The Jews of pre-WWII Germany were partly responsible for the Holocaust

First and foremost, I would like to make it absolutely clear that I am not arguing that the genocide that took place in Nazi Germany was in the slightest bit justified: in my opinion, the Holocaust represents one of the most inhuman and evil crimes ever committed. With that in mind, I would like to put my argument into a little bit of historical context: In the inter-war years, Germany suffered from hyperinflation with prices rising so quickly that workers had to be paid three times daily. Although this economic chaos was very bad news for most Germans, hyperinflation provided an opportunity for callous businessmen to make big profits out of other people's misery by speculating on the foreign exchange markets, by converting money into goods and fixed plant and by borrowing money and using it to buy devalued stocks and shares. [1] The massive profits being made in these ways attracted large numbers of Jews from neighbouring European countries to Germany and in the 1920's the Jewish population of the country swelled to over half a million. [2] This wave of immigration caused a great deal of resentment within the indigenous German population, many of whom were suffering great economic hardship, and were bitter that Jews were becoming prosperous at their expense, at least as they perceived it. To make matters worse, Jews had long been despised in Germany for their practice of usury (lending money at very high rates of interest). In former times, when strict religious observance was universal in Germany, usury was forbidden to Christians, as it was to Jews, but the Jews took advantage of a religious loophole in the Hebrew scriptures which they interpreted as giving them permission to ruthlessly exploit non-Jews for their own financial gain: the relevant passage in the Torah reading: "Thou shalt not lend upon interest to thy brother: interest of money, interest of victuals, interest of any thing that is lent upon interest. Unto a foreigner thou mayest lend upon interest; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon interest." Deuteronomy 23:20-21 So, the hostility that had built up towards Jews in Germany as the result of their practice of usury and their (perceived) employment of other sharp financial practices was a gift to the Nazis who exploited it to the full in order to help them gain power. Unusually for politicians, and very unfortunately for the Jews, the Nazis kept their promises and duly persecuted the Jews, exterminating 90% of them as part of the „Endlï¿½sung der Judenfrage" (the "final solution to the Jewish problem"). Of course, the Jews living in Germany could scarcely have been able to predict the Holocaust, but it might have been reasonable to expect them to endeavour to improve their reputation within the society in which they lived. They could have done this numerous ways: a) By moderating their business practices so as not to cause any unnecessary hardship to their customers. b) By integrating more with the indigenous German population through socialising, spending more money with non-Jewish businesses and allowing inter-faith marriages. c) And perhaps most importantly, by giving to non-Jewish charities: Tzedakah (the giving of alms to the needy) is a religious obligation in Judaism but the recipients are prioritised as follows: (1) Closeness to the giver (relatives ahead of non-relatives, etc.) (2) Intensity and kind of need (priority to life-threatening needs, priority for those requiring food over those requiring clothing, etc.) (3) Level of education (Torah scholars take precedence over non-scholars) (4) Gender (women take precedence over men) (5) Lineage (Cohen has precedence over Levy who has precedence over a Yisroel; an ordinary Jew takes precedence over a mamzer, etc.) [3] So although giving to Gentiles is not forbidden in Judaism, we can see that any non-Jewish people in need are going to be a long way behind the Cohens, Levys and the Yisroels in the line to receive handouts from wealthy Jewish benefactors, which obviously had the potential to cause ill-feeling amongst the many needy Germans at that time. Thus we can see that the failure of the Jewish population in Germany in the 1920's and 30's to ingratiate themselves with the general population helped the Nazis to gain control of the country and, ultimately, enable them to exterminate Jews in the hundreds of thousands. Therefore, we must conclude that the Jews of pre-World War II Germany were partly responsible for the Holocaust. Thank you. [1] http://www.usagold.com... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://www.just-tzedakah.org...