How did Hitler turn his country against the Jews?

Question

I have a question regarding Hitler's rise to power. I understand that in pre-WW2 Germany, much of the money was controlled by the Jewish population. Hitler, I believe hated the Jews in his country and blamed them for the problems. My question is, how did he manage to get an entire country to agree to force Jews to wear special clothing, take away their assets and get a country to hate a particular race to the point that their country could turn their backs on the plight of people being exterminated and sent to concentration camps?

I don't agree with it, but I'm trying to understand how can a governmental leader turn an entire country against a certain group of people? In particular, what did Hitler do to cause this to happen?

Answer 1

There are many ways which Hitler managed to turn an entire population against the Jews during WW2.

1) During WW1 the Jews, who you stated were in control of most of the money. During WW1 the Jews refused to lend money to the Kaisers government for war industries. Their refusal to support the country in war led to many Germans believeing that the Jews were the cause for them losing the war.

2) Hitler employed excellent speakers such as Joseph Goebbels and propaganda to stir up the national hatred of Jews. This led to events such as the Kristallnacht which is German for the night of broken glass, when after a particular nasty speech by Joseph Goebbels, many Jewish shop window were smashed and many Jews assaulted.

3) Hitler employed the SS which were a sort of secret police and used them to set up Jewish people to crimes they did not commit and also told the SS to harrass, arrest, torture or kill any loyal to Jews on the grounds that they opposed the government.

4) After Germanys loss in WW1 the people were looking for someone to blame it on, so Hitler who was prejudiced against Jews wrote a book called Mein Kamph which was partially about hatred to Jews. When Hitler bacame German Chancellor, he continued this outburst against Jews.

The German people, depite the fact that they knew that their government was injust, was powerless to stop it as any opposition to the government would be swiftly killed.

Answer 2

Well, it wasn't the whole nation. Yes, it was an large PART of the country, but not all of it. There were Germans who opposed what was going on, but what could they do? They'd be treated as bad as the Jews if they spoke up. Hitler managed to get a large following in his craziness by lying and intimidation. There's even an incident where he staged his Nazis as the Polish and attacked Germany, just for a reason to turn people against Poland. He was a VERY good liar. Also, he got a following the same way Jim Jones got hundreds of people to commit suicide with him--he took advantage of the weak minded and worked his way up. All the rest is history--no pun intended.

Answer 3

Hitler didn't need to "turn" his country against the Jews because most Germans were already antisemitic; he just put into practice what many felt would be acceptable.

I think you are even supporting this prejudice by saying that you know most money in Germany pre WWII was controlled by Jews. First of all, there wasn't much money in Germany pre WWII, due to the destruction of their economy following the debacle of their loss in WWI, and next, non Jewish people had just as much of a role in financial matters as Jews.

Initially when the Nazis were in power the concentration camps, while bad, were not blatant extermination camps; that came later. German citizens accepted these concentration camps because they believed the lie that people sent to them were enemies of the state. By the time it was realized what was happening to the Jews and many others Hitler was a dictator and everyone had seen what happened to anyone who protested, so that even the few Germans who disagreed were afraid to speak out.

Answer 4

Antisemitism had a long history in Europe and even the US not just Germany and so Hitler only had to reawaken it in the population. It is still there, but at a much reduced level because of the horror that people felt when the magnitude of the Holocaust was revealed. Of all the countries in Europe only Denmark and Italy acted strongly to protect their Jewish population.
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/HistoryJewishPersecution.htm

Answer 5

You want be rich you MUST get approval from Jews
Drake, Lena Dunham, pink, Mila kunis, Daniel Radcliffe, zac effron, ashley tisdale, Amy Schumer, James Franco, Jon Stewart, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, Sarah Jessica Parker, Katie couric, Eva green, Alicia Silverstone,, Sarah Silverman, Jack black, Winona Ryder, Jerry Seinfeld, woody Allen, Rosanna Barr, jamie Lee Curtis, Goldie hawn, isla Fischer, Bette midler, Joan Rivers, William shatner, Mel Brooks, Howard Stern, Neil diamond, Bob saget, Scarlett Johansson, Chelsea Handler, Seth Green, Amanda Bynes, Natalie Portman, Jonah Hill, Shia Labeouf, Michael Douglas, Steven seagal, Tom Arnold, Bob Dylan, Harrison Ford, Elizabeth Taylor, Rob Reiner, Steven Spielberg, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Corey Feldman, Kate Hudson, Ben Stiller, Pauly Shore, Liev Schreiber, Robert Downey Jr, Tori Spelling, Paula Abdul, Larry David, Joan Lunden, Ron Jeromy, Daniel Day Lewis, Lizzy Caplan, Shane Kippel, Eugene Levy.. All Jew!

Answer 6

After the first World War, Germany was in poverty and Hitler blamed mostly the politicians, jews, homosexuals, gypsies, people with mental disabilities for Germany's financial problems...he was a passionate and very persuasive spokesperson who told them he would help them, that he would save them from poverty, so the people, desperate, either believed him or were too afraid to do anything about it because once he became dictator and had power he used his army to go after people who opposed him and kill them.

Answer 7

People get their information from the media, control what information people get, and you can control what they think. This is why some people today are concerned that much of the media is owned by only a small group of very rich people. What prejudices are they putting into the news that we get?
Fortunately the internet now provides an alternative, if somewhat dubious at times, source of news.

Answer 8

He took advantage of the economic situation, and blamed a people who were distinctly different from everyone else. He also created his own concepts. He had a personal hate for the Jews that stemmed from his childhood, and so created concepts about them that fit his own thinking.

For one, he asserted that Jews aren't White (which isn't always true), and that Russians were also not White. He even then had Nazi professors teach that the shape of Caucasian craniums meant superior thinking, and that anyone who had a different shaped skull (any ethnic individuals), did not develop certain human emotions (like compassion, or intuition, or even humor). Nazism was more than a political movement. It was also kind of a religion, and way of life. He was also one of the most influential public speakers of all time, which is why people were manipulated like lemmings by him.

Answer 9

Germany was destroyed by the treaty of Versailes.

Hitler promised to rebuild germany and its military.

But he needed something to put as a... reason. Dont know why he picked the jews but he used them as a reason.

Answer 10

its not really hard to turn a group of people against a way of thought
if you realise in groups, people stop trying to think for themselves
and then it got to the point of violence, and most people would be more willing to keep their head down and nod
after than you have an ideology