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Case Study: Theresienstadt Ghetto

Philipp Manes, a German Jew and a prolific writer, and his wife Gertrud were sent to Theresienstadt in 1942. Whilst incarcerated, Manes kept a detailed account of life in the ghetto in several diaries. This map shows a hand drawn ground plan of the ghetto from 1943.

Philipp Manes, a German Jew and a prolific writer, and his wife Gertrud were sent to Theresienstadt in 1942. Whilst incarcerated, Manes kept a detailed account of life in the ghetto in several diaries. This map shows a hand drawn ground plan of the ghetto from 1943.

Courtesy of The Wiener Holocaust Library Collections.

This post-war report of Theresienstadt compiles figures from the ghetto. This page discusses the number of people who passed through the ghetto, where from, and the number of those who perished in Theresienstadt itself.

This post-war report of Theresienstadt compiles figures from the ghetto. This page discusses the number of people who passed through the ghetto, where from, and the number of those who perished in Theresienstadt itself.

While all ghettos were unique , Theresienstadt was distinctly so.

Theresienstadt was a ghetto, but also had features of a transit camp. It was used as a temporary holding place for Jews on their way to camps further east.

The town of Theresienstadt, or Terezín in Czech, was a town established around a military fortress. Construction began in 1780. The town was divided into two parts, the small fortress and the large fortress. These fortresses were separated by River Ohře. Until the Nazi occupation, the town had an average population of just under 4000 people.

The Nazis established the ghetto on 24 November 1941. Following this, an average of 35,000 people were incarcerated at any given time between 1941 and 1945.

Kurt Gerron

Kurt Gerron was a Jewish film director from Germany. After fleeing from Nazi Germany to France in 1933, he was later captured in Amsterdam and deported to Westerbork in 1943. From Westerbork, he was sent to Theresienstadt in February 1944.

At Theresienstadt, Gerron was forced to plan and direct a propaganda film for the Nazis depicting Theresienstadt in a positive light. This film was entitled Theresienstadt: A Documentary Film from the Jewish Settlement Area but became unofficially referred to as  The Führer Gives a City to the Jews . It was filmed in August and September 1944, with many parts of the ghetto beautified to make it appear in a more positive light.

After directing the film, Gerron, and many of the prisoners featured in it, were deported to Auschwitz and murdered. The film was completed in March 1945, but due to its timing and the imminent end of the war, was never fully released or utilised for mass propaganda.

Kurt Gerron

This document is one of the original draft overviews of the film, suggesting potential scenes.

Establishment of Theresienstadt

This letter was the last letter written by Otto Bendix to his wife, Gertrude Gurschke, shortly before his deportation. The excerpt reads: ‘Again, be strong and be happy, with or without me, that is my strong wish. Give my regards to my children if fate should decide against us. But again, I go full of faith in a good outcome. Love, as always since I have known you.’ Otto was deported to Theresienstadt from Berlin on 3 October 1942. He died in the ghetto just three months later on 8 January 1943, at the age of 64.

This letter was the last letter written by Otto Bendix to his wife, Gertrude Gurschke, shortly before his deportation. The excerpt reads: ‘Again, be strong and be happy, with or without me, that is my strong wish. Give my regards to my children if fate should decide against us. But again, I go full of faith in a good outcome. Love, as always since I have known you.’ Otto was deported to Theresienstadt from Berlin on 3 October 1942. He died in the ghetto just three months later on 8 January 1943, at the age of 64.

This list of names forms part of a deportation order of Jews living in ‘mixed-race’ marriages and stateless Jews to Theresienstadt. It was issued by the Gestapo in Bielefeld, a city in north-east Germany, on 8 February 1945 – just three months prior to the ghetto’s liberation.

This list of names forms part of a deportation order of Jews living in ‘mixed-race’ marriages and stateless Jews to Theresienstadt. It was issued by the Gestapo in Bielefeld, a city in north-east Germany, on 8 February 1945 – just three months prior to the ghetto’s liberation.

case study of nazi germany notes

The Nazis invaded and annexed what remained of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. As part of the Theresienstadt Ghetto had served as a prison previously, the Gestapo quickly re-established their own prison in the small fortress on 10 June 1940.

On 10 October 1941 Heydrich identified Theresienstadt as the desired Jewish settlement for German, Austrian and Czech Jews over the age of 65, First World War veterans , or well-known cultural or political figures. Theresienstadt was intended to serve as both a holding site for Jews on their way to extermination camps in the east or for Jews of cultural or political fame until their eventual deportation or death.

Later, Theresienstadt was also an important propaganda tool to disguise the nature of the Nazis treatment of elderly or prominent Jews. It was used to explain the deportation of elderly Jews from Germany, since it was implausible to suggest that they were being deported to complete forced labour due to their frail state and age. Instead, the Nazis claimed, these elderly Jews were sent for ‘retirement’ in the spa town of Theresienstadt.

The establishment and jurisdiction of the ghetto was assigned to the Gestapo, Adolf Eichmann and the Prague Office for Jewish Emigration.  Administration inside the ghetto was the responsibility of the elected Theresienstadt Jewish Council, led by chairman Jacob Edelstein.

On 24 November 1941, the first Jewish prisoners arrived in Theresienstadt. These prisoners were forced to convert the former military garrison into a ghetto. More prisoners soon arrived.

Just two months later, on 9 January 1942, the first transport of Czech Jews left Theresienstadt for other ghettos in the east. By the time the ghetto was liberated in May 1945, almost 90,000 Jews had been deported from Theresienstadt.

Conditions inside Theresienstadt

This savings book, issued by the self-administered Jewish bank of Theresienstadt, belonged to Max Hirschfeld. The book was used to record and receive pay for labour carried out in the ghetto. This pay was credited to a fake bank account and no money was received.

This savings book, issued by the self-administered Jewish bank of Theresienstadt, belonged to Max Hirschfeld. The book was used to record and receive pay for labour carried out in the ghetto. This pay was credited to a fake bank account and no money was received.

This letter also belonged to Max Hirschfeld, and, following liberation from the ghetto, requested refunds for the savings accrued by all surviving Theresienstadt inmates to compensate them for their work and their experience from the British Military Governor, Bielefeld. An annotation at the bottom of the letter states Max’s request ‘cannot be allowed’.

This letter also belonged to Max Hirschfeld, and, following liberation from the ghetto, requested refunds for the savings accrued by all surviving Theresienstadt inmates to compensate them for their work and their experience from the British Military Governor, Bielefeld. An annotation at the bottom of the letter states Max’s request ‘cannot be allowed’.

case study of nazi germany notes

Conditions for prisoners held inside Theresienstadt were very poor. Of the 140,000 prisoners who were imprisoned there during its existence, 33,000 perished at the ghetto due to deprivation , starvation, and disease.

The ghetto was overcrowded, with between 40,000-50,000 people crammed into the living quarters. Initially, the first Jews to arrive at Theresienstadt were housed in the converted barracks, sleeping in triple decker wooden bunk beds, with several people sharing each bunk. However, overcrowding soon meant that some were also forced to sleep in the attics, cellars, and hallways.

Food was scarce. It was handed out three times a day and typically consisted of bread, soup made with lentils or potatoes, one slice of salami or meat (although this was rare), and coffee. When coupled with the lack of sanitation, the poor quality and lack of food often resulted in starvation and poor health. Food packages (which were a lifeline) could be received in the post from those outside of Theresienstadt, but as the war continued, and many of the prisoners’ family and friends disappeared, these often dwindled.

There was also a hospital within Theresienstadt. Although the lack of medicine meant that chances of recovery from illness still remained low, care was significantly better than care in other ghettos and camps in Nazi occupied Europe.

Running water in the ghetto existed, but was often temporarily faulty or broken. As a result of this, the overcrowded living barracks and the small amount of facilities, hygiene and sanitation were extremely poor.

Many of the prisoners in Theresienstadt were elderly or too sick to be able to work. Those who did work had jobs either working in the ghetto itself or carrying out hard labour outside of the ghetto. Whilst hard labour was often more demanding, it also provided an opportunity to leave the camp, and potentially to smuggle extra food to supplement their diets.

Culture inside Theresienstadt

Philipp Manes, a German Jew and a prolific writer, and his wife Gertrud were sent to Theresienstadt in 1942. Whilst incarcerated, Manes was key to the cultural life in Theresienstadt. He documented his experience in great detail in several notebooks, as well as organising a regular lecture series of over 500 talks. Manes’ Theresienstadt diaries also contain contributions by other incarcerated prisoners, such as this portrait of Manes in 1944 by Arthur Goldschmidt. Both Manes and his wife were deported from Theresienstadt on the last transport to Auschwitz in October 1944, where they were murdered.

Philipp Manes, a German Jew and a prolific writer, and his wife Gertrud were sent to Theresienstadt in 1942. Whilst incarcerated, Manes was key to the cultural life in Theresienstadt. He documented his experience in great detail in several notebooks, as well as organising a regular lecture series of over 500 talks. Manes’ Theresienstadt diaries also contain contributions by other incarcerated prisoners, such as this portrait of Manes in 1944 by Arthur Goldschmidt. Both Manes and his wife were deported from Theresienstadt on the last transport to Auschwitz in October 1944, where they were murdered.

Another prisoner who contributed to Manes Theresienstadt diaries was Hedwig Brahn. This image shows a drawing by Brahn completed in 1944 depicting a street scene in Theresienstadt.

Another prisoner who contributed to Manes Theresienstadt diaries was Hedwig Brahn. This image shows a drawing by Brahn completed in 1944 depicting a street scene in Theresienstadt.

This poem, entitled ‘Transport to Theresienstadt’, was written by dancer and poet Grete Salus following her incarceration in Theresienstadt between 1942 and 1944. An excerpt from the poem reads: ‘Suddenly I hear the steps of many people, but no human voices. It appears before me, a ghostly procession. I see women, men, children heavily loaded with cardboard signs around the neck, passing below me. They walk very slowly with bowed heads, some hardly drag themselves forward, nobody speaks a word, you just hear the banging of the crockery on their backpacks. Here and there one looks up and lets a longing glance slide along the rows of houses, eyes so sad, desperate. I feel tears running down my face‘. Many people incarcerated in Theresienstadt used poetry as a war of recording their experiences and expressing themselves.

This poem, entitled ‘Transport to Theresienstadt’, was written by dancer and poet Grete Salus following her incarceration in Theresienstadt between 1942 and 1944. An excerpt from the poem reads: ‘Suddenly I hear the steps of many people, but no human voices. It appears before me, a ghostly procession. I see women, men, children heavily loaded with cardboard signs around the neck, passing below me. They walk very slowly with bowed heads, some hardly drag themselves forward, nobody speaks a word, you just hear the banging of the crockery on their backpacks. Here and there one looks up and lets a longing glance slide along the rows of houses, eyes so sad, desperate. I feel tears running down my face‘. Many people incarcerated in Theresienstadt used poetry as a war of recording their experiences and expressing themselves.

As well as poets and writers, there were also a number of artists imprisoned in Theresienstadt, such as Peter Kien. Kien was a Jewish artist from Czechoslovakia, who was deported to Theresienstadt in December 1941. Here, Kien is pictured in the middle of the photograph.

As well as poets and writers, there were also a number of artists imprisoned in Theresienstadt, such as Peter Kien. Kien was a Jewish artist from Czechoslovakia, who was deported to Theresienstadt in December 1941. Here, Kien is pictured in the middle of the photograph.

In Theresienstadt, Kien continued his artwork, sketching many of his fellow inmates, and also immersed himself in musical and theatrical activities. This image shows part of Kien’s original text written for the opera Kaiser von Atlantis oder der Tod dankt ab (The Emperor of Atlantis), with music by Viktor Ullmann, whilst imprisoned in the camp.

In Theresienstadt, Kien continued his artwork, sketching many of his fellow inmates, and also immersed himself in musical and theatrical activities. This image shows part of Kien’s original text written for the opera Kaiser von Atlantis oder der Tod dankt ab (The Emperor of Atlantis) , with music by Viktor Ullmann, whilst imprisoned in the camp .

case study of nazi germany notes

Prominent Jews who were famous for their professions nationally or internationally made up one of the main prisoner groups at Theresienstadt. As a result of this, and the Nazi desire to use the ghetto as a propaganda tool, culture within the ghetto flourished.

Artists, poets, philosophers, writers, musicians, professors and scientists all depicted life in the ghetto through paintings, poems, drawings, essays, books, pamphlets, lectures and more.

Culture also provided a means of temporary escape, as the over 2,300 lectures which took place there show. Many focused on expressing themselves on pre-war topics, transporting prisoners’ minds away from the harsh realities of their situation.

The ghetto also had a functioning lending library, which held more than 60,000 volumes, 10,000 of which were in Hebrew. Many of these texts supported religious life in the ghetto, which was practiced widely and with relative freedom.

Actors also performed several plays, such as Faust by Goethe. Musicians also put on performances, including a rendition of Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem .

Red Cross visit

This fifty kronen bank note was issued in the Theresienstadt Ghetto in 1943. The currency was initially designed by Peter Kien, a Jewish artist incarcerated in the camp, but the image of Moses was edited from the original to create a more stereotypical image of a Jew. On arrival at the ghetto, all residents had to convert their money into this ‘local currency’. This made escape from the camp more difficult, as the currency was worthless outside of the camp. The existence of this currency also added to the façade presented to the Red Cross during their visit to the camp in 1943, to make life in the camp resemble normalcy.

This fifty kronen bank note was issued in the Theresienstadt Ghetto in 1943. The currency was initially designed by Peter Kien, a Jewish artist incarcerated in the camp, but the image of Moses was edited from the original to create a more stereotypical image of a Jew. On arrival at the ghetto, all residents had to convert their money into this ‘local currency’. This made escape from the camp more difficult, as the currency was worthless outside of the camp. The existence of this currency also added to the façade presented to the Red Cross during their visit to the camp in 1943, to make life in the camp resemble normalcy.

By 1943, word had spread about the Nazis’ treatment and mass murder of Jews. Following the deportation of 476 Danish Jews to Theresienstadt in October 1943, the Danish Red Cross, the International Red Cross , and Danish Government pressured the Nazis into allowing them a visit to inspect conditions at the ghetto.

The Nazis were keen to allow such a visit in order to counteract reports which had leaked the true conditions and functions of the camps and ghettos being established across Europe.  The visit was scheduled for the 23 June 1944.

In order to ensure the Red Cross reported positively on Theresienstadt, the Nazis attempted to mask the true conditions there by presenting it as a model ghetto.

The Nazis removed 7503 Jews from Theresienstadt between 16 and 18 May 1944 to reduce overcrowding at the ghetto, holding them in a special camp at Auschwitz in case the Red Cross requested to visit them there.

Buildings along the inspection route were painted, a football match was staged and cultural activities were promoted to add to the façade .

As the Red Cross arrived and toured the ghetto, they followed a specific route, which had been pre-planned to portray the camp in the best light possible. They met prisoners who had been warned in how to act and what to say. The Red Cross were duped, and their report did not reveal the ghetto’s true purpose or conditions.

Following the visit, the deportations to Auschwitz and other camps and ghettos across Eastern Europe resumed. The prisoners who had met the Red Cross were deported in attempts to remove any evidence of the lie. The so-called Theresienstadt Family Camp at Auschwitz was also liquidated.

Liberation of Theresienstadt

As the Allied forces closed in, the Nazis began to empty ghettos and camps in Eastern Europe and send prisoners on death marches to camps and ghettos closer to the Germany. Approximately 15,000 such prisoners arrived in Theresienstadt in the last weeks of April 1945. This increase almost doubled the camps population at that time to approximately 30,000 people.

Following two further visits in April 1945, the International Red Cross took over the running of Theresienstadt on 2 May 1945. One week later, on 9 May 1945, Soviet forces liberated the ghetto.

Continue to next topic

The camps

What happened in March

case study of nazi germany notes

On 5 March 1933, elections were held for the German Reichstag. The Nazis used violence to increase their vote share.

case study of nazi germany notes

On 22 March 1933, the first Nazi concentration camp was established in the town of Dachau.

case study of nazi germany notes

On 24 March 1933, the Enabling Act was passed, allowing Hitler to make laws without the approval of the Reichstag.

case study of nazi germany notes

On 17 March 1935, 700 pastors of the Confessing Church, which opposed the Nazis, were arrested.

case study of nazi germany notes

On 15 March 1938, following the German annexation of Austria three days earlier, Hitler gave a speech in front of the palace in Vienna.

case study of nazi germany notes

The Path to Nazi Genocide

Organized around a Museum-produced 38-minute Documentary, The Path to Nazi Genocide , these discussion questions provide students with an introduction to the history of the Holocaust.

Languages: English, Spanish

Discussion Questions

Documentary: The Path to Nazi Genocide

Related Lesson: 

Connecting the Timeline Activity to The Path to Nazi Genocide

This lesson is also available in Spanish.

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Socio-Cultural Anthropology under Hitler: An Introduction to Four Case Studies from Vienna

Note to readers: This introduction seeks to draw attention to the three-volume collection examining Socio-Cultural Anthropology in Vienna during the Nazi period (1938-1945) , recently published in German and edited by Andre Gingrich and Peter Rohrbacher . The editors’ essay below is followed by brief essays in English based on a selection of chapters by Katja Geisenhainer, Lisa Gottschall , Gabriele Anderl, Ildikó Cazan-Simányi , Reinhold Mittersakschmöller, and Peter Rohrbacher. We thank the editors and authors for making their work available in this way, as a joint effort by our “Clio’s Fancy” and “Field Notes” sections, and invite readers to follow up with the complete work.– HAR editors.

Elaborating and interpreting anthropology’s history under Nazism is not only a continuing ethical, moral, and political obligation for the field today. It also represents a set of complex challenges in many of its empirical, methodological, and conceptual dimensions, open to debate and reflection by interested laypersons and experts in the relevant languages, regions, and periods but also from all other fields of anthropology and history as well. Through the present introduction to four case examples from Vienna, the authors seek to contribute to these debates by pointing out the relevance of well-researched archival evidence within sound methodological contexts. This is the indispensable prerequisite for advancing further debates and related research.

To a considerable extent, when Hitler’s party came to power in early 1933, socio-cultural anthropology ( Völkerkunde ) was institutionally separate from biological anthropology ( Humanbiologie or Physische Anthropologie ) at most museums and university institutes in Germany. This was also true for Austria after the “ Anschluss ” (“union,” or annexation) of March 1938. As a consequence of the Anschluss , Vienna became the second largest academic site in the “Third Reich.” Its institutional landscape for Völkerkunde included (as of the late 1920s) a university institute, a museum, a missionary educational center (since 1906), subdivisions in Vienna’s Academy of Sciences (after 1914), and the Anthropological Society of Vienna (as of 1870). In terms of size and institutional diversity, case studies from Vienna can therefore be taken as good indicators for how socio-cultural anthropology was carried out under Hitler and in exile: who profited from its practices, who stood by, and who suffered and resisted. All of these questions need to be raised and explored, but many of them cannot yet be fully answered.

Like elsewhere in the “Third Reich,” individual researchers and students were persecuted for “racial” and/or political reasons within Vienna’s institutions of socio-cultural anthropology. Entire institutions and research directions were dissolved or marginalized if they followed research orientations in conflict with Nazi priorities. What remained as quasi-legitimate socio-cultural anthropology under the Nazis was pushed, with considerable support by those involved, into research programs conspicuously connected to Nazi ideological priorities for German supremacist racism, for winning the war when it broke out, and for collaborating in practical activities serving the regime’s political agenda. What remained of socio-cultural anthropology under Nazi dictatorship contained as its core elements some prominent trends in (German) historical diffusionism in Vienna as elsewhere, the emerging networks of (German) functionalism (in Vienna until mid-1939), and local variants of a proto-structuralism outside Vienna. All of these directions were informed by varying versions of biological racism. Obvious intersections and parallels between the directions promoted as quasi-legitimate under the Nazis, and dominant paradigms in western socio-cultural anthropology after 1945 require further analysis and reflection, as one of us has pointed out (Gingrich 2010).

Socio-cultural anthropology under Hitler took on a radical agenda in its practical and empirical dimensions: addressing the (print and radio) media was one important element, while reaching out to the public through spectacular colonial and imperial museum exhibits and lectures was another. Pursuing “embedded” research in combat zones for army or espionage units was actively promoted, for example during Rommel’s North Africa campaign. Providing professional reviews to Himmler on how to promote SS justifications of annihilation and murder in East Europe was part of socio-cultural anthropologists’ “applied” routine. Last but not least, the publication of entertaining and bestselling books on exotic societies and their bizarre habits contributed—after passing censorship—to a prevailing sense of a smiling public normality so important to the regime under Joseph Goebbels. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the SS engaged PhD candidates and young post-docs from socio-cultural anthropology and neighboring fields in the humanities to carry out enquiries among Jewish families who were about to be murdered and to do secret fieldwork in prison camps, both among gypsy families before they were deported to death camps and among POWs from Africa or Asia before they perished in forced labor or were recruited as “volunteers” to the SS or the Wehrmacht.

In Vienna, the new Nazi regime after 1938 quickly disbanded the Catholic missionary unit of St. Gabriel, and dismissed all senior representatives with explicit sympathies for an independent Austrian state. At the Museum of Ethnology, the old director with pro-German sympathies was able to hold on to his position because members of a previously clandestine Nazi cell now gained an official voice. At the University-based anthropology institute, the Nazi party member Hermann Baumann became the new director until 1945, with an aim to re-orientate the institute according to the Reich’s colonial interests in Africa. While the regime prepared for war and mass persecutions, Himmler installed and promoted a new research unit with socio-cultural anthropology on its central agenda in his notorious, elite research organization, the SS- Ahnenerbe (“ancestral heritage”). By contrast, the record of resistance among socio-cultural anthropologists is less disappointing than often assumed. In Vienna, this ranged from conservative anti-Nazi patriots to clandestine communists, many of them supporting the formation of the underground organization, O5 (where “5” stands for “e,” and “Oe” represents “Ö,” the first letter of the German word for Austria). In exile, several socio-cultural anthropologists supported local resistance groups in occupied Austria or they supported their British and US hosts’ war efforts.

case study of nazi germany notes

These and many other details are presented and discussed by twenty-eight authors in our three recently published co-edited volumes: Völkerkunde zur NS-Zeit aus Wien (1938-1945): Institutionen, Biographien und Praktiken in Netzwerken (Gingrich and Rohrbacher 2021). Though this work is appearing in German, its topics will be of considerable interest to many readers internationally. We are therefore publishing four brief vignettes here, adapted from chapters in the three volumes, to introduce English readers to some of the work’s major themes and the wide variety of its examples. In keeping with the focus of “Clio’s Fancy” and the importance of neglected archives for this research, each piece also highlights the dispersed documents and collections which have allowed these stories to be told.

In her text, “ Marginalized in Central European Anthropology and Persecuted as a Jew: The Case of Marianne Schmidl ,” author Katja Geisenhainer (U Frankfurt/U Vienna) presents the example of a pioneer of mathematical anthropology and a cultural-historical expert in studying sub-Saharan basket weaving. She shows how this almost forgotten but brilliant scholar was persecuted and murdered by the Nazis. Schmidl was never able to complete her main research project on African basket weaving. Surviving family members’ memories and correspondence are the primary sources in this study.

“ Assisting in the Holocaust: Pro-Nazi Anthropologists from Vienna in Occupied Poland (1940–1944) ” by Lisa Gottschall (U Vienna) scrutinizes the activities of a largely unknown and forgotten doctoral graduate from Vienna’s Völkerkunde institute who prepared early measurements among the Jewish resident population around Kraków, before they were sent into that city’s ghetto. Parallel to that, he and two female colleagues were crucial to the Nazi “documentation” of Jewish residents on Tarnów’s main square, right before several hundred of them were deported into the death camps. The text presents a vivid example of the Nazis’ recruitment of ambitious junior anthropologists into their deadly schemes, and how some of their plans relied to an extent on new institutions, such as the IDO (Institute for German Studies in the East) in this case, which was set up after the dissolution of the Jagiellonian University.

Gabriele Anderl, Ildikó Cazan-Simányi, and Reinhold Mittersakschmöller are a team of freelance and museum staff authors in Vienna; their essay, “ Rivalries with Fatal Consequences ,” addresses an enduring competition during the Nazi period between two Indonesia specialists at Vienna’s Ethnology Museum. Indonesia had strategic importance for the Nazis, both as a recent colony of their Japanese allies and in view of Dutch source materials for research. One of the two contenders was Frederic M. Schnitger, an internationally widely read Dutch author with a partially Chinese Java background; his rival, a less qualified, local female party mentee, made accusations which led to Schnitger being sent to die in a concentration camp. The key sources here are museum archives and Gestapo files.

The contribution by Peter Rohrbacher (Austrian Academy of Sciences), “ A Priest in the Resistance: Father Wilhelm Schmidt and His Alliances in World War II ,” shows how Wilhelm Schmidt—a Catholic priest and missionary who founded the Vienna School of Ethnology—worked from exile in Switzerland, with covert support by the Vatican and British SOE, to sponsor Austrian defectors from the Wehrmacht who re-organized as anti-Nazi guerilla groups. This study draws upon the discovery of Schmidt’s day-to-day notebook from 1943-45.

These four diverse vignettes seek to attract readers’ interest to the relevant chapters in the three volumes, and to encourage further relevant research on the theme at large. The authors are grateful to the editors at HAR for their support and assistance in making this set of contributions possible.

Other essays from this collection:

Katja Geisenhainer, “Marginalized in Central European Anthropology and Persecuted as a Jew: The Case of Marianne Schmidl.”

Lisa Gottschall, “Assisting in the Holocaust: Pro-Nazi Anthropologists from Vienna in Occupied Poland (1940–1944).”

Gabriele Anderl, Ildikó Cazan-Simányi and Reinhold Mittersakschmöller, “Rivalries with Fatal Consequences.”

Peter Rohrbacher, “A Priest in the Resistance: Father Wilhelm Schmidt and His Alliances in World War II .”

Gingrich, Andre. 2010. “Alliances and Avoidance: British Interactions with German-speaking Anthropologists, 1933–1953.” In Culture Wars: Context, Models, and Anthropologists’ Accounts , edited by Deborah James, Evelyn Plaice, and Christina Toren, 19-31. Oxford and New York: Berghahn.

Gingrich, Andre, and Peter Rohrbacher, eds. 2021. Völkerkunde zur NS-Zeit aus Wien (1938-1945): Institutionen, Biographien und Praktiken in Netzwerken . Veröffentlichungen zur Sozialanthropologie 27, 3 volumes. Vienna: Verlag der ÖAW. https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at/produkt/voelkerkunde-zur-ns-zeit-aus-wien-1938-1945/99200565

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A Level Study Notes: Weimar & Nazi Germany 1918-1945

Last updated 12 Apr 2018

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This collection features our free study notes for A Level History units encompassing Weimar and Nazi Germany 1918-1945.

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  1. Case Study: Warsaw Ghetto

    The Stroop Report. SS General Jürgen Stroop (26 September 1895 - 6 March 1952) was the Nazi commander in charge of crushing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. After the Uprising had been defeated, Stroop wrote an official account from the Nazis perspective. This became known as the Stroop Report.

  2. CAIE IGCSE History 0470 Depth Study Germany Revision Notes

    0580. Chemistry. 0620. French. 0520. Urdu as a Second Language. 0539. Best free resources for CAIE IGCSE History 0470 Depth Study Germany including summarized notes, topical and past paper walk through videos by top students.

  3. PDF Case Study 7

    Between 1933 and 1945, Germany was dominated by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. During this time of totalitarian tyranny, the Nazis began to purge Germany of Jews, driven by a belief in the superiority of an 'Aryan' race and a desire for racial purity, initiating the process of stripping Jews of their citizenship and statehood.

  4. Case Study: Theresienstadt Ghetto

    Case Study: Theresienstadt Ghetto. Philipp Manes, a German Jew and a prolific writer, and his wife Gertrud were sent to Theresienstadt in 1942. Whilst incarcerated, Manes kept a detailed account of life in the ghetto in several diaries. This map shows a hand drawn ground plan of the ghetto from 1943.

  5. Notes on the Growth of Nazi Germany, 1933-1939

    Help students follow along a mini-lecture about Nazi Germany's expansion in the 1930s. ... Notes on the Growth of Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 - PDF Notes on the Growth of Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 - Doc ... Students begin the unit's historical case study by exploring the brutal realities of World War I and the impact of the armistice and the Treaty ...

  6. PDF Hitler and Nazi Germany

    The early growth of the Nazi Party 9 The Munich beer hall putsch 12 Hitler's ideology and aims 13 Hitler's rise to power 15 Document case study 19 2 The Nazi state and economy 24 The consolidation of power, 1933-34 24 The Nazi state 28 The economy in Nazi Germany 32 Document case study 39 3 Life inside Nazi Germany: social and cultural ...

  7. PDF Life in Nazi Germany Revision Guide

    Nazis Workers and Persuction. Using your revision guide, the sources and A4 paper, practice the below exam questions. Remember to use the 'how to' guides in the front of this book to help your in your answers. Explain how the Nazis were able to solve the problems of unemployment between 1933-39.

  8. The Path to Nazi Genocide

    Immigration and Refugees, A Case Study on the Wagner-Rogers Bill; Interpreting News of World Events 1933-1938; Isolation or Intervention? A Case Study on the Lend-Lease Act; Modern-Day Genocide, A Study of the Rohingya Minority in Burma; Racial "Science" and Law in Nazi Germany and the United States; The Refugee Crisis; Rescue and ...

  9. PDF Race and Exclusion in Nazi Germany

    ^Nuremberg Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. The law was prohibitive in many forms of civil life in the German communities and this was a political strategy which the Nazi dictatorship took against the Jews. The exclusion in this case was based on ideological notions like ^blood _ and this became legally accepted.

  10. PDF Becoming Stateless

    Uni Potsdam - Case Study 7 / Statelessness (Marie, Lars, Lea, Antonia, Celine) Becoming Stateless - Jews in Nazi Germany The exclusion and later on the extermination of Jews in Germany took place during the ruling of the NSDAP and Hitler from 1933 to 1945. The rise of the Nazis in Germany was the result of structural

  11. PDF Physicians and torture: lessons from the Nazi doctors

    This article examines case studies from Nazi Germany in an attempt to answer these ... 11 Elie Wiesel, foreword to Annas and Grodin, above note 2, pp. vii-ix. ... ''Eugenic sterilization and a qualified Nazi analogy: the United States and Germany 1930-1945'', Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 132 (2000), pp. 312-19. ...

  12. The Creation of the Nazi Party

    In January 1920, the DAP created a headquarters in Munich. Rudolf Schüssler, a friend of Hitler, took over the party's administration. Meetings became better organised and funds for the party increased. Hitler suggested that the party be called the NSDAP to represent the nationalist and socialist elements.

  13. Culture Changes in Nazi Germany

    The Nazis objected to the Weimar Republic's focus on modern art and culture. They instead favoured romantic ideas about Germany's past, the importance of family and strong values. The Reich Chamber of Culture was set up in 1933 to make sure that all aspects of culture and the arts aligned with these Nazi beliefs.

  14. Depth Study: Germany 1918

    The End to War. An Allied counter-offensive began on 8 August 1918, near Amiens, with hundreds of tanks attacking in short sharp jabs at different points instead of on a narrow front, forcing the Germans to withdraw their entire line. Slowly but surely, the Germans were forced back until by the end of September, the Allies were through the ...

  15. Socio-Cultural Anthropology under Hitler: An Introduction to Four Case

    Note to readers: This introduction seeks to draw attention to the three-volume collection examining Socio-Cultural Anthropology in Vienna during the Nazi period (1938-1945), recently published in German and edited by Andre Gingrich and Peter Rohrbacher. The editors' essay below is followed by brief essays in English based on a selection of chapters by Katja Geisenhainer, Lisa Gottschall ...

  16. Support & Opposition to the Nazi Party

    Support. Even before the Enabling Act removed political opposition, the Nazi Party were popular: Hitler won 36% of votes in the second 1932 presidential election. The Nazi Party won 38% of votes in the July 1932 general election. There was a high-level of conformity towards Hitler and the Nazi regime after 1933: Four million people joined the ...

  17. PDF Sapienza Team 2, Case study 7, Track A: Statelessness Forced to Become

    Some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. For the Third Reich, Kristallnacht demarcated the shift from antisemitic legislation and discrimination to the exterminationist anti-Jewish measures that became the Holocaust. The case of Nazi Germany in the 1930s reflects the history of the XX century authoritarian

  18. A Level Study Notes: Weimar & Nazi Germany 1918-1945

    This collection features our free study notes for A Level History units encompassing Weimar and Nazi Germany 1918-1945. Final dates! Join the tutor2u subject teams in London for a day of exam technique and revision at the cinema.

  19. PDF How the ideology and political structures of Nazi Germany enabled the

    the text, I will use these words in the original German, but in italics. A complete list of concepts, including the German words, is found at the end of the essay in the glossary of terms in Chapter 11.2 (see also Chapter 11.3) of the appendix. When it comes to personal names I will stick to always using the last name in case

  20. PDF Case Study 7

    Case Study 7 - Jews in Nazi Germany Challenge Question: How did Nazis turn German Jews into pariahs? Did restrictions on citizenship create the conditions for extermination? During the Nazi regime in Germany from 1933 and 1945, direct violence and marginalization was inflicted towards the Jews which culminated in the extermination/genocide

  21. Nazi Germany (Notes)

    Nazi Germany (Notes) What are you waiting for, lets Ace the HSC together! Download this Notes document for HSC - Modern History. Find free HSC resources like study notes, essays, past papers, assignment, case studies & ...

  22. PDF CASE STUDY Germany

    led Germany to expel two Russian diplomats,3 and Krasikov's conviction was followed by the expulsion of two more. The German foreign minister called the assassination a "grave breach of German law and the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany."4 The strong response by the German state to Khangoshvili's murder is relatively unique.

  23. Why Did People Support the Nazi Party?

    Hitler understood the frustrations of the people and offered solutions. A popular aspect of the Nazi Party's campaign was the reversal of the Treaty of Versailles. Many Germans traced the issues of 1929-32 to the signing of the Treaty in 1919. Hitler used this hatred to bring people together and offer solutions to their problems.