Did the Jews present a threat to Hitler and to Germany?

Question

Did the Jews cause any troubles in Germany back then?
Were they good peaceful citizens? Or were they revolters?

For instance, Americans justified their holocaust of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, by saying that it was inevitable. Many American citizens agreed with their government and felt no guilt at all...

(No holocaust denial intended)

Answer 1

Hitler was a nut that believed all the antisemitic propaganda that was so prevalent in Europe for centuries. He singled out the Jewish population of Germany for all the problems that Germany was having as a consequence of losing WWI. Jewish people fought during WWI in the German army. They were German citizens up to the rise of power of Nazism in Germany, when Hitler stripped them of all their rights as German citizens, so he could oppress them brutally. They were the first in a long list of people that the Nazis believed were not human, since they did not belonged to the "Aryan" standard that Hitler sought to impose in Germany. So that was his justification for the extermination of all Jews. They were not human. The Jews did nothing to deserve the brutality and extermination of them as a group. On the other hand, Japan did attack the U. S. in 1941 in a surprise attack to Pearl Harbor. The campaign for taking back Iwo Jima and Okinawa, in which the japanese army fought to the last man to stop the advance of the U. S. Army, convinced America that the invasion of Japan was going to be long and will result in the death of at least 1,000,000 U. S. soldiers. Thus, to end the war, both atomic weapons were dropped in Japan, to demolarize and break the back of their Army. The U. S. had no intention of exterminating all japanese people from the face of the Earth, unlike Hitler, whose ultimate objective was the extermination of the Jewish people. The japanese understood quickly that they did not have a chance of surviving as a nation and therefore surrendered. Without dropping the atomic bombs, many more people would have died in the invasion of Japan, so I, as an American feel no guilt whatsoever. Japan brought the bombs upon themselves. William T. Sherman stated correctly when he said that war had to be brutal, so that your enemy loses all taste of fighting. So, both events are not connected to each other in the least. Hitler tried to erradicate a complete class of human beings based on a crazy idea of a super race, U. S. was protecting soldiers when we dropped both atomic bombs on the Japanese.

Answer 2

Albert Speer, Hitler's Economics Minister, writing after the war commented "He (Hitler) had read a lot but had interpreted all that he had read according to his own lights...without improving his knowledge". This is however only half-true. In fact Hitler was an avid if rather narrow minded and selective reader, with a particular interest in Modern popular physchology, Political Sciences and Economics. He read the works of Schopenhaurer, Lenin, and Paul de Lagarde (the nineteenth century apostle of the 'leader principle'), and in addition he also read and was influenced by Houston Stewart Chamberlain who was perhaps the most widely known of the late nineteenth century 'Race theologists'. From these Hitler, blind to rational or critical objections, became convinced that the world was about to witness one of the periodic upheavals of world history in which the survival of civilization could be only be achieved by replacing the traditional breakdown of society into classes, with a society where the importance of 'Race' (or Nation) replaced the class system (which to Hitler benefited only the interests of the bourgeoise and created class envy, the worship of money, and alienated the working classes from the nation). Hitler wanted the nation to represent a particular kind of community, with 'Race Comrades' instead of classes, and an economy controlled in the name of the people. For this a common blood would be the most defining form of alliegance. The enemy of these ambitions was, principally, the Jews. At some point at the end of the Great War Hitler absorbed the popular anti-semetic argument that the Jews were to blame for the German defeat, either as marxists preaching an ideology of festering social decomposition, or as capitalists pulling the strings of the world market, or as a biological challenge to the purity of the blood. Thus 'Jews' became a historical metaphor for explaining Germany's troubles and its economic crisis. So in Hitler's warped political mind the successs of 'New Order' depended upon people being either seduced and mastered, or excluded and eliminated. A view that Hitler maintained until the end. I trust, Sir, that this answer will be satisfactory to you.

Answer 3

~Yes, the Jews did pose a threat to Hitler, as did everyone else on his hit list. The Jews were a minority of those interned in the camps and at least one death camp, Jasenovac, was established to kill folks other than Jews (Serbs). Whenever a racist demagogue seizes absolute control of a nation, anyone holding an opposing point of view poses a threat to that control. Thus, the mass murder of leading Nazis on the Night of the Long Knives, or Stalin's purge of the Soviet military brought about by the propaganda created by Rheinhold Heydrich. Though I don't compare them closely to Hitler, the neocons and "christian" zealots share a similar mindset to his, particularly when it comes to independent thought and conflicting ideas and ideals.

The history of anti-Semitism goes back a few milenia, although the word wasn't coined until the late 19th century. (And, logically, the term is totally inappropriate given that there are more non-Jewish Semites in the world than Jewish ones.) The Jews in Germany and Poland, and the rest of Europe were tolerated but not particularly well-liked. You'll have to do some reading to understand why, but, of course, with the history of Christianity and the Jew-baiting and discrimination engaged in by the Church for almost 2 thousand years before Hitler, one would expect this. The Jews were not united, however, and many of them would have supported Hitler and his programs but for his anti-Semitism. Others would have opposed him verbally and intellectually and others still would have opposed him by force. Most would have just tried to go about with the task of living life and making ends meet. Hey, they are people, after all, and they hold opinions as diverse as all other peoples, just like any other racial, religious or ethnic group. Sharing a religion does not mean they shared a common political ideology. As to whether or not they were causing problems rests entirely on one's definition of 'problems' and one's point of view. The rest of the world was not overly concerned with what was happening to the Jews and the several other groups marked for extinction by the National Socialists (and I daresay that many of the Nazi activities were applauded secretly by more than one government).

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not the same issue, although the immorality of them is not dissimilar to Hitler's pogroms. That holds true with the fire bombings of Tokyo and Dresden as well. Our propaganda tells us that those events were justified and necessary. A little knowledge of history, some understanding of the military situation at the time, a brief consideration of the real purposes behind killing all those civilians and some rational thought proves otherwise, but I'll leave that discussion for another day. A much closer and more accurate analogy would be the US genocide campaign against American Indians, from which Heydrich and Himmler got more than a few of their ideas.

Answer 4

It seem the two portions of your question are very loosely related. The Jews were normal law abiding citizens who were singled out and slaughtered.

As detestable as the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were, they were the actions of one county at war with another.

As for calling them inevitable, the next logical step to ending the war with Japan would have likely been a full-scale invasion, costing countless more lives to both sides than were lost to atomic bombs.

Answer 5

The Jews were not a direct threat to Hitler. He used them to justify his laws against them in order to take the money he believed they had and give it back to the German people. This was stupid, for the Jews didn't have power over the government.

Further, the Jews had been ostracized and eliminated far before Hitler came along. He just happened to be the first to do it in the 20th century. Now you should ask, "Did the Jews actully do anything to Stalin to make him kill about 20,000 of them"

Answer 6

Hitler was an Austrian born man who failed to register for the draft in Austria and fled to Germany so as not to serve time. He did serve in the German Army in World War One . yet, then he claimed that Germany lost the war because Jews had stabbed Germany in the back. A total lie since German Jews served also in the German Army then and many lost their lives for Germany. In addition, many were wounded as my father was and were decorated with the Iron cross for valor as my d father was. it is incredible that a whole nation like Germany would buy into such a monstrous lie. Thereason: Jews comprised only 500,000 persons out of a total population of 60 million Germans then. Thus, by picking on a minority and scapegoating it , it enlisted the many Germans who were upset bevcauyseof the inefficiency of their governments. Before Hitler was chosen as Chancellor of Germany, actually he had lost against the President Marshall Hindenbuirg in l the 1930 elections,; but parties in germany were unav ble to establish sound governments and coalition after coalition to create a government was ineffective, It led to a chaotic situation and rising unemployment. So rather then seeing reality , why not blame a minority. The same often occurs in history when a minority is blamed for the ills of a total society . Basically, it seems to me, men , masses of men are brutal beasts who are always blaming others for their shortcomings. And, Hitler outdid everybody on that. He had never worked in his life, was a bum in Austria and in germany except for working asa spy for the right wing Police in Bavaria never held another job until he winged himsel;f into the graces of the junkers and other german plutocrats who feared a more potent ennemy , the Communists. So, blaming Jews was simply the old scapegoat game. And, Germans bought into the gimmick. Therefore, Germans , became as beasts in lateratrocities , simply immoraL BEASTS. And , of course, Hitler led the beasts into war ,

Answer 7

The Jews were not a threat, they were an opportunity. Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany's troubles, and made them a convenient target. This also played into peoples' fears, jealousies and need for material goods, as the persecution of the Jews allowed others to confiscate their wealth.

Answer 8

No they did not some were supporters of the Communist party but I hardly think that justifies the Nazi party and its Murder of Millions of people. As for the Japanese Empire yes it attack us first granted they may have felt it to be pre emptive strike but once the War machine was woke it wasn't going to stop until the job was done. Japan would have used the Nuclear Bomb just as we did if they felt it would have kept America out of the Japanese Home Islands.

Answer 9

The Jewish population was Germany's main source of prosperity and progress. One reason they were targeted was in order for the Nazi party to seize their wealth.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima were 'justified' by figuring how much American blood would be spilled and how long the war would be prolonged using conventional methods versus using the ability to inflict sufficient casualties on the enemy to force them to surrender to save that amount of American lives and allow the uncertainty of the war's outcome to continue to remain in play. The horror of WWII was not brought about by the United States, and if the tables had been turned they would never have mourned our casualties.

Answer 10

The only Jews that threatened Hitler's Germany were the ones he ran out of the country...namely Einstein and other top scientists, who eventually worked on the Manhatten Project.... They were only threats because of his anti-semitic policies....ie, he created the threats.