The Holocaust
The Holocaust, defined as a whole burnt sacrifice was a historical conflict between the Nazis and Jews. In a broader perspective, conflict between the Aryan race and all other inferior races. The primary cause of the Holocaust was the Nazi Party’s rise of power. The social science perspectives of psychology, politics and sociology evaluate the factors that lead up to the primary cause of the Holocaust. Analyzing the conflict in the Holocaust helps to understand a current conflict such as the situation of alleged genocide in Darfur.
Psychological factors contributed to the primary conflict of the Holocaust. The Nazi Party was a great supporter of anti-Semitism and their new power allowed them to spread the word easily. Nazi leader Hans Frank expressed the hatred in his Jewish Extermination Speech in 1941, “if the pack of Jews were to survive the war in Europe while we sacrifice the best of our blood for the preservation of Europe, then this war would still be only a partial success. ” The people involved in the Nazi Party were very narrow-minded.
Without total execution of all Jews, their plan would be considered a failure. The Nazis set a goal that was unreasonable and because of this unreachable goal, the Nazis were driven to almost insanity to kill off any Jew on the street. Although the Nazis had manipulated themselves into anti-Semitism, they still had to convince the people of Germany that total execution of the Jewish people was normal. Adolf Hitler used all kinds of media as anti-Semitic propaganda. Hans Frank had also said, “I must ask you to remain unmoved by pleas of pity.
We must annihilate the Jews wherever we encounter them, in order to maintain the overall mastery of the Reich. ” The Nazi Party even produced an anti-Semitic film called The Eternal Jew that bashed the Jews in every way possible. At one point, the film stated, “Among the animals, rats represent the rudiment of an insidious and underground destruction, just like the Jews among human beings. ” The horrific comments said about the Jews in Hitler’s propaganda was enough to turn Germany into a heartless, full-fledged anti-Semitic nation.
Hitler was able to manipulate the minds of people and by doing so, he was able to gather enough followers to carry out his anti-Semitic plans. The political events that took place during the times was also a huge factor to the primary cause of the Holocaust. Not long after Hitler was elected as Chancellor of Germany, he decided to change his leadership into a dictatorship. Hitler’s hunger for power was most likely fueled by his want to promote anti-Semitism. Hitler became extremely powerful and used this to his advantage to speak pessimistically against the Jews.
Often, his speech would be something along the lines of this, “We say that the war will not end as the Jews imagine it will, namely, with the uprooting of the Aryans, but the result of this war will be complete annihilation of the Jews. ” Hitler’s unlimited power promised him that no obstacle would get in the way of putting his anti-Semitic ideas into action. Soon after, Anti- Semitism became a government policy. The idea of anti-Semitism was taught to children at schools and was widely promoted by several groups.
It was reasonable for the people of Germany to dislike the Jews, but making it a government policy was going overboard. If openly sabotaging and torturing the Jewish people was now legal, an event like the Holocaust to follow seemed to be inevitable. Obviously, if the Holocaust had happened, it shows that Hitler was not yet satisfied with the Jewish Problem. In 1939, Hitler came up with The Final Solution of the Jewish Question. The Final Solution stated that all Jews seen on the street was be killed.
By making the Final Solution a governmental law, executing Jews seemed less like a crime and more like a necessary action. The absolute power that the Nazi Party had obtained allowed them to enforce political laws without question and eventually, Nazism took over the country of Germany. The sociological differences between the Jews and the Aryan race caused much conflict between the two races and also added to the primary cause of the Holocaust. The Jews were treated as social outcasts way before the Holocaust even happened.
Hitler had built on the already existing anti-Semitism and convinced people that Jews were hindering the development of Germany. Jews were often the scapegoats in many of the nation’s problems. Although no one could prove if that was true, the Jews did not seem like they were disrupting the organization of Germany. Hitler was simply playing the blame game to win over pro-Anti-Semitism. In one of his speeches, Hitler had predicted, “If the international Jewish financers in and outside of Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more in a world war, then the esult will not be the Bolshevizing of the Earth, and thus the victory of Jewry but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe… then we shall see which is stronger, the spirit of international Jewry or the will of Germany. ” Once again, Hitler refers to the annihilation of all Jews in Europe. If Jewish businesses are causing the German businesses to diminish, then the only reasonable solution would be to get rid of everyone that was hindering the development of Germany. The Nazi Party had stripped the Jews of natural human rights such as citizenship, property and life.
Hitler abused his power to torment the Jews and made it seem normal, humane. The interaction between Jews and non-Jews became more hostile. Non-Jews refused to help Jews because they had the constant fear of getting caught by government officials. To avoid that problem, they decided to shut the Jews into confined ghettos. The negativity became more extreme and eventually, the Nazi Party came to a decision that annihilating every Jew was the best solution for the problem. The current conflict of the genocide in Darfur is similar to the Holocaust in all three social science perspectives.
The conflict of Darfur was started when a group of rebels had killed Sudanese soldiers. Similarly, Hitler had ordered genocide of the Jews after Herschel Grynszpan, a Jew killed a German diplomat. The government and Janjaweed militia of Sudan targeted rebel African groups and organized a systematic killing. The government encouraged and supported the actions of the Janjaweed militia. Likewise, a high power party was responsible for the rise of the Holocaust. The Nazis and Sudanese government were both encouraged the wiping out of an inferior people group.
Psychologically, the government of Sudan tried to manipulate public opinion with misleading information. They had used propaganda to promote negativity towards the rebel groups of the ‘Sudan Liberation Army’ and the ‘Justice and Equality Movement’. The Nazis had used propaganda to promote negative views of the Jews and most likely, the insight posted on the propaganda was based solely on assumptions. Sociologically, the conflicted areas were heavily guarded by the Sudan Liberation Army and the rebels were mostly confined into small spaces.
The guards caused hesitance in humanitarian aid because of the fear of death. Non-Jews were reluctant to help Jews because of the constant fear of getting caught by the Nazi government. The Jews were also confined into ghettos which is similar to the rebel communities that live separate from the rest of Darfur. Both inferior groups were treated as social outcasts. with the similar conditions of the victims and same intentions of the government, many people consider Darfur to be the modern Holocaust.
Analyzing a historical and current conflict can help us understand the reasons for any general conflict. History has a theory of repeating itself through time. This is evident because about sixty years after the Holocaust, the conflict of Darfur, a similar conflict happened. In general, the conflict of the Holocaust and Darfur happened because of disagreements and disputes with a group of people that was different than their own. Any conflict contains two of more parties with opposing views that are also not content with the other’s presence.
A conflict happens because one is not okay with the actions of another. A disagreement of some sort must be present and there must be a failure to compromise for a conflict to form. The Holocaust was caused by many factors in the social science perspectives of psychology, politics and sociology. Hitler was able to manipulate the minds of many people which caused them to believe in a strong anti-Semitic view. The absolute power of the Nazi party legalized anti-Semitic laws and people of the “Aryan” race constantly spat on the Jews.
Not more than 60 years later, a similar conflict in Darfur happened. Both conflicts were systematic, government sponsored genocides that failed to succeed. By analyzing the historical conflict of the Holocaust and the modern conflict of Darfur, it is easier to understand that the reason for any conflict is the dispute and failure to compromise of two or more parties. Conflicts are always happening but by taking a social science perspective and an analytical approach, a conflict can be broken down to be understood with greater knowledge.
