The Holocaust

1. Adolf Hitler

1.1. When World War I began, Hitler was 25 and living in Munich, Germany. The news brought him to his knees with joy,and he enlisted in the German army. He served in the 16th Bavarian Reserve and went through the war with only a few minor injuries, though thousands in his company were killed. Reaching the rank of Corporal, he served as a runner between the command staff and the battlefront, one of the most dangerous jobs in the military. On October 7, 1916, a shell fragment injured Hitler’s leg during the Battle of the Somme. Due to his injury, the army transferred him to Munich for light duty. This time away from the front became pivotal in Hitler’s future. He disliked the apathetic and anti-war Germans, and he blamed the Jewish community for the people’s attitude. He felt the Jews were trying to undermine Germany’s success in the war by nurturing pacifist feelings. Hitler disliked Munich so much he requested, and was granted, a position back on the front in March 1917.

1.2. Did not have blonde hair or blue eyes!

2. The Perfect Race

2.1. Hitler ordered the making of propaganda films to persuade the public of the necessity of eliminating people with genetic defects. The film "Victims of the Past" was made on Hitler's explicit orders and he made sure the film was shown in Germany's 5,300 cinemas. Special lighting effects distorted features so people with disabilities were portrayed as grotesque and could only survive at the expense of healthy people.5

2.2. The Nazis also sterilized nearly 400,000 Germans believed to have genetic impurities. During the 1930's, people with disabilities in Germany were referred to as "useless eaters". Nazi Germany targeted the disabled and the elderly as a drain on public resources. Doctors, not soldiers, were put in charge of killing the elderly and disabled, since they had first-hand knowledge of where they lived, and if the disability was temporary or not. Those deemed "curable" were transferred to special hospitals for slave labor and experiments. Dr. Josef Mengele was the most famous of these "researchers", torturing hundreds of children, especially those of a multiple birth, i.e. twins.

2.3. The lives of institutionalized children were further brutalized by visits from members of the SA, SS, Hitler Youth and League of German Maidens who were taken on tours of institutions. The visitors regarded these tours as "freak shows" and there were many instances of nasty and brutal behavior towards the children who lived in the institutions.6,7 More than 20,000 visitors came to the Eglfing-Haar institution. Dr. Pfannmuller, the director, took his visitors to the wards and lectured them ( in front of the children) about the necessity of killing disabled for the "good of the nation". Pfanmuller advocated killing children long before the child euthanasia program was put into effect and used starvation as his preferred method.7

3. Holocaust info

4. Excluded Jews, gypsies, homosexuals