Was Adolf Hitler racist

Answer 1

Because he thought everyone should look the same and have the same culture.

Hitler wanted blonde hair and blue eyes (not just white people). His idea was to kill Jews to destroy the Free Masons idea of world Jewish government and world domination. Hitler is considered a racist because he hated Jews.

Answer 2

Based on the prevailing mentality at the beginning of the 20th Century, the answer is not so easy to define. Hitler's racial policies were based on two tennets: racial purity and anti-Semitism, so let us look at each one individually:

Racial Purity:

Like many others at the time, Hitler was concerned with ways to improve the genetic composition of the race. This was known at the time as eugenics.

The idea of eugenics dates back to the Greek philosopher, Plato, who expounded that the human population should be controlled by the state. Other ancient states such as Rome and Athens controlled populations with infanticide. And famously in the city state of Sparta, elders examined new born babies for defects and those deemed incapable of living were abandoned, exposed to the elementsto die, to ensure that only the strong survived. Ancient Roman law stated that deformed children were to be killed. This was normally done by drowning them in the river Tiber, a practice that continued until Rome adopted Christianity.

The idea of eugenics was further in the 19th Century developed by Sir Francis Galton, who argued that Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection was being undermined by human nature (charity). He argued that in nature the weak died and were removed from the gene pool but modern societies protected them, leading to a regression in human evolution. He postulated that it would be possible "to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations" (Galton, Hereditary Genius).

In Britain, famous supporters of the eugenics movement included HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill.

The father of the American Eugenics movement was Charles Benedict Davenport, who in 1910 set up the Eugenics Record Office. As a result of research into family disorders, Davenport concluded that racially unfit specimens came from economically and socially poor backgrounds. Davenport's solution was immigration restriction and sterilisation. Other famous proponents of American eugenics, such as the conservationist Madison Grant, went even further, and discussed the idea of exterminating the "unfit". More than 30 US states adopted laws which allowed the forced sterilisation of "certain individuals" and many states enacted laws forbidding those deemed to be "epileptic, imbecile, or feeble-minded" from marrying.

The Immigration Restriction League, founded in 1894, sought to block anyone deemed to be from an "inferior" race from entering the United States on the grounds that procreation with inferior races would dilute superior American stock.

Another American eugenics institution (set up in 1906, again by Davenport) was the American Breeders' Association, whose stated aim was to "investigate and report on heredity in the human race, and emphasize the value of superior blood and the menace to society of inferior blood." Alexander Graham Bell and Stanford president David Starr Jordan were among the ABA's more famous members. William Graham Sumner, founder of the American Sociological Society, broke society down into classes: class of genius, talent, mediocrity, defective and delinquent (criminals etc.), and argued that the delinquents should be eliminated from society.

Anti-Semitism

Hitler's anti-Semitism was nothing new either. Jewish citizens in Europe had suffered pogroms for centuries. At the beginning of the 20th Century anti-semitism was wide-spread in Europe in general and Germany in particular, both in politics, and society.

In his apparently antisemitic essay "Zur Judenfrage" (On the Jewish Question), Karl Marx (the founder father of communism and himself a Jew) excoriated the behaviour of the "real worldly Jews" and wrote:

"Let us consider the real worldly Jews, not the Sabbath Jews, as Bauer* does, but the every-day Jews. We will not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but we will look for the secret of religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical needs, egoism. What is the secular cult of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his secular God? Money.

Very well. Emancipation from huckstering and from money, and therefore from practical, real Judaism would be the self-emancipation of our epoch.

An organization of society, which would abolish the fundamental conditions of huckstering, and therefore the possibility of huckstering, would render the Jew impossible. His religious consciousness would dissolve like a mist in the real vital air of society. On the other hand: if the Jew recognizes as valueless this his practical essence, and labours for its abolition, he would work himself free of his previous development, and labour for human emancipation generally, turning against the supreme practical expression of human self-alienation.

We therefore perceive in Judaism a general pervading anti-social element, which has been carried to its highest point by the historical development, in which Jews in this bad relation have zealously co-operated, a point at which it must necessarily dissolve itself. The emancipation of the Jews in its last significance is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism."

In society, Christian churches in Europe and Germany had a long history of anti-Judaism (based on the biblical argument that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus Christ).

Anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe was further entrenched over the previous centuries due to the domination of the European banking system by Jewish families. Canonical law forbade Christians from usury (the practice of lending money and charging interest), this made this industry sector uninteresting for Christians. Jewish law, however, only forbade the charging of interest against other Jews, making Christian Europe the ideal place for Jewish bankers to build up successful banking dynasties. This had in previous centuries led to pogroms against Jews in Europe.

At the turn of the 20th Century, anti-Semitism was was also rife in the United States (which still considered African-Americans to be racially inferior). At the start of the First World War, American anti-Semitic publications attacked Jews as "slackers" and "war-profiteers" For example, a U.S. Army manual published for war recruits stated that, "The foreign born, and especially Jews, are more apt to malinger than the native-born."

The lynching of Leo Frank (a Jew in Atlanta who had been sentenced to death for murder but had his sentence commuted to life after the governor, John Slaton, became convinced of his innocence), led to the creation of the Anti Defamation League, which in turn led to a revival of the Klu Klux Klan.

American polls in the 1930s and 40s indicate that over half the American public viewed Jews as greedy and dishonest and that they had too much power in American society. One poll even suggested that close to 40% of Americans would accept anti-Jewish measures, while a 1939 Roper poll, suggested that only 39% of Americans should be treated the same as other people and 53% stated that"Jews are different and should be restricted".

American organisations such as the Silver Shirts or the Christian Nationalist Crusade all agitated against Jewry but by far the biggest proponent of anti-Semitism in America was Catholic priest Charles Coughlin who used his weekly CBS radio show, which attracted 5 million - 12 million listeners, who claimed that the depression was an "international conspiracy of Jewish bankers" and "there can be no doubt that the Russian Revolution ... was launched and fomented by distinctively Jewish influence." Following the horror of Reichskristallnacht(9-10 November 1938) Coughlin announced to his listeners: "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted."

Other famous Americans linked to anti-Semitism are industrialist Henry Ford and pilot Charles Lindbergh.

Hitler, as a socialist and catholic, would have come into contact with both political and religious anti-semitism and in 1919 rejected any form of antisemitism based purely on emotion and instead called for a "Antisemitismus der Vernunft" (reasoned antisemitism). This had the effect that certain, privileged, people who were Jewish or had Jewish ancestry were "arianised".

Hitler made it very clear from the start, that it was his intention to remove Jews from German society and many Germans across the poitical divide agreed with this policy. Initially this was to be done by restricting their access to society by banning them from certain professions, discriminating against them and generally creating an atmosphere, where German Jews would leave the country voluntarily. This policy changed after 1938, after the Evian conference and Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), when it became apparent to Hitler that the rest of the world was not willing to stand up for German Jews, a policy change which ultimately led to the mass murder of European and German Jews.

So in this sense (and to answer the question) Hitler was no more a racist than many leading thinkers in other so-called "enlightened" societies. His policies merely took the conclusions of the likes of Davenport, Galton and Sumner and Marx to what were considered the "logical" conclusion by removing what were considered the defective elements of German society and eliminating them.

The key difference between Hitler (and the National Socialists) and the world's other proponents of eugenics and anti-Semitism is the lengths that the National Socialists were prepared to go to, to bring about those conclusions - persecution and (eventually) mass murder.

Another Perspective

Yes, Adolf Hitler was racist regardless of where he got his ideas, how he formed them, what time it was, or what he wanted for "his people" and "his country". He felt those not of the "Aryan" descent were inferior humans beings (if he considered them human) much like racists today feel those not of the descent of their own ancestry are inferior. Though his hatred was not solely toward anyone who wasn't of the Aryan race, not being of that race automatically disqualified a person as completely worthy, in his and other Nazis eyes.

Answer 3

Nazi is short for "National Socialist". The "national" part means that they want one nationality (their own) to prosper. Their ideology holds that one nation (and race) is worthy, and the rest are just stealing resources from them.

Basically, they think themselves superior, which automatically makes everyone else inferior. The jump from ethnicity to race is pretty much the next logical step in that line of reasoning.

Answer 4

Anybody that wasn't white/caucasian.

Hitler disliked Jews to destroy the free masons. He had no hate to any other race group and only wanted blond hair and blue eyes to follow his as the new world government. He denied white people to help him as well.

Answer 5

As a young man he worked for some Jewish people. He saw how rich they were, and how poor the average German was. He also realized they didn't look like other Germans, so he figured there must be a Jewish conspiracy going on.

Answer 6

This is because he didn't believe the "Jews" were the perfect race. Hitler believed that the perfect people had blond hair and blue eyes. And often the "JEWS" had black hair and different eye color.

These reasons is what caused Hitler to elimenate the Jews.

He was a war General in WWl and after that the rest of the world de-promoted him and made a law which said that Germany was banned from making an army. But the government didn't keep track. Hitler was voted leader of the Germans (Nazis) and they made a secret and enormous army.

After his army was assembled he set off to elemnate all Jews. But that's not all he set out to do. He also wanted world dominashen. He teamed up with Japan and While Hitler was killing Jews and Conquering land the Japanese Bombed pearl harbor in Haiiwa. Which is the usa Naval Base. This started WW2.

So Hitler was not only Racist he was Greedy.

Answer 7

Yes. Adolf Hitler was racist. He classified the world into "racial" groupings and determined that some of those groups were superior to other groups based on phenotypical characteristics (appearance). He then proceeded to promote, support, coordinate, and order the subjugation and annihilation of those races he deemed inferior.

Answer 8

Hitler was very racial during the second world war time, but there are people from any country who are very racist and ignorant.

Answer 9

Jews

Answer 10

he was not