Obviously the Nazi party's charisma, solidarity, and nationalism was very attractive to German citizens. But were those reasons enough to persuade a nation to commit genocide? It seems although Nazi measures such as the Nuremberg Laws and boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses were significant in they clearly targeted the race, the strongest force behind the condemnation and oppression of the Jews was the German public.
My argument of this comes from Bernward Dorner's study of denunciations. Of the 481 reports, less than one third were political, a little less than half were in regards to personal considerations, and 114 had no mentioned informant.
The absense of legitimate reason, opinionated justifications, and anonymous informants displays the antisemitism of the German public. No matter how much the Nazis enforced consequences of marriage laws, business boycotts, and star decrees, these policies would not have been as affective if it were not for the support of the public.
The fact Germans were anonymously reporting information regarding Jews to the Gestapo based on personal grievances reveals that citizens were doing away with traditional means of resolving conflicts, and instead relying on coercion.
Something else to consider is the depth of which denuciations were reported to the Gestapo. Informants were from within families, friends, and spouses, but soon they had spread to other Germans as well.
Overall, I believe antisemitism was already a staple of Germany, and, more importantly, was a major factor in the development of Nazi genocide.
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Yeah, you're exactly right. Anti-Semitism had been present for a long while in Germany, and it was brought to the front and intensified when the Nazis came to power. Would the Nazis have been as effective if it anti-Semitism hadn't been present in Germany? We don't know. People still may have turned their neighbors in out of fear. The policies we know of today may not have worked as thoroughly as they did, and new ones could have been introduced that scared people into complying, out of fear of their family's safety. But, anti-Semitism did exist, and you're right, it allowed the genocide to happen. Why else would the Germans that lived around the death/concentration camps been able to turn a blind eye to what was going on around them?
ReplyDeleteAs more evidence comes to light regarding the complicity of average Jews in the discrimination and increasing acts of crulety towards Jews, it becomes harder to explain their actions. However, just because Germans denunced Jews to the Gestapo does not mean that they were anti-Semitic. Germans denounced other Germans, often friends and family, to the Stasi without believing in any system of racial superiority. Sadly, denunciation motivated by anger, resentment or personal gain seems to be a common feature of human behavior.
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