Deathgate

13 THE HISTORY The Nazi party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party was established in 1920 soon after the end of World War I (1914 - 18). This political movement steadily increased in power before a meteoric rise from 1933 to 1945, until its demise at the end of WWII. In this period of 1933 - 1945, ‘Nazi Germany’ expanded its controlled territory to encompass the majority of European countries as well as the Western regions of Russia. Through military intervention and totalitarian control, the Nazi regime, led by Adolf Hitler, promoted national pride and racial superiority. This was to create a ‘new world order’ that eradicated anyone who was not considered as ‘master race’ or Aryan (put simply, blonde, blue eyed and tall). Under the Nazi ideology, Jews were perceived and promoted (via literary text and propaganda) as being the opposite of the Nazi archetype of a master race. As a consequence, the ‘final solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem’, as the Nazi’s saw it, was the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah: a genocidal campaign carried out during WWII, which was responsible for the murder of six million people. Primarily targeting Jews, the Holocaust also victimised others who were considered to oppose the ideals of the Nazi regime. Victimised groups include Poles, Slavs, Soviet POW’s, Serbs, Romani, disabled people, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Spanish Republicans and other enemies such as left-wing political supporters. The genocide of the Holocaust primarily took place in camps that were purpose built for prisoners, forced labour and extermination as well as in established ghettos of Nazi controlled countries. Under the Nazi regime, over 15,000 major sites were established for the purpose of confining, exploiting and murdering those targeted by the Nazi ideology. Including sub and satellite camps, these sites were part of 40,000 camps, which were built to carry out the goals of the Holocaust. Countries where these camps were built include: Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Yugoslavia. Continued overleaf THE HISTORY Dan Elborne