Nazi Racial Policy and the Holocaust

Racial ideology was at the very core of Nazism. The Nazis believed in a racial hierarchy with the "Aryan" race at the top and Jewish people at the bottom. This ideology led to the systematic persecution of Jewish people and other groups, culminating in the Holocaust — the murder of approximately 6 million Jews and millions of others. This is one of the most important and sensitive topics in the AQA GCSE History specification.

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Nazi Racial Ideology

The Nazis' racial beliefs were central to everything they did.

Belief	Detail
Aryan supremacy	The Nazis believed that the "Aryan" race (white, northern European, especially German) was the master race (Herrenvolk)
Anti-Semitism	Jews were considered a separate, inferior race that was responsible for Germany's problems
Racial hierarchy	Below the Aryans, the Nazis placed other Europeans; at the bottom were Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and Black people
Eugenics	The Nazis believed in improving the race through selective breeding and the elimination of "undesirable" people
Untermenschen (sub-humans)	The Nazis labelled Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians), Roma, and others as "sub-human"

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Persecution of the Jews: A Timeline

The persecution of Jewish people escalated step by step from 1933 to 1945.

Phase 1: Discrimination (1933–1938)

Date	Event	Detail
April 1933	Boycott of Jewish shops	SA stormtroopers stood outside Jewish-owned businesses, intimidating customers
April 1933	Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service	Jews were dismissed from government jobs
1933–1935	Gradual exclusion	Jews were banned from teaching, journalism, farming, and other professions; Jewish children were humiliated in schools
September 1935	Nuremberg Laws	Two laws that formed the legal basis for persecution: (1) The Reich Citizenship Law stripped Jews of German citizenship; (2) The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour banned marriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews
1936	Olympic Games	Anti-Jewish signs were temporarily removed from Berlin to avoid international criticism
1937–1938	Aryanisation	Jewish businesses were forcibly sold or taken over by non-Jews at a fraction of their value

Phase 2: Violence and Expulsion (1938–1941)

Date	Event	Detail
November 1938	Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)	On 9–10 November, the Nazis orchestrated a nationwide pogrom: 267 synagogues were burned, 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed, 91 Jews were murdered, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. The Jewish community was then fined 1 billion Reichsmarks for the damage.
1939	Forced emigration	Jews were pressured to leave Germany; by 1939, approximately 250,000 of Germany's 500,000 Jews had fled, but many countries restricted immigration
1939–1941	Ghettos	After the invasion of Poland (1939), Jews in occupied territories were forced into overcrowded ghettos (walled-off sections of cities), especially in Warsaw and Łódź; conditions were appalling — starvation, disease, and overcrowding killed tens of thousands

Exam Tip: Kristallnacht is a turning point — it marked the shift from legal discrimination to open violence. Be ready to explain its causes, events, and consequences. Note that it was organised by the Nazi state but presented as a "spontaneous" reaction to the assassination of a German diplomat by a young Jewish man in Paris.

Phase 3: The Holocaust (1941–1945)

Date	Event	Detail
June 1941	Invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa)	Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads) followed the army and systematically shot Jews, communists, and Roma; an estimated 1.5 million people were murdered in this way
January 1942	Wannsee Conference	Senior Nazi officials met to coordinate the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" — the systematic murder of all European Jews
1942–1945	Death camps	Jews from across occupied Europe were transported to extermination camps in occupied Poland

The Death Camps

Camp	Location	Estimated Deaths
Auschwitz-Birkenau	Southern Poland	~1.1 million (mostly Jews)
Treblinka	Eastern Poland	~800,000
Belzec	Eastern Poland	~600,000
Sobibor	Eastern Poland	~250,000
Chelmno	Central Poland	~320,000
Majdanek	Eastern Poland	~78,000

Victims were transported in cattle trucks in horrific conditions. On arrival, most were immediately selected for the gas chambers. Their bodies were burned in crematoria. Those not immediately killed were used as forced labour until they died of exhaustion, starvation, or disease.

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Other Victims of Nazi Persecution

The Holocaust primarily targeted Jews, but the Nazis also persecuted other groups.

Group	Persecution
Roma and Sinti (Gypsies)	Considered racially inferior; an estimated 250,000–500,000 were murdered
Disabled people	The T4 Programme (Aktion T4) murdered approximately 70,000 disabled Germans through forced euthanasia (1939–1941); protests from churches led to its official end, but killings continued secretly
Homosexuals	Approximately 50,000 were convicted under Paragraph 175; between 5,000 and 15,000 were sent to concentration camps; many died
Jehovah's Witnesses	Persecuted for refusing to swear loyalty to Hitler or serve in the military
Political opponents	Communists, socialists, and trade unionists were among the first to be imprisoned
Slavic peoples	Millions of Poles, Russians, and others were killed or enslaved during the war

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The Scale of the Holocaust

Group	Estimated Deaths
Jews	~6 million
Soviet civilians	~7 million
Soviet prisoners of war	~3 million
Polish civilians	~1.8 million
Roma and Sinti	~250,000–500,000
Disabled people	~250,000+
Homosexuals	~5,000–15,000

Exam Tip: The Holocaust is the most important topic in this course. You must be able to explain how persecution escalated from discrimination (1933) to violence (1938) to genocide (1941–1945). Show awareness of the experiences of victims and the different stages of the "Final Solution."

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Key Figures

Person	Role
Adolf Hitler	Führer; ultimate responsibility for the Holocaust
Heinrich Himmler	Head of the SS; oversaw the concentration and death camps
Reinhard Heydrich	Head of the SD and Gestapo; chaired the Wannsee Conference; key architect of the "Final Solution"
Adolf Eichmann	Organised the transportation of Jews to the death camps
Josef Mengele	Doctor at Auschwitz who performed horrific medical experiments on prisoners

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Extended Worked Paragraph — Model Q7 Response

Question: Which factor was more important in the escalation of Nazi racial policy towards genocide: the ideology of antisemitism held by the Nazi leadership, or the institutional dynamics of the wartime state?

Model Level 4/5 paragraph: