5D Jacob Rickels How the Devastating Effects of World War I

The Treaty of Versailles, made in 1919 at the end of the First World War, was intended to make a lasting peace. Many people felt that the Treaty had caused terrible resentment in Germany on which Hitler had been able to play in order to achieve power.

The Nazis began experimenting with poison gas for the purpose of mass murder in late 1939 with the killing of mental patients ("euthanasia"). A Nazi euphemism, "euthanasia" referred to the systematic killing of those Germans whom the Nazis deemed "unworthy of life" because of mental illness or physical disability.

One of Adolf Hitler's first major foreign policy initiatives after coming to power was to sign a nonaggression pact with Poland in January 1934. This move was not popular with many Germans who supported Hitler but resented the fact that Poland had received the former German provinces of West Prussia, Poznan, and Upper Silesia under the Treaty of Versailles after World War I.

The concentration camps, 1933-1945 The Nazis set up their first concentration camp, Dachau, in the wake of Hitler's takeover of power in 1933. By the end of the war, 22 main concentration camps were established, together with around 1,200 affiliate camps, Aussenkommandos, and thousands of smaller camps.

One can only speculate what finally catalysed Hitler into making the ultimate decision in December 1941, but a look at the situation at that time suggests several factors played a role. First, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the American declaration of war to Japan, and Hitler's own declaration of war against the United States, Hitler now had the "world" war referred to by Goebbels in his diary entry of December 12, 1941. Second, the first great reversal of German fortunes in the war against the Soviet Union had taken place. On December 5, at the very gates of Moscow, the German army was stopped its tracks by the onset of a vicious Russian winter. Temperatures dropped to 31 degrees below zero that day, and the next day to 36 below. The Germans were not equipped with winter gear, the panzers broke down, and, on the 6th, General Georgi Zhukov attacked on 200-mile front before Moscow with 100 divisions that the Germans had not even known existed. [11] Hitler must have known at this stage that his war effort was in serious, perhaps grave danger. Third, the sheer numbers of Jews to be killed and the difficulties doing it caused for the police who did the shooting were passed on by Himmler to Hitler. There had been discussions on the use of poisonous gas as a means of killing Jews and avoiding public spectacles that sometimes accompanied shooting throughout the autumn of 1941.

The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy. In Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, concentration camps (Konzentrationslager; KL or KZ) were an integral feature of the regime.