How Did The Gestapo Affect The Holocaust

Soon after Hitler became dictator of Germany, the “Gestapo, a German secret police force, as created…” (Gestapo). Communism was thought to be trying to take over Nazism and it was Hitler’s main goal to eliminate his political enemies. “The Gestapo was created to help solidify control by identifying and arresting anti-Nazis agents in Germany” (Gestapo). Hitler appointed another one of his senior Nazi official as head of the Gestapo. “Hermann Göring was appointed director of the German Gestapo” (Gestapo). Göring wanted the Gestapo to be more strict than what they already were. “He encouraged his officers to root out and arrest leftist sympathizers whom were a threat to the Nazi regime” (Gestapo). “The Gestapo’s aggression was forged by competition

Hitler felt like the Jews were taking over the world politically, economically, and socially. He needed to find a way to eliminate this perceived threat and turned to radical means to carry out this elimination. “The Nazis believed that the Germans were racially superior and that the Jews deemed inferior, were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community” (The Holocaust). The main perpetrators of the atrocities against Jews were “the members of the SS, the elite guard of the Nazi regime…” (Perpetrators). However, Hitler involved many other facets of the German community. The banks of Germany helped fund the killing machines used to murder the Jews. “The Reichsbank, the German Central Bank headed by Walther Funk, served as a depository for stolen currency and gold and helped to finance the SS killing operations” (Perpetrators). Many German owned factory owners played a major part in killing the Jews during the Holocaust. “A subsidiary of I.G. Farben provided the Zyklon B gas used to kill Jews in the gas chambers”

Yes, Adolf Hitler was a brilliant military strategist, and he was truly one of the most powerful men in world history without a doubt. Unfortunately, this brilliance and power came at great cost to humanity itself. Hitler’s methods of suppression and his belief that he could create a perfect race crossed the line of acceptability and morality. The lesson is that there has to be balance. Balance between power and humility, brilliance and compassion. In Hitler’s quest for power and dominance, he lost sight of the fact that a great leader is ultimately defined by his people, not the power he wields over