Editing Nazi Germany (section)

== Racial policy and eugenics ==
===Racism and antisemitism===
{{Main|Nazi racial theories|Racial policy of Nazi Germany|Nazi eugenics}}
Racism and [[antisemitism]] were basic tenets of the Nazi Party and the Nazi regime. Nazi Germany's racial policy was based on their belief in the existence of a superior [[master race]]. The Nazis postulated the existence of a racial conflict between the [[Aryan race|Aryan]] master race and inferior races, particularly Jews, who were viewed as a mixed race that had infiltrated society and were responsible for the exploitation and repression of the Aryan race.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=30–32}}

=== Persecution of Jews ===
{{Further|Anti-Jewish legislation in pre-war Nazi Germany}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-14469, Berlin, Boykott-Posten vor jüdischem Warenhaus.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses]], April 1933. The posters say "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews!"]]
Discrimination against Jews began immediately after the seizure of power. Following a month-long series of attacks by members of the SA on Jewish businesses and synagogues, on 1 April 1933 Hitler declared a [[Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses|national boycott of Jewish businesses]].{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=203}} The [[Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service]] passed on 7 April forced all non-Aryan civil servants to retire from the legal profession and civil service.{{sfn|Majer|2003|p=92}} Similar legislation soon deprived other Jewish professionals of their right to practise, and on 11 April a decree was promulgated that stated anyone who had even one Jewish parent or grandparent was considered non-Aryan.{{sfn|Majer|2003|p=60}} As part of the drive to remove Jewish influence from cultural life, members of the [[National Socialist German Students' League]] removed from libraries any books considered un-German, and a nationwide [[Nazi book burnings|book burning]] was held on 10 May.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=38–39}}

The regime used violence and economic pressure to encourage Jews to leave the country voluntarily.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=67–69}} Jewish businesses were denied access to markets, forbidden to advertise, and deprived of access to government contracts. Citizens were harassed and subjected to violent attacks.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=41}} Many towns posted signs forbidding entry to Jews.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=233}}

On 7 November 1938 a young Jewish man, [[Herschel Grynszpan]], shot and killed [[Ernst vom Rath]], a legation secretary at the German embassy in Paris, to protest his family's treatment in Germany. This incident provided the pretext for a [[pogrom]] the Nazis incited against the Jews two days later. Members of the SA damaged or destroyed synagogues and Jewish property throughout Germany. At least 91 German Jews were murdered during this pogrom, later called ''[[Kristallnacht]]'', the Night of Broken Glass.{{sfn|Kitchen|2006|p=273}}{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=112–113}} Further restrictions were imposed on Jews in the coming months&nbsp;– they were forbidden to own businesses or work in retail shops, drive cars, go to the cinema, visit the library, or own weapons, and Jewish pupils were removed from schools. The Jewish community was fined one billion marks to pay for the damage caused by ''Kristallnacht'' and told that any insurance settlements would be confiscated.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=117}} By 1939, around 250,000 of Germany's 437,000 Jews had emigrated to the United States, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Palestine, and other countries.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=127}}{{sfn|Evans|2005|pp=555–558}} Many chose to stay in continental Europe. Emigrants to Palestine were allowed to transfer property there under the terms of the [[Haavara Agreement]], but those moving to other countries had to leave virtually all their property behind, and it was seized by the government.{{sfn|Evans|2005|pp=555–558}}

=== Persecution of Romani ===
{{Main|Porajmos}}
Like the Jews, the [[Romani people|Romani]] were subjected to persecution from the early days of the regime. The Romani were forbidden to marry people of German extraction. They were shipped to concentration camps starting in 1935 and many were murdered.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=49}}{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=759}} Following the invasion of Poland, 2,500 Roma and [[Sinti]] people were deported from Germany to the General Government, where they were imprisoned in labour camps. The survivors were likely exterminated at [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibor]], or [[Treblinka]]. A further 5,000 Sinti and Austrian Lalleri people were deported to the [[Łódź Ghetto]] in late 1941, where half were estimated to have died. The Romani survivors of the ghetto were subsequently moved to the [[Chełmno extermination camp]] in early 1942.{{sfn|USHMM, ''Genocide of European Roma''}}

The Nazis intended on deporting all Romani people from Germany, and confined them to ''Zigeunerlager'' (Gypsy camps) for this purpose. Himmler ordered their deportation from Germany in December 1942, with few exceptions. A total of 23,000 Romani were deported to [[Auschwitz concentration camp]], of whom 19,000 died. Outside of Germany, the Romani people were regularly used for forced labour, though many were murdered outright. In the Baltic states and the Soviet Union, 30,000 Romani were murdered by the SS, the German Army, and ''Einsatzgruppen''. In [[Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia|occupied Serbia]], 1,000 to 12,000 Romani were murdered, while nearly all 25,000 Romani living in the [[Independent State of Croatia]] were murdered. The estimates at end of the war put the total number of Romani victims at around 220,000, which equalled approximately 25 per cent of the Romani population in Europe.{{sfn|USHMM, ''Genocide of European Roma''}}

=== Other persecuted groups ===
{{Main|Aktion T4}}
[[File:Neues Volk eugenics poster, c. 1937 (brightened).jpeg|thumb|upright=0.9|Poster from the Nazi Party's [[Office of Racial Policy (Nazi Party)|Office of Racial Policy]]: "60 000 RM is what this person with hereditary illness costs the community in his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too."]]
Action T4 was a programme of systematic murder of the physically and mentally handicapped and patients in psychiatric hospitals that took place mainly from 1939 to 1941, and continued until the end of the war. Initially the victims were shot by the ''Einsatzgruppen'' and others; [[gas chamber]]s and [[Nazi gas van|gas van]]s using [[carbon monoxide]] were used by early 1940.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=138–141}}{{sfn|Evans|2008|pp=75–76}} Under the [[Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring]], enacted on 14 July 1933, over 400,000 individuals underwent [[compulsory sterilisation]].{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=295}} Over half were those considered mentally deficient, which included not only people who scored poorly on intelligence tests, but those who deviated from expected standards of behaviour regarding thrift, sexual behaviour, and cleanliness. Most of the victims came from disadvantaged groups such as prostitutes, the poor, the homeless, and criminals.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=47–48}} Other groups persecuted and murdered included Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, social misfits, and [[Holocaust#The political left|members of the political and religious opposition]].{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=759}}{{sfn|Niewyk|Nicosia|2000|p=45}}

=== Generalplan Ost ===
{{Main|Generalplan Ost|Anti-Slavic sentiment|Hunger Plan}}

[[Eastern Front (World War II)|Germany's war in the East]] was based on Hitler's long-standing view that Jews were the great enemy of the German people and that ''Lebensraum'' was needed for Germany's expansion. Hitler focused his attention on Eastern Europe, aiming to conquer Poland and the Soviet Union.{{sfn|Bendersky|2007|p=161}}{{sfn|Gellately|1996|pp=270–274}} Hitler's belief in the racial inferiority of [[Russians]], as well as [[Slavs]] in general, had convinced him that a German conquest of Russia was inevitable.{{sfn|Weikart|2009|p=74}} After the occupation of Poland in 1939, all Jews living in the General Government were confined to [[Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe|ghettos]], and those who were physically fit were required to perform compulsory labour.{{sfn|Kershaw|2000a|p=111}} In 1941 Hitler decided to destroy the Polish nation completely; within 15 to 20 years the General Government was to be [[Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany|cleared of ethnic Poles]] and resettled by German colonists.{{sfn|Berghahn|1999|p=32}} About 3.8 to 4&nbsp;million Poles would remain as slaves,{{sfn|Powszechna PWN|2004|p=267}} part of a slave labour force of 14&nbsp;million the Nazis intended to create using citizens of conquered nations.{{sfn|Gellately|1996|pp=270–274}}{{sfn|Heinemann et al.|2006}}

To determine who should be killed, Himmler created the ''[[Volksliste]]'', a system of classification of people deemed to be of German blood.{{sfn|Overy|2005|p=544}} He ordered that those of Germanic descent who refused to be classified as ethnic Germans should be deported to concentration camps, have their children taken away, or be assigned to forced labour.{{sfn|Nicholas|2006|p=247}}{{sfn|Lukas|2001|p=113}} The plan also included the [[Kidnapping of children for forced Germanization by Nazi Germany|kidnapping of children]] deemed to have Aryan-[[Nordic race|Nordic]] traits, who were presumed to be of German descent.{{sfn|Sereny|1999}} The goal was to implement ''Generalplan Ost'' after the conquest of the Soviet Union, but when the invasion failed Hitler had to consider other options.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|p=416}}{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=683}} One suggestion was a mass forced deportation of Jews to Poland, Palestine, or Madagascar.{{sfn|Kershaw|2000a|p=111}}

In addition, the Nazis planned to reduce the population of the conquered territories by 30 million people through starvation in an action called the [[Hunger Plan]]. Food supplies would be diverted to the German army and German civilians. Cities would be razed and the land allowed to return to forest or resettled by German colonists.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|pp=162–163, 416}} Together, the Hunger Plan and ''Generalplan Ost'' would have led to the starvation of 80&nbsp;million people in the Soviet Union.{{sfn|Dorland|2009|p=6}} These partially fulfilled plans resulted in the [[democide|democidal]] deaths of an estimated 19.3&nbsp;million civilians and [[prisoners of war]] (POWs) throughout the USSR and elsewhere in Europe.{{sfn|Rummel|1994|loc=[http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.TAB1.1.GIF table, p. 112]}} During the course of the war, the [[World War II casualties of the Soviet Union|Soviet Union lost a total of 27 million people]]; less than nine million of these were combat deaths.{{sfn|Hosking|2006|p=242}} One in four of the Soviet population were killed or wounded.{{sfn|Smith|1994|p=204}}

=== The Holocaust and Final Solution ===
{{Main|The Holocaust|Final Solution}}
[[File:Buchenwald Corpses 60623.jpg|thumb|A wagon piled high with corpses outside the crematorium in the [[Buchenwald concentration camp]] liberated by the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]], 1945|alt=]]
Around the time of the failed offensive against Moscow in December 1941, [[Reich Chancellery meeting of 12 December 1941|Hitler resolved]] that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated immediately.{{sfn|Longerich, Chapter 17|2003}} While the murder of Jewish civilians had been ongoing in the occupied territories of Poland and the Soviet Union, plans for the total eradication of the Jewish population of Europe—eleven million people—were formalised at the [[Wannsee Conference]] on 20 January 1942. Some would be [[Extermination through labour|worked to death]] and the rest would be murdered in the implementation of the [[Final Solution to the Jewish Question]].{{sfn|Longerich|2012|pp=555–556}} Initially the victims were murdered by ''Einsatzgruppen'' firing squads, then by [[Aktion T4|stationary gas chambers]] or by [[gas vans]], but these methods proved impractical for an operation of this scale.{{sfn|Evans|2008|pp=256–257}}{{sfn|Browning|2005|pp=188–190}} By 1942 extermination camps equipped with gas chambers were established at [[Auschwitz II|Auschwitz]], [[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]], Sobibor, Treblinka, and elsewhere.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=279–280}} The total number of Jews murdered is estimated at 5.5 to six million,{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=318}} including over a million children.{{sfn|USHMM, ''Children during the Holocaust''}}

The Allies received information about the murders from the [[Polish government-in-exile]] and Polish leadership in Warsaw, based mostly on intelligence from the [[Polish underground]].{{sfn|Fleming|2014|pp=31–32, 35–36}}{{sfn|Evans|2008|pp=559–560}} German citizens had access to information about what was happening, as soldiers returning from the occupied territories reported on what they had seen and done.{{sfn|Evans|2008|pp=555–556, 560}} Historian [[Richard J. Evans]] states that most German citizens disapproved of the genocide.{{sfn|Evans|2008|pp=560–561}}{{efn|"Nevertheless, the available evidence suggests that, on the whole, ordinary Germans did not approve. Goebbel's propaganda campaigns carried out in the second half of 1941 and again in 1943 had failed to convert them". {{harvnb|Evans|2008|p=561}}.}}

=== Oppression of ethnic Poles ===
{{Further|Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)}}
{{Main|Nazi crimes against the Polish nation}}
Poles were viewed by Nazis as subhuman non-Aryans, and during the German [[Occupation of Poland (1939–45)|occupation of Poland]] 2.7&nbsp;million ethnic Poles died.{{sfn|Materski|Szarota|2009|p=9}} Polish civilians were subject to forced labour in German industry, [[internment]], [[Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany|wholesale expulsions]] to make way for German colonists, and mass executions. The German authorities engaged in a systematic [[Polish culture during World War II|effort to destroy Polish culture]] and national identity. During operation [[AB-Aktion]], many university professors and members of the Polish intelligentsia were arrested, transported to concentration camps, or executed. During the war, Poland lost an estimated 39 to 45 per cent of its physicians and dentists, 26 to 57 per cent of its lawyers, 15 to 30 per cent of its teachers, 30 to 40 per cent of its scientists and university professors, and 18 to 28 per cent of its clergy.{{sfn|Wrobel|1999}}

=== Mistreatment of Soviet POWs ===
{{Main|German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 192-208, KZ Mauthausen, Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene.jpg|thumb|Soviet prisoners of war in [[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp|Mauthausen]]|alt=]]
The Nazis captured 5.75&nbsp;million Soviet prisoners of war, more than they took from all the other Allied powers combined. Of these, they killed an estimated 3.3&nbsp;million,{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=952}} with 2.8&nbsp;million of them being killed between June 1941 and January 1942.{{sfn|Goldhagen|1996|p=290}} Many POWs starved to death or resorted to cannibalism while being held in open-air pens at Auschwitz and elsewhere.{{sfn|Evans|2008|pp=295–296}}

From 1942 onward, Soviet POWs were viewed as a source of forced labour, and received better treatment so they could work.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=954}} By December 1944, 750,000 Soviet POWs were working, including in German armaments factories (in violation of the [[Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907|Hague]] and [[Geneva conventions]]), mines, and farms.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|pp=951, 954}}