Why did Hitler hate Jews so much that the Holocaust happened? original question: “Why did Hitler hate Jewish people so much when his own grandfather was a Jew?”
Understanding Mein Kampf: Why did Hitler Hated the Jews so much
A question, which led to the terrible demise of millions of innocent citizens. Today, let’s try to make sense of Hitler’s monomaniacal hatred of Jews, by studying his book ‘Mein Kampf’ (My struggle). In some sections of the book, he displays excellent insights about topics like politics and social welfare, but only a few page later he reverts back to his savage racism. This book highly resembles a pendulum, continuously swinging from intelligent and rational ideas to irrational loathing.
I studied this book so that I could make sense of this unreasonable hate, and here’s what I found out:
- His father was a civil servant with progressive liberal views and didn’t support anti-Semitism. So, Hitler’s hate didn’t develop in his childhood.
- Different Clothes and Physical Appearance: His loathing of the Jews first showed its ugly head when he reached Vienna. One day, he saw a Jewish person wearing a traditional dress of a long caftan and large side locks and thought that he looked really out of place. A poisonous thought entered his mind, “Was this alien person a German?” This encounter led him to believe that the Jews didn’t belong there because their physical appearance was different from the Germans.
A Jewish man in traditional clothing
3. The Zionist Movement: During the time that Hitler was in Vienna, a Jewish movement called Zionism was gaining steam in the city. Zionism was basically the Jewish Nationalist Movement that worked for the renewal of the core concepts of Judaism. This movement was only supported by a specific proportion of Jewish people, and there were various Jews that were against it. Hitler thought that that this internal disturbance between the Jews was just a deception and in reality they were actually strongly united together. His view of the Zionist movement and the alleged deception by the Jews made him think of Jews as two-faced people who couldn’t be trusted.
4. Lack of personal hygiene: He labelled Jews as having an ‘Aversion to water’ and claimed that they had a foul body odour due to not bathing regularly and that they wore shabby and ill maintained clothes.
Nazi propaganda cartoons often showed Jews as unclean and with poor hygiene
5. Perceived dominance of Jews in arts and culture: He held the view that Jews maintained absolute control over the arts and culture scene in Vienna. They produced deplorable literature and he went as far as to claim that quote ‘every 9 out of 10 detestable works of literature is written by Jewish Authors’.
This dominance was also seen in Newspapers, the majority of which were owned by Jews. These paper misled the masses by shoving their own selfish propaganda down the throats of the poor common man. He also claimed that these newspapers were immensely biased, complimenting the Jews extravagantly and saving their bitter criticism for the Germans.
6. His hate against social democracy and Marxism: Hitler was very poor when he came to Vienna. To keep his soul and body together, he had to resort to Manual labour. During these days he was frequently in the company of poor labourers who were greatly influenced by Social Democracy. He debated a lot with these labourers and finally made up his mind that Social democracy was a tremendous lie. It was just a trick used by the Jewish leaders (Hitler must have also definitely blamed the Jews even for natural calamities like floods and earthquakes) of the Social democratic party to oppress the masses. He ‘pitied’ the poor masses and vowed to save them from their tyrannical oppressors.
Nazi propaganda showing Jews as the leaders of evil socialism
All of these factors gave rise to a bitter loathing in Hitler’s mind and led to one of the worst atrocities in Human History. He actually believed that he was doing god’s work, as if any god desires the cold blooded murder of its own creation. Hitler declared quote “Should the Jew triumph over this world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind……the planet will be wrought without life……..and so I believe what I am doing is accordance to the almighty’s wishes for I am defending the handiwork of the lord”
Hitler was a military and political genius. But his genius for politics and social reforms were all wasted due to his groundless hatred towards innocents. He committed horrendous atrocities, all in the name of unreasonable hate, which ultimately lead to his downfall. Hatred is indeed the worst of human emotions.
People celebrating after the liberation of the concentration camp Dachau
-Navya Sharma
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Easy answer: because Hitler would have been good friends with Alex Jones
Well, I gotta say- most of the answers here are sorta incorrect (though I didn’t read them all). Here are some common wrong answers you may hear.
“Hitler killed the Jews because he was an anti-semite” False
- Sure Hitler was an anti-semite, lots of Europe was. There is a big jump between being anti-Semitic and killing 11 million people in a massive genocide. Did Hitler hate Jews? Yes. Did he just do this out of evil? No
“Hitler thought that Jews were dirty and was obsessed with cleanliness” False
- I heard Jordan Peterson say this once and it’s super wrong. This is not why Hitler killed so many people- it's not even in the realm of accurate.
“Because the Jews denied Hitler entry into an art school he tried to attend” False
- Also Wrong. Hitler was upset over this but it’s not like he started a decades-long genocidal vendetta over a college rejection.
Let’s dig into Hitler some because few really understand him. It’s uncomfortable really understanding Hitler and his positions and I get that just saying he was an evil bigot is easier- but if want to prevent a second Hitler we have to learn who Hitler really was.
So what was the reason? Well, conspiracy theories! This will all sound eerily familiar
Hitler was a lot of things- above all though he was a conspiracy nut of the highest order.
Specifically, he ascribed to the idea of “Jewish-Bolshevism”. What is Jewish Bolshevism? Well, it’s a conspiracy theory that the Jews as a community organized and started the Russian Revolution and the spread of socialism as a whole.
Hitler preached the idea that Jews had backstabbed Germany in WW1 and lost them in the war and that the Jews would now overthrow the government, turn Germany into a socialist state, and destroy the Aryan people.
Hitler was literally saying “there is a cabal of evil powerful people controlling the world and trying to turn Germany into a socialist hell hole”. In that sentence replace Germany with America and tell me if it sounds familiar.
This is where the holocaust is born- in this idea above. Hitler really believed that the Jews were going to turn Germany socialist.
Here’s the thing- if you believe something like this a genocide becomes possible.
When I hear Q-Anon nuts say that a cult of pedophiles is trying to destroy the US it worries me a great deal. If you honestly believe something like this then you can justify any act of violence because in your mind, you are saving children and millions of Americans.
Do you see what I am saying? If you believe that Jews are out to destroy your nation then the holocaust is not some horrible evil event- it’s just a reaction to unjust hostility.
Now were the Jews behind communism? No. Were the Jews out to destroy Germany? No. Do Jews really coordinate on an international scale? No.
All of this was conspiracy-fueled nonsense but Hitler really believed it and he convinced millions of Germans to buy into it. Did Hitler also hate Jews personally? Yes, he did.
But remember that hate alone did not start the holocaust. This is why conspiracy theories are so dangerous- especially really popular and insane ones like what Q-Anon preaches.
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