The Nazis imprisoned first, before the war began, political and ideological prisoners. Many of these were Soviet soldiers who had all traces of their imprisonment removed, such that their families could not find them. The aktion and decree were called "Night and Fog" or nacht und nebel, and after forced labor, most of the soviet prisoners were killed. Others imprisoned early on were 'prisoners of conscience', such as Niemoller, who helped found the Confessing Church and Pastor's Emergency League, who was imprisoned at Dachau, and other dissident religious and political leaders. Communists [Bolsheviks] in the German Legislature were imprisoned shortly following the burning of the Reichstag in 1933. The mentally retarded, mentally ill, and later deaf, epileptics, alcoholics and chronically unemployed were targeted for what the Nazis referred to as euthanasia, but which was indeed outright killings by gassings and lethal injection, and even the witholding of food and water.
As the war began, any group which objected to Hitler's policies were imprisoned using the charge of 'demoralizing the Fuhrer' or the German people, the charge which was held against the student group "The White Rose'. Groups targeted included the Roma Sinti (commonly called 'gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, Political dissidents, Religious dissidents, 'renegade' party members who opposed the Reich, homosexuals, and others.
The primary group though, as most know were the Jews of Germany and Europe, who were sequestered, arrested, deported and exterminated in order to rid Germany and its territories of all Jewish bloodlines and influence. There were no crimes committed usually, and the way the Reich handled the matter was to introduce it to the German populace as a matter of Communist or Bolshevik influence coming in through the Jews, in addition to a racial issue in which they considered the Jews inferior to Aryans.
Jews were systematically robbed of citizenship in Germany since only Aryans were allowed citizenship, and once without citizenship, legal rights to education, representation, employment and the courts were taken away. Many in the Third Reich believed that if the Jews were exterminated that it would mean a new day for Germany and nordic peoples, but the mass killings led to the destruction of both.
Chat with our AI personalities
Nazis are not gay; in fact, the Nazis murdered tens of thousands of gay people in concentration and death camps.
6 million
They had killed an estimated six million Jews by the end of World War 2.
It's impossible to define except to say 'extremely rich'. The Nazis ruthlessly plundered European banks,treasuries, museums and even pulled the gold from tortured peoples teeth. They ended the war with billions even though technically beaten.
No, the Soviet Union did not target the Jews. It was the Nazis that murdered about 6 million Jews ...