This document provides background information on the causes of World War 2. It discusses the Treaty of Versailles and how it created instability in Germany by imposing heavy reparations. It also examines the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany in the aftermath of WWI. It describes how the Great Depression further weakened the Weimar Republic in Germany and led to increased support for the Nazi party. It summarizes how Hitler came to power through democratic elections and then consolidated power by suspending civil liberties. The document also discusses Nazi ideology including German nationalism, anti-Semitism, and beliefs in Aryan racial supremacy.

1. The SecondWorldWar
Chapter 25-26A

2. Introduction
• Threats to the balance of power
• A conflict among nations, peoples, and ideals
• The new methods of warfare
• The Holocaust and the atomic bomb

3. The Causes ofWar: Quarrels,
Economics, Nationalism
• TheTreaty ofVersailles peace settlement
• Created more problems than it solved
• Allied naval blockade of Germany to force Germany to peace
negotiations
• German “war guilt” clause

4. The Causes ofWar: Quarrels,
Economics, Nationalism
• Peace and security
• No binding standards created for peace and security inVersailles
Treaty
• How to guarantee peace?
• Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)—outlawing war as an international
crime
• The League of Nations
• Germany and the Soviet Union were excluded
• The United States never joined

5. The Causes ofWar: Quarrels,
Economics, Nationalism
• Economic conditions
• German reparations and slow recovery
• The Great Depression undermined democratic government
throughout Europe and intensified economic nationalism
• Depression as last blow toWeimar Germany

6. The Causes ofWar: Quarrels,
Economics, Nationalism
• Ideologies
• Violent nationalism: political dissent/disagreement as treason
• Glorifying the nation and national destiny
• Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany formed the “Axis” (later joined by
Japan)
• Fascist regimes in eastern Europe
• Lenin and Stalin used opposition to Communism in western
countries to create nationalistic support for Communism at home

7. The Emergence of
Fascism in Italy
• In the aftermath ofWWI
• A democracy in distress
• Seven hundred thousand dead, $15 billion debt
• Territorial disputes

8. The Emergence of
Fascism in Italy
• The rise of Mussolini (1883–1945)
• The Fascist platform (1919): universal suffrage, the eight-
hour day, and tax on inheritance
• Fascist support
• Gained respect of middle classes and landowners
• Repressed radical movements of workers and peasants
• Attacked socialists
• Fifty thousand fascist militia marched on Rome on October 28, 1922

9. Mussolini at the march on Rome

10. The Emergence of
Fascism in Italy
• Italy under Mussolini
• Repression and censorship
• Liberals and socialists considered enemies of the state
• Granted independence to papal residence in theVatican City
• RomanCatholicism established as the state religion

11. Weimar Germany
• November 9, 1918: Revolution
• Bloodless overthrow of the imperial government of KaiserWilhelm
• Social Democratic Party (SPD) announced a new German Republic
• The Kaiser abdicated

12. Social Democratic Party
leader, Philip
Scheiderman, announces
creation of a
German Republic
on November 9, 1918

13. Weimar Germany
• Problems
• Major changes introduced by unelected Council of People’s
Commissioners
• Introduced 8 hour workday, legalized labor unions, required re-
hiring of WWI veterans; farm labor reforms; social welfare; national
health insurance.
• Conservatives opposed these measures and Communists thought
they did not go far enough
• Elections not held until January 1919

14. Weimar Germany
• Communists and independent socialists staged
armed uprisings in Berlin during interim between
Kaiser’s abdication and election
• Social Democrats tried to crush the uprisings
• The Freikorps
• Former army officers fighting Bolsheviks, Poles, and communists
• Fiercely right-wing anti-Marxist, anti-Semitic, and anti-liberal

15. Freikorps Recruiting Poster

16. Freikorps
Communists

17. Weimar Germany
• The Weimar coalition
• Socialists,Catholic centrists, and liberal democrats
• Parliamentary liberalism
• Universal suffrage for men and women
• Bill of rights

18. Why Did theWeimar Republic Fail?
• Social, political, and economic crisis
• The humiliation ofWorldWar I & conservative
propaganda
• Argument that Germany “stabbed in the back” by socialists and
Jews widely accepted among conservatives
• Versailles and reparations
• $33 billion debt: impossible to repay
• Parliamentary system and proportional representation
gave too much power to minority parties by necessitating
governing coalitions in a deeply fractured country.

19. Why did theWeimar Republic Fail?
• The failure ofWeimar
• Global Economic Depression further weakenedWeimar
government
• U.S. stock market crash
• Unemployment
• Peasants staged mass demonstrations
• Government cut welfare benefits for veterans
• Opponents seized economic setbacks to undermine
Weimar government

20. Disabled War Veteran Reduced to begging

21. Hyperinflation

22. By 1930, the two best organized
opposition parties were the
Communist Party and the
National Socialist German
Worker’s (NAZI) Party

23. Hitler and the National Socialists
• Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)
• Born in Austria, rejected by the Academy of Fine
Arts inVienna in 1907 and 1908.
• Supported by orphan’s benefits and his mother.
After her death, Hitler lived in a homeless shelter
in 1909 and later in a hostel for poor laborers.
• Apparently adopted Anti-Semitism, anti-
Marxism, and pan-Slavism while inVienna.
• Hitler moved to Munich in 1913.
• Viewed the outbreak ofWorldWar I as his
liberation

24. Hitler’s
Baby picture Hitler’s mother,
Klara
The Alter Hof in
Munich, watercolor,
1914, by Adolph
Hitler.
A soldier in WWI in a German
Bavarian Regiment

25. Hitler and the National Socialists
• After the war, Hitler joined the GermanWorkers’ Party
• Refused to accept the November (1918) Resolution ending
WWI
• 1920: GermanWorkers Party reorganized into National
SocialistWorkers’ Party (Nazi)

26. Nazi Manifesto
• 1. We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the right of
self-determination of peoples.
• 2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in respect to the other nations;
abrogation of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.
• 3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the sustenance of our people, and colonization
for our surplus population.
• 4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of
German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the
race.
• 5. Whoever has no citizenship is to be able to live in Germany only as a guest, and must be
under the authority of legislation for foreigners.
• 6. The right to determine matters concerning administration and law belongs only to the citizen.
Therefore we demand that every public office, of any sort whatsoever, whether in the Reich, the
county or municipality, be filled only by citizens…
• 7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and
way of life for the citizens. If it is impossible to sustain the total population of the State, then the
members of foreign nations (non-citizens) are to be expelled from the Reich.
• 8. Any further immigration of non-citizens is to be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans,
who have immigrated to Germany since 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to leave the
Reich.

27. Nazi Manifesto
• We demand legal opposition to known lies and their
promulgation through the press. In order to enable the
provision of a German press, we demand, that:
• All writers and employees of the newspapers appearing in
the German language be members of the race:
• Non-German newspapers be required to have the express
permission of the State to be published.They may not be
printed in the German language…
• Publications which are counter to the general good are to be
forbidden. We demand legal prosecution of artistic and
literary forms which exert a destructive influence on our
national life, and the closure of organizations opposing the
above made demands.

28. Nazi Manifesto
• We demand freedom of religion for all religious
denominations within the state so long as they do not
endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of
the Germanic race.
• The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a
positive Christianity without binding itself
confessionally to any one denomination.
• It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and
around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of
our nation can only succeed from within on the
framework: common utility precedes individual utility.

29. Why did Germans join the Nazi
Party?
• Key Reasons
• Nazis took a strong stand against communism
• Nazis promised to protect traditionalGerman values
• Equated traditional German values with Aryan race
• Nazis used anti-Semitism but also downplayed it as only one of
many points
• Nazis promised to restore German pride and place in Europe
and protect German interests abroad
• Nazis promised to create jobs and restore prosperity

30. Hitler and the National Socialists
• November 1923: Munich (Beer Hall) putsch
• Along with other Nazi’s Hitler attempted a coup d’etat
• Hitler imprisoned and Dictated Mein Kampf while in prison
• Portrayed himself as the savior of the German people
• Weimar elections
• 1924: Nazis polled 6.6 percent of the vote

31. Beer Hall Putsch Defendants

33. Proportional Representation and
the Parliamentary System
Parliamentary System: Political parties offer a slate of
candidates
• Voters elect a party not individual candidates
• Many parties may participate in parliamentary elections
• Each party receives seats in parliament equal to the
proportional number of votes it received in the election
• If no one party gets 51% or more, the party with the most
seats has an opportunity to form a coalition with other
parties. The leader of the party with the most votes is usually
the Prime Minister
• Parliamentary system differs from U.S. system where voters
elect a candidate

34. • Played off fears of Communism at home and abroad
• Spoke the language of National Pride in terms of
romantic nationalism
• Recovery of German national glory
• Aryan race as pure, strong, ready to take action
• Hitler as the symbol of a strong, revitalized Germany
(Fuhrer cult)
Nazi Propaganda

35. How did Hitler come to power?
• 1930 election
• Nazis won 107 of 577 seats in the Reichstag
• No party gained a majority
• Conservative Party attempted for form a coalition government with the
Nazis who refused to support a coalition government unless Hitler was
Chancellor (Prime Minister)
• Nazi refusal to join the coalition caused the failure of the conservative
coalition government requiring new elections
• Street battles between Nazis and Communists

36. How did Hitler come to power?
• July 1932 elections
• Nazi party became the largest party in the Reichstag
(Parliament) but did not have a majority
• Two largest parties were Hindenburg’s Conservative party and
Nazi party
• Nazi party refused to join any coalition unless Hitler was made
Chancellor
• Conservatives refused to name Hitler Chancellor
• Stalemate resulted in caretaker government
• Street battles continue between Communists and Nazis
• Government paralyzed and cannot perform basic functions
• Economic situation worsened

37. How did Hitler come to power?
• November 1932 elections
• Nazi Party lost significant seats but still the largest party
• Communist Party and NationalConservativeGerman National
Party increased seats significantly
• Hindenberg finally agreed form a government with Hitler as
Chancellor
• Nazis appointed to major posts in the government

38. How did Nazis Consolidate Power?
• Hitler as chancellor
• January 1933: Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor
• February 27, 1933: Reichstag set on fire by Dutch anarchist
• Hitler suspended civil rights
• March 5, 1933: New elections
• Hitler granted unlimited power for four years
• Hitler proclaimed theThird Reich

39. Hitler and Hindenburg January 1933. Hindenburg believed
that Hitler could be controlled by Conservatives

40. The Reichstag Fire,
27 February, 1933.

41. How did Nazis consolidate power?
• Nazi Germany
• A one-party state
• Hitler’s first acts sharply limited freedom of the press and enabled the
cabinet to issue decrees without the consent or approval of the
Reichstag.
• Reichstag Fire Decree suspended all civil liberties guaranteed by the
German constitution.
• Widespread arrests of known or suspected opponents of the Nazi
party—mainly outspoken liberals and Communists.
• Opposition tactics
• Storm troopers (SA)—used to maintain party discipline
• June 30, 1934: Night of the Long Knives purged SA not believed to be
loyal to Hitler personally.

42. How did Nazis consolidate power?
• National recovery
• Sealed Germany off from the rest of the world’s economy
• Massive investments in public infrastructure
• Outlawed trade unions and strikes, froze wages
• Organized workers into the National Labor Front
• Popular organizations cut across class lines
• Rebuilt German military/industrial complex
• Unemployment dropped significantly

43. Still Image from Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will (1935), a Film about a Nazi Party Rally
in Nuremberg, Germany in, 1934.

44. Nazis and German Racism
• Nazi racism
• Nazi racism inherited from nineteenth-century social
Darwinism
• Nations and people struggle for survival
• Superior peoples strengthen themselves through struggle
• Anti-Semitism
• Joined by nationalist anti-Jewish theory:The Jew as outsider to the
German nation
• An “international Jewish conspiracy” based in part on Protocols of
the Elders of Zion – a conspiracy theory claiming that International
Jewish leaders were intent on taking over the world.
• Protocols of the Elders of Zion thought to be created in 1903 by the
Tsar’s Security police.

45. Nazi Racism
• Nazi racism
• April 1933: New racial laws excluded Jews from public office
• 1935 Nuremberg Decrees
• Deprived Jews of citizenship (determined by bloodline)
• November 1938: Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)

46. Nazi Boycott of Jewish Shops in Berlin, 1933

47. Krystallnacht (November 9-10, 1938)

48. The 1930s –The “Dishonest Decade”
• An atmosphere of fear and apprehension
• Aggression as a challenge to civilization
• Avoiding another war at all costs

49. The 1930s –The “Dishonest Decade”
• Appeasement
• Assumptions by France and Britain
• The outbreak of another world war was unthinkable
• Fascist states were a bulwark against Soviet communism
• Ends: how to maintain Europe’s balance of power?
• Soviets the greater threat, so accommodate Hitler

50. Lenin and Stalin

51. The Soviet Union under Stalin
• Stalin succeeded to power after Lenin died in 1924
• Collectivization
• Local party and police officials forced peasants to join collective
farms
• Peasant resistance: sixteen hundred large-scale rebellions between
1929 and 1933

52. The Soviet Union under Stalin
• Collectivization
• The famine (1932–1933)
• The human cost was 3–5 million lives
• The Bolsheviks retained grain reserves
• Grain reserves sold overseas for currency
• Stockpiled in the event of war

53. The 1930s –The “Dishonest Decade”
• The League of Nations
• Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in 1935
• Avenging the defeat of 1896
• League imposed sanctions on Italy but without enforcement
• Japanese invasion ofChina turned into an invasion of the whole
country
• The Rape of Nanjing (1937)
• The League expressed shock but did nothing
• Hitler Annexed Austria in 1938 to subdued reaction in France, Britain
and the U.S.

54. The 1930s –
The “Dishonest Decade”
• German rearmament and the politics of appeasement
• Hitler played onGermans’ sense of shame and betrayal
• Removed Germany from the League of Nations in 1933
• Tore up disarmament provisions ofVersailles in 1935

55. Dress Rehearsal for WWII:
The Spanish CivilWar
• The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)
• A weak republican government could not overcome opposition
• Extreme right-wing military officers rebelled
• Francisco Franco (r. 1936–1975)
• Hitler and Mussolini sent in troops and tested new weapons; war
was a dress rehearsal
• Saw the war as a test of theWest’s determination to resist fascism

56. Antifascist Propaganda, Spanish Civil War

57. The 1930s –
The “Dishonest Decade”
• The Spanish CivilWar (1936–1939)
• The Soviets sided with the troops fighting for the Spanish Republic
• Britain and France failed to act decisively
• April 1937:The destruction of Guernica
• Hitler’s lessons
• Britain, France, and the Soviet Union would have a hard time
containing fascism
• Britain and France would do anything to avoid another war

58. Bombing of Guernica, Spain
April 26, 1937
Undertaken by German Luftwaffe volunteers of the Condor Legion
1st “terror bombing” of civilians. Demoralizing the enemy has been
Thought to make surrender more likely.

59. Guernica by Pablo Picasso (1937)

60. Salvador Dali, Soft Construction with Boiled
Beans, 1936

61. The 1930s –
The “Dishonest Decade”
• German rearmament
• The unification of all ethnic Germans
• Reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936
• The annexation of Austria (1938)
• Hitler declared his intention to occupy the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia)
• German people needed Lebensraum (living space) and as a superior people
had right to take land from inferior races like Slavs and Poles
• Neville Chamberlain (British P.M.) believed Germany could not
commit to a sustained war

62. The 1930s –
The “Dishonest Decade”
• The Politics of appeasement: Munich
• Daladier (France), Chamberlain (Great Britain), Mussolini,
and Hitler meeting (Soviet Union excluded) in Munich on
September 29, 1938
• Hitler agreed not to seek more land if allowed to occupy the
Sudetenland
• France and Britain agreed.
• Czechoslovakian negotiators were kept outside the meeting
• Chamberlain proclaimed “peace in our time”
• March 1939: Germany invaded Czechoslovakia
• Persuaded public of the futility of appeasement

63. The 1930s –
The “Dishonest Decade”
• The politics of appeasement
• Stalin’s response
• Feared the West might strike a deal with Hitler leaving the Soviet Union
vulnerable to invasion by Germany
• August 1939: the Nazi-Soviet (Hitler-Stalin) pact of nonaggression
• Stalin promised a share of Poland, Finland, and the Baltic States
• Germany took western Poland
• Germany and the Soviet Union agreed not to invade each other

64. The Outbreak of Hostilities
and the Fall of France
• Poland
• Hitler attacked Poland on September 1, 1939
• Britain and France sent a warning to Germany
• Germany ignored the demand
• Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3,
1939

65. The Outbreak of Hostilities
and the Fall of France
• Poland
• The Blitzkrieg (lightning war)
• Soviet troops invaded from the East
• Poland fell in four weeks

66. What is Blitzkrieg?
• Blitzkrieg
• a motorized force combining tanks, infantry, artillery, combat
engineers and air power,
• concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break
through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken, proceed
without regard to its flank.
• Through constant motion, the blitzkrieg attempts to
keep its enemy off-balance, making it difficult to
respond effectively at any given point before the front
has already moved on.

68. The Outbreak of Hostilities
and the Fall of France
• Scandinavia—Germans took Denmark in one day (Spring
1940)
• May 10, 1939: Germans moved through Belgium toward
France
• The fall of France
• French army overwhelmed by the German advance
• French refugees fled south

69. The Outbreak of Hostilities
and the Fall of France
• The fall of France
• Dunkirk: June 1940--three hundred thousand British and French
troops evacuated to England
• Mid-June 1940: the Germans reached Paris
• June 20, 1940: French surrendered
• Germans occupied northern France
• Southern France fell under theVichy regime, headed by Marshall
Pétain

71. The Battle of Britain & the
Beginnings of a Global War
• The Battle of Britain (July 1940–June 1941)
• Forty thousand civilians dead
• Stalemate in the air
• British resistance

72. London during the Battle of Britain

73. The Battle of Britain & the
Beginnings of a Global War
• Winston Churchill (1940–1945, 1951–1955)
• Language and personal diplomacy
• Persuaded FDR to break with American neutrality
• Lend-LeaseAct
• Military aid and weapons to Britain free of charge
• Military aid and weapons sent to Soviet Union and China & Free
French under Lend Lease

74. The Battle of Britain & the
Beginnings of a Global War
• A global war
• The battle of the Atlantic
• German submarines (“wolf packs”) sank millions of tons of
merchant shipping
• British development of sonar and aerial reconnaissance
• Breaking the German codes

75. The Battle of Britain & the
Beginnings of a Global War
• A global war
• NorthAfrica
• British needed to protect the Suez
• British humiliation of Italian invasion force in Libya
• Forced Germany to intervene
• Afrika Korps and Erwin Rommel
• Rommel’s invasion of Egypt defeated at El Alamein (1942)
• United States landed in French territories of Algeria and Morocco

76. Germany’sWar in the East & the
Occupation of Europe
• German victories
• 1941: Germany tookYugoslavia
• Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria sided with Germany
• Greece ultimately fell to the Germans
• By the summer of 1941, Germany dominated the continent

77. The Second World War in Europe

78. The Battle of Britain & the
Beginnings of a Global War
• Japan
• December 7, 1941: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
• Set out to destroy U.S. fleet
• Most American ships were out to sea
• U.S. declared war onGermany, Italy and Japan

79. “A Date which will Live in Infamy,” December 7, 1941

80. The Beginnings of a GlobalWar
Japanese swept through British protectorate of
Malaya
Singapore fell in December 1941
The invasion of the Philippines May, 1942
Corregidor and the “Death March”
Japanese pressed on to Burma

81. The Beginnings of a Global War
• A global war
• The American navy
• Rapid production of planes and ships
• Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal
• “Island hopping”

82. World War II in the Pacific

83. Germany’sWar in the East & the
Occupation of Europe
• Hitler’s ultimate goal
• Russia and the Ukraine
• Ethnically inferior Slavs and Jews, governed by communists
• Nazi-Soviet Pact as a matter of convenience for Hitler
• June 22, 1941: Hitler authorized Operation Barbarossa—the
invasion of the Soviet Union
• Stalin’s purges had killed or imprisoned Russia’s most capable
commanders

84. Germany’sWar in the East & the
Occupation of Europe
• Hitler’s ultimate goal
• Propaganda: Russia and Ukraine occupied by ethnically
inferior Slavs and Jews governed by morally inferior
Communists
• War against the Soviets characterized by ideology and racial hatred
• Cleansing occupied territories of “undesirable elements”
• June 22, 1941: Hitler authorized Operation Barbarossa—the
invasion of the Soviet Union
• Hitler diverted his attack from Moscow to the industrial south

85. Germany’sWar in the East & the
Occupation of Europe
• The Nazi New Order
• A patchwork affair
• Military governments (Poland and Ukraine)
• Collaborators (France)
• Allied fascists (Hungary)
• The empire was meant to feed Germany and maintain morale and
support
• Occupied countries paid “occupation costs” in taxes, food, industrial
production, and manpower

86. Germany’sWar in the East & the
Occupation of Europe
• The Nazi New Order
• Puppet regimes
• Norway and the Netherlands
• France
• Collaboration ranged from simple survival tactics to active Nazi
support

87. Germany’sWar in the East & the
Occupation of Europe
• The Nazi New Order
• France
• Communist activists
• Had a long tradition of smuggling and resisting government
• Became active guerrillas and saboteurs
• The Free French and Charles de Gaulle

88. “Cultural Terror,” 1944

89. Germany’sWar in the East & the
Occupation of Europe
• The Nazi New Order
• Yugoslavia
• Fascist Croats against most Serbs
• Josip Broz (Tito) emerged as the leader of theYugoslav resistance
• Communist guerrilla army
• Moral issues facing the occupied countries
• The enemies of the Nazis—the “undesirables”
• How to unite against the Nazis given ethnic, ideological differences
that the Nazis exploited

90. RacialWar, Ethnic Cleansing, and
the Holocaust
• WorldWar II as a racial war
• Hitler had already outlined his war against the Untermensch
(subhuman)
• Jews, Gypsies, Poles and Slavs
• The purification of the German people

91. RacialWar, Ethnic Cleansing, and
the Holocaust
• WorldWar II as a racial war
• Fall 1939: Himmler directed massive population transfers
• Ethnic Germans moved into the Reich
• Poles and Jews were deported
• A campaign of terror
• Poles deported to forced-labor camps
• Special death squads shot Jews in the streets

92. RacialWar, Ethnic Cleansing, and
the Holocaust
• World War II as a racial war
• Rassenkampf (racial struggle)
• Radicalized by the war itself
• 1938–1941: Nazis had no concerted plan to deal with undesirables
• Forced emigration
• Deportation to Madagascar
• June 1941:The turning point—Barbarossa
• Nazis directed hatred against Slavs, Jews, and Marxists
• A “war of extermination”

93. RacialWar, Ethnic Cleansing, and
the Holocaust
• From systematic brutality to atrocities to murder
• More than 5 million military prisoners marched to camps to work
as slave labor
• The Einsatzgruppen (death squads)
• 1941: “Pacification” had killed eighty-five thousand
• April 1942: five hundred thousand killed
• 1943: 2.2 million Jews killed
• TheWarsaw and Lodz ghetto—death and terror

94. RacialWar, Ethnic Cleansing, and
the Holocaust
• The Holocaust
• Nazis discussed plans for mass killings in death camps
• The ghettos were sealed
• Poison gas vans
• Auschwitz-Birkenau
• Systematic annihilation of Poles, Jews and Gypsies

95. Racial War, Ethnic Cleansing and
the Holocaust
• The “Jewish Problem”
• Many Europeans viewed Jews as “outsiders” believed there was
a problem to be solved
• Nazis tried to conceal the death camps and claimed Jews were
being “resettled” in the East
• Although there were reports of “death camps” government
officials in theWestern Allies claimed not to know the extent of
the slaughter until after the war was over.

96. Blueprint for Crematorium II, Birkenau, Dated November 1941.
The Five Shaded Squares in the Lower Drawing are the Gas Ovens
in the Structure’s Underground Level, and the Area to the Right is
Labeled “Corpses Room.”

97. Blueprint for the “Delousing Facility” at Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Showing a Room of 11.6 Meters by 11.2 Meters Marked
“Gaskammer” (Gas Chamber)

98. RacialWar, Ethnic Cleansing, and
the Holocaust
• The Holocaust
• Was it anonymous slaughter?
• People were tortured, beaten, and executed publicly
• Death marches
• Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Hamburg
• Were the victims anonymous to their neighbors?

99. RacialWar, Ethnic Cleansing, and
the Holocaust
• The Holocaust
• Who knew?
• Extermination involved the knowledge and cooperation of many
not directly involved in killing
• Most who suspected the worst were terrified and powerless?

100. • Visa application (Form BC)—Five copies
• Birth certificate—Two copies (country of birth determined
applicable quotas)
• Quota number, which established the person’s place on the waiting
list to enter the United States
• Two sponsors (close relatives of prospective immigrant were
preferred).The sponsors had to beAmerican citizens or have
permanent resident status, and they had to fill out and provide the
following:
• Affidavit of Support and Sponsorship (Form C)—Six copies,
notarized
• Certified copy of most recent federal tax return
• Affidavit from a bank about accounts
• Affidavit from any other responsible person regarding other
assets (affidavit from the sponsor’s employer or statement
of commercial rating)
• Certificate of Good Conduct from German police authorities,
including two copies of each of the following:
• Police dossier prison record
• Military record
• Other government records about the individual
• Affidavits of Good Conduct (after September 1940)
• Evidence of passing a physical examination at a U.S.
consulate
• Proof of permission to leave Germany (imposed September
30, 1939)
• Proof the prospective immigrant had booked passage to the
Western hemisphere (imposed September 1939)
Visa Documentation Required to Enter the US
1933-1945

101. RacialWar, Ethnic Cleansing, and
the Holocaust
• The Holocaust
• Who knew?
• What of other governments?
• Vichy France required Jews to wear special identification
• Italians participated less actively
• Hungarian government dragged its feet when it came to deportation
• Many people believed that resistance was futile
• Was this attitude based on apathy or cowardice?
• How did people claim not to know?
• Wall of the Righteous USHMM; Avenue of the RighteousYadVeshem—
Gentiles who saved Jews from the Holocaust remembered and honored.

102. RacialWar, Ethnic Cleansing, and the
Holocaust
Human costs = 4.1–5.7 million Jews
killed. Some long-standing Jewish
communities were annihilated.

103. Rebellions
• Auschwitz
• http://en.auschwitz.org/h/index.php?option=com_content&task
=view&id=9&Itemid=11
• Treblinka
• http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/lerman/medal_award/a
ward.php?content=treblinka
• Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
• http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/uprising/

104. Hittler’s “Final Solution”: Jews Marked for Death