six million Jews. The word ‘Holocaust” is of Greek origin, and it means “sacrifice by fire." Upon coming into power in January 1933, the Nazis had a belief that the Germans were racially more superior to others while the Jews were inferior and that they were the alien threat to the German community (Bergen, 2009). These killings were committed throughout German-occupied and German Reich territories. The total population killed in the largest genocide of the twentieth century comprised homosexuals, Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, communists, the physical and mentally disabled and other group members. Approximately two-thirds of nine million Jews who were living in Europe before the Holocaust were killed. These other groups that were targeted by German authorities, during the era of the Holocaust, were perceived to be racially inferior. They were persecuted on ideological, political and behavioral grounds. Among them were Jehovah’s Witnesses and socialists (Bergen, 2009). The Holocaust, led by Adolf Hitler, developed out of terror, anti-Semitism and power.

Hitler rises to power

With the increase in the Nazis strength in the Reichstag, the radical group wanted to seize power by force, but Hitler calmed them down by insisting that he would like to come to power legally. He was to accept the chancellorship and nothing less. By that time, the internal political situation was very unstable because there was brutal and inhumane street fighting of the Storm troopers and this revolted many Germans. President Paul Von Hindenburg then named Hitler the German chancellor on January 30, 1933 after his party won a significant...