Throughout history there have been clear, distinct time periods that are now synonymous with discrimination, prejudice, and hate. The era of slavery in the United States, and the Holocaust in Europe. While both of these are horrible in their own way, they are both connected by “the root of all evil”; money. Slavery was fueled by the need for free labor. Calls for civil war from the south came from fears of the economy being ruined if slavery was abolished. In Germany, Adolf Hitler rose to power during a time of horrible economic problems in Germany. He promised to fix the issues and found a scapegoat in the Jewish population. With these examples it can be concluded that Prejudice attitudes and actions increase with fear of Economic woes.
In …show more content…
Millions of Jews in Europe were killed and in fact the end goal to the holocaust was to eliminate all Jews. At the time of Hitler’s rise to power Germany was suffering harsh economic times. The Versailles treaty which ended WW1 forced Germany to pay extensive amount of money in reparations. In order to meet these payment the German government began printing money that lead to hyperinflation. An NPR article states how “at one point, it cost a million marks to mail a letter” (Kenny, Chace). Furthermore because Germany was seen as the responsible agent behind WW1 countries avoided trade and imports for the troubled country. Hitler used this economic distress to rise to power by finding a scapegoat. There had to be someone to blame for all the woes of the German people. Hitler convinced the German people that the wealthy Jewish business owners were to blame. The bitter prejudice and anti-Semitism that followed and gruesome events of the holocaust all began with economic woes. The German people were desperate for economic relief. Hitler had a plan to boost the economy and also a reason behind why they were currently in such bad shape. If this plan for economic relief included the killing of millions of people then so be it. They were the ones responsible for the problems to begin with anyways. This was the mindset of the German people, a prejudice filled mindset based on economic
In …show more content…
Millions of Jews in Europe were killed and in fact the end goal to the holocaust was to eliminate all Jews. At the time of Hitler’s rise to power Germany was suffering harsh economic times. The Versailles treaty which ended WW1 forced Germany to pay extensive amount of money in reparations. In order to meet these payment the German government began printing money that lead to hyperinflation. An NPR article states how “at one point, it cost a million marks to mail a letter” (Kenny, Chace). Furthermore because Germany was seen as the responsible agent behind WW1 countries avoided trade and imports for the troubled country. Hitler used this economic distress to rise to power by finding a scapegoat. There had to be someone to blame for all the woes of the German people. Hitler convinced the German people that the wealthy Jewish business owners were to blame. The bitter prejudice and anti-Semitism that followed and gruesome events of the holocaust all began with economic woes. The German people were desperate for economic relief. Hitler had a plan to boost the economy and also a reason behind why they were currently in such bad shape. If this plan for economic relief included the killing of millions of people then so be it. They were the ones responsible for the problems to begin with anyways. This was the mindset of the German people, a prejudice filled mindset based on economic