There are a lot of imaginative explanations regarding why Hitler hated the Jews. But none of them provides an absolute answer to the question: Why did Hitler hate Jews?
Some people argue that his hatred arose from a poison gas attack in World War I while others argue that intercourse with a Jewish prostitute had made him contract a venereal disease. Continue reading to learn the reason.
Was Hitler of Jewish Descent?
Adolf Hitler was not Jewish. However, recent studies and research suggest he has African and Jewish ancestry. More so, his paternal grandmother, Maria Anna, is rumored to be a Jew.
She was said to have been serving as a maid in the house of one family in Graz when the father of the house forced himself on her, leading to the birth of Hitler’s father, Alois Schicklgruber.
One attempt to unravel the mystery of Hitler’s ancestry was made by a Belgian journalist Jean-Paul Mulders and a historian, who had made extensive publications about Hitler, Marc Vermeeren.
The duo obtained saliva samples from some living relations of Hitler’s. Analyses of the samples revealed the dominance of a set of chromosomes, E1b1b that were common among North Africans and a large percentage of Jews.
However, academians maintain that the DNA results do not summarily prove that Hitler was African, Jewish, or a combination of the two as it also runs in other ethnic groups. They further pointed out that DNA analysis was largely an inexact science.
Hitler’s German Nationalism and Antisemitism
Antisemitism is prejudice or hostility against Jews. It is sometimes described as the oldest hatred in history and is common among Germans.
Hitler was the mastermind of the Nazi Holocaust which is history’s most extreme case of antisemitism. However, keep in mind that antisemitism was not started by him.
In a large percentage of Europe, throughout the Middle Ages, people of Jewish origin were denied citizenship and made to live in ghettos, followed by anti-Jewish riots (called pogroms) which were popular during the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century.
At the end of the First World War, many German soldiers found it hard to make peace with the defeat of the German Empire, claiming that they had not lost the war on the battlefield.
The German army command spread a story that the defeat resulted from a betrayal, referred to as a “stab in the back”, which must have been perpetrated by Jews and communists.
Why Did Hitler Hate Jews?
Adolf Hitler, a man whose grandmother and possibly many other relatives of his were Jews was the mastermind behind the Nazi Holocaust. But why did Hitler hate Jews?
It is an established fact that Hitler first welcomed antisemitic beliefs at an early age, and was triggered during his participation in the German army during the First World War.
He, alongside many other soldiers at the time, also bought into the myth that the Jews had a hand in the defeat of the German Empire.
Imaginative explanations of Hitler’s antisemitic practice include his involvement with a Jewish prostitute during which he contracted a venereal disease and a trauma caused by a poison gas attack during the First World War.
The poison gas attack had almost cost Hitler his eyesight as he had been badly hurt and was confined to a sickbed in a military hospital. He was still in the Hospital when he received news of Germany’s surrender.
How was Hitler Introduced to Antisemitism?
The origin of Hitler’s practice of antisemitism is largely blurred. In Mein Kampf, he described his adoption of antisemitism to have stemmed from a protracted personal struggle.
Many people suppose his development into an antisemite began while he worked as a painter in Vienna – a city with a large population of Jews – where he lived between 1907 to 1913.
According to a report, two Austrian politicians had immense influence on Hitler becoming an antisemitic. Georg Ritter von Schönerer (a German nationalist) was the first, who believed that that Jews could never fully be fully-fledged German citizens.
The second was a Vienesse mayor in the person of Karl Lueger, from whom Hitler learned how social reforms and antisemitism could be successful.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler lauded Lueger, referring to him as the “greatest German mayor of all times”. In 1933 when Hitler came into power, he introduced ideas similar to that of Lueger.
At the time, the Nazis believed that evacuating the Jews was going to solve the problems in Germany. Hitler was a strong supporter of this belief and used it to get into power in 1933.
Bottom Line
The Nazi Holocaust is regarded as the most extreme antisemitic attack on the Jews, leading to the death of about 6 million Jews in Europe.
More so, a Jew by the name of Samuel Morgenstern was one of the most steadfast buyers of his paintings while he was still a painter in Vienna.
Furthermore, he must have been aware of his Jewish ancestry. So, why did Hitler hate Jews? Well, let’s hope this article did that to that question.
You can read more on the Nazi Holocaust to get a better grasp of what happened following Hitler’s assumption of power.