Anti-Semitism is discrimination against Jews. Jews are followers of Judaism, a monotheistic religion. A central belief of Judaism is that a Messiah is yet to come to bring peace and unity to mankind. Differing from the Jews, Christians believe that a Messiah has already come and He is Jesus. This difference in religious beliefs is one of the many distinctions which set the Jews apart in the largely Christian European countries. Jews have been the minority in European countries and their dissimilarities with the Christians have brought about many agonies, distresses, and sufferings.

Hitler extended anti-Semitism beyond the Jewish faith and advocated racial anti-Semitism. Hitler falsely grouped the Jews into a particular race when the Numremberg Laws were decreed in September 15, 1935.

This racist anti-Semitism was often ignored by non-Nazis during the 1920s in Europe. A few decades before the Holocaust, Jews and other Germans lived together peacefully. During World War I, Jews in Germany fought side-by-side with other Germans. Germany lost World War I and was forced to pay reparation to the damaged countries. At the same time, the Depression took place in the 30's, and sent Germany's economy in a downward spiral. During this time, the Jewish community was much more financially stable than most of the other communities in Germany. When Hitler became the Furher (leader) of Germany, he singled out the Jews as scapegoats to blame for the loss of Germany in World War I and for other problems Germany was experiencing at that time.

A majority of Germans continued to ignored Hitler's propaganda. Once Hitler obtained absolute power in Germany, however, he accelerated his propaganda campaign against the Jews. He and the Nazis declared, "...the German community derived its strength from the purity of its blood and its roots in the soil. If Germany were to become a powerful state again, it must root out the unhealthy organisms [the Jews] that weakened the nation." [2] Under the control of Hitler, "Jews were characterized as an active and dangerous enemy that endangered the very existence of the nation. Like traditional antisemitism, which portrayed Jews as enemies of Christendom, the Nazis viewed themselves in an apocalyptic struggle with consequences that would determine the fate of the Aryan race." [3]

Hitler and the Nazis controlled every aspect of life in Germany. One crucial aspect which enabled the Nazis to propagate anti-Semitism was their control of the media. In its newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter, the Nazis frequently presented anti-Jewish propaganda. In addition, a movie designed to incite hatred for the Jews, The Eternal Jew, was produced by the Nazis

Germans had previously been unconvinced by anti-Semitism. After several years of propaganda, however, many fell into the Nazis' ideology of anti-Semitism. Children were taught at young a age to hate the Jews. Through writings in textbooks, the Nazis intended to "indoctrinate the next generation of Germans to recognize Jews as the nation's enemy." [4]

In addition to his anti-Semitic views, the National Socialist Party's leader, Adolf Hitler, also strongly advocated the "Aryan racial supremacist" ideology." He believed that Aryans were the superior race and other people were inferior. "People who did not belong to that race were seen as inferior, fit only to be slaves or, worse still, to be wiped out. The list of intended victims included Jews, Slavs, Poles, Gypsies and other ethnic groups who were different, in tradition and appearance, from those Hitler regarded as pure-blooded Germans." [26]

According to Hitler and the Nazis, Jews were "sub-humans." The Holocaust was the result of an effort to make Europe judenrein (free of Jews) to make lebensraum (living space) for the master race, the Aryans. Thus, this particular example of religious persecution presented in this website is a clear definition of abuse of power.