Language:
English
Year of publication:
2006
Titel der Quelle:
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
20,2 (2006) 183-206
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Economic aspects
;
National socialism Philosophy
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
The exclusion, isolation, deportation, and murder of Jews under Nazism were not just elements of the political process implemented by the state and the party - they were also part of a social process. The social behavior of Germans toward Jews was a result of the close interaction between the Nazi dictatorship and German society. Neither antisemitism nor dictatorial pressure alone can explain the dynamism in the rapid social exclusion of Jews. Argues that four factors were especially significant: antisemitism; conformism with Nazi norms, reinforced by social control and surveillance; the activation of personal interests, in particular by the economic exclusion of Jews; and the growing consensual support for the regime after 1933. The political and military successes of the Nazis caused Germans to acquiesce to the anti-Jewish policy. However, German defeats on the battlefield and the Allied bombings of 1943-45 fostered a sense of guilt among Germans and caused some of them to help Jews.
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