Professional Documents
Culture Documents
WORLD WAR II
BEGAN
1918
World War I ends with Germany’s defeat
1919
The Treaty of Versailles is signed by Germany
and the Allied Powers. Germany is forced to
accept responsibility for WWI and pay huge
reparations to the countries in the Allied Powers
As a result millions of Germans lose their jobs
and are reduced to living in poverty
1923
Inflation in Germany
soars and the currency is
practically worthless
1933
Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
Hitler becomes a Dictator
Soon after he is elected Chancellor,
Hitler begins to build a dictatorship
Jealousy
Some Jews were successful and held influential positions
in Austria and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Germany
was hit the hardest by the Depression and successful Jews
were envied.
Revenge
Hitler saw Jewish people as scapegoats for the economic
crisis at that time. Some Germans believed that Jewish
bankers had plunged the world into the Depression for their
own profit by determining the value of money.
Hitler’s opinion
of The “Jew”…
"His is no master people; he is an
exploiter: the Jews are a people of
robbers. He has never founded any
civilisation, though he has destroyed
civilisations by the hundred...everything
he has stolen. Foreign people, foreign
workmen build him his temples, it is
foreigners who create and work for him,
it is foreigners who shed their blood for
him.“
- Adolf Hitler, July 1922, Munich
Being Jewish in Nazi
Germany
“Even as a Jewish boy of fourteen I was
somewhat fascinated by everything that was
going on. The media were completely in thrall
to the Nazi party. It took hold of you, whether
you liked it or not. It was so nationalistic…
feeling ‘German’ and identifying with the
fatherland were extremely appealing, now that
the country was scrambling to its feet after the
defeat of 1918.