The twentieth-century world, Year 10: social policy, racial policy and persecution (Germany 1890–1945 option)

children; kitchen; church

HintThree Ks in German: think of family, home and Sunday.

The whyWomen were barred from working as judges and pushed out of other professions, and mothers of large families were given medals. Yet as rearmament grew, the regime found that it needed women workers after all.

That the wife would give up her job

HintThe loan was partly meant to free up jobs for men.

The whyA quarter of the loan was written off for each child the couple had. The aim was a higher birth rate among those the Nazis classed as racially 'desirable'.

The League of German Girls (BDM)

HintMembers moved up to it from a junior section at fourteen.

The whyBoys were prepared for the army, with drill, camping and shooting. Girls were prepared for motherhood, with fitness and domestic skills. Both were taught Nazi ideas and loyalty to Hitler.

It became compulsory

HintBefore then, a family could still refuse.

The whyA law of 1936 had already claimed all German youth for the movement, and most other youth groups had been banned or absorbed. Schools changed too: teachers were vetted for loyalty, and the curriculum was altered to teach Nazi racial ideas.

The Concordat

HintEach side promised to stay out of the other's business.

The whyThe Church agreed to keep out of politics; Hitler agreed to leave Catholic schools and youth groups alone. He soon broke his word, and in 1937 the Pope condemned the regime in a letter read out in German churches, 'With Burning Anxiety'.

Martin Niemöller

HintA former U-boat commander.

The whyThe Nazis tried to merge the Protestant churches into a single 'Reich Church' under their control. The Confessing Church was formed by pastors who refused to accept this.

Their German citizenship

HintAfterwards they were classed as 'subjects', without political rights.

The whyThe second law banned marriage between Jewish people and other Germans. They followed earlier steps, such as the boycott of Jewish shops in April 1933 and the dismissal of Jewish people from the civil service.

Kristallnacht: organised attacks on Jewish homes, shops and synagogues

HintThe regime claimed it was a spontaneous outburst of public anger.

The whyMore than a thousand synagogues were set on fire and thousands of businesses wrecked. About 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. It was the first time the regime used open, nationwide violence against Jewish people.

Ghetto

HintThe largest was in Warsaw.

The whyAfter the invasion of Poland in 1939, Jewish people there were forced into such districts. Hunger and disease killed very many of them before the deportations to the death camps began.

The Wannsee Conference

HintNamed after a lakeside suburb of Berlin.

The whyMass shootings of Jewish people in the occupied Soviet Union had begun in 1941. At this meeting officials planned the deportation of the Jewish people of Europe to camps in occupied Poland, where they were murdered.

About six million

HintRoughly two in every three Jewish people living in Europe before the war.

The whyThe victims came from every country the Nazis occupied or controlled. About one million of them were murdered at Auschwitz, in occupied Poland.

Roma and Sinti

HintFor centuries they were called by a name that many of them reject.

The whyThe Nazis believed in an 'Aryan' master race and classed other peoples as inferior. Disabled people, Slavic peoples, gay men and others were also persecuted. Historians estimate that at least 250,000 Roma and Sinti were killed.