Tag: causes, aim and impact of nazism

• In the east, most Jews lived a more traditional life, speaking Yiddish and living in small villages.
• They were separated from their neighbours because of anti-Semitism.

Germany had fought the war largely on loans and had to pay war reparations in gold. This depleted gold reserves at a time resources were scarce. In 1923 Germany refused to pay and the French occupied its leading industrial area, Ruhr, to claim their coal. Germany retaliated with passive resistance and printed paper currency recklessly. With too much currency in circulation, the value of the German mark fell. As the value of Mark collapsed, prices of goods soared.

• Once the Nazis where in power, things began to get very difficult for the Jewish population in Germany.
• Between 1938 and outbreak of the war in 1939, Jewish parents began a movement to save their children. It was called Kindertransport or Childrens Transport.

The Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919, imposed strict military restrictions on Germany, including the demilitarization of the Rhineland and limits on the size of its armed forces.

Nazis wanted only a society of ‘pure and healthy Nordic Aryans’. They alone were considered ‘desirable’. Only they were seen as worthy of prospering and multiplying against all others who were classed as ‘undesirable’.