1) Nazi Anti-Semitism Shares Several Elements with Earlier Forms of Anti-Semitism. What Similarities Do You Find Between the Two, and What Elements Do You Think Are New to Nazi Anti-Semitism?

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1) Nazi Anti-Semitism shares several elements with earlier forms of Anti-Semitism. What similarities do you find between the two, and what elements do you think are new to Nazi Anti-Semitism? The term anti-Semitism refers to hatred towards Jews. It can take the form of religious or xenophobic anti-Semitism. The term itself was coined in 1870, but Anti-Semitic behaviour dates back to the time of Jesus, when Jews were regarded as the killers of Christ. The most obvious account of anti-Semitism occurred in WW2 and was carried out by the Nazi Party. But many of their anti-Semitic actions and proposals up until 1939, share similarities with the anti-Semitism which has evolved since the Middle Ages. Hitler regarded the Jews as a threat to both the economy and the Aryan Race but this ideology dates back to the Middle Ages when Jews were blamed for Natural disasters and forced to leave their land. At the same time Jews were forbidden to fight but where then branded as cowards. This bares similarities to the Nazi’s blaming the Jews for the failures of WW1. Further to this, they became the scapegoats for economic decline and the image of the money grabbing Jew was born. This same image was used to motivate the 1933 boycott and the kristalnacht of 1938. The Nazi programme of population decimation can also be traced back to Middle Ages Europe where in the 13th Century England expelled its entire Jewish population. However you might argue that the Madagascar plan proposed to take this one step further. The Ghettoization which grew out of the failure of the Madagascar and Lublin-Nisko Plans, is also not unique to Nazi ideology. Ghettoization of Jews can be traced back to the renaissance when the Jews were segregated from Christian society and lived in much the same conditions as those under Nazi Germany. Whilst there are many similarities the Fuehrer iPrinzip did mark a
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