When faced with the utter inhumanity of the Holocaust, the first question that many people ask is: "How?" There were many factors that contributed to allowing Adolf Hitler implement his Final Solution. Historians continue to debate these today. Click below for some of the basic arguments.

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The German economy was mired in depression for the majority of the 1920s. Even though they were not the cause of its poor condition, many people blamed the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles and the Jews. Many Jewish Germans occupied professional positions like lawyers, bankers, and doctors. Hitler blamed them as the source of the country's money woes. Close Pop Up The Holocaust was only the most extreme example of the anti-Semitism that Jews faced throughout Europe, dating back to the Spanish Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Many Europeans believed in a Jewish conspiracy to establish economic control of the world. This was aided by the widespread publication of a Russian document, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which supposedly explained the secret rules of this conspiracy. It did not take much to stir Gentile (non-Jewish) Germans against their fellow Jewish citizens. Close Pop Up Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party skillfully manipulated the German people's economic vulnerability and anti-Semitism to create a frenzy of hatred against Jewish Germans. He used them as scapegoats, blaming them for Germany's problems. He convinced the Germans that they were part of a master race, the Aryan, and the country had to establish racial purity. The Nazi party were masters of propaganda. Close Pop Up The rest of the world, for the most part, ignored the plight of the Jewish people in Germany. Before the Nazis constructed the concentration camps, Hitler offered to simply expel the Jews from Germany, but many countries—including the United States—refused to take them. There were many anti-Semites in the U.S. State Department. Most famously, in 1939, the St. Louis sailed from Germany with 903 Jewish refugees and landed at Havana, Cuba. The Cuban government refused to let the people leave the ship. President Roosevelt ignored pleas to let them land in the United States, with Florida just 90 miles away. The ship was forced to return to Germany. Close Pop Up

Activity: Explaining Kristallnacht

Read below a brief description of Kristallnacht, one of the major events before the implementation of the Final Solution. After reading the event complete the drag-and-drop that shows how each of the above factors might have contributed to Kristallnacht.

On November 9-10, 1938, a wave of violence erupted throughout Germany against the Jewish people. Synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses were attacked in a series of carefully organized riots. Many Jews were rounded up and incarcerated. After the event, the Nazi government blamed the Jews for causing the riots and collectively fined the German Jewish population the equivalent of $400 million. The event became known as Kristallnacht, or the "Night of Broken Glass," in reference to the broken windows of Jewish businesses.

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