The Beginning
The German Empire was founded on January 18, 1871, after three successful wars by north German state Prussia. Within a seven-year period Denmark and France started to have a lot of conflicts. According to britannica.com, "The empire was forged not as the result of the outpouring of nationalist feeling from the masses but through traditional cabinet diplomacy and agreement by the leaders of the states in the North German confederation, led by Prussia, with the hereditary rulers of Bavaria, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Württemberg." Prussia occupied more than three-fifths of Germany and had about three-fifths the population of Germany, remained in control of the nation until the empires demise at the end of the war. According to britannica.com, "At its birth Germany occupied an area of 208,825 square miles (540,854 square km) and had a population of more than 41 million, which was to grow to 67 million by 1914."
The Holocaust
The Holocaust (1933-1945) was a state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews. The Holocaust began in January 1933 when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. May 1945, when the Allied Powers defeated Nazi Germany in World War 2, was when the Holocaust ended. The Holocaust is also known as "the Shoah", which is Hebrew for "catastrophe". According to encyclopedia.ushmm.org, "When they came to power in Germany, the Nazis did not immediately start to carry out mass murder. However, they quickly began using the government to target and exclude Jews from German society."
| Country | Pre-War Jewish Population | Jewish Deaths (EST) |
|---|---|---|
| Austria | 185,000 | 50,000 |
| Belgium | 65,700 | 28,900 |
| Bulgaria | 50,000 | 0 |
| Czechoslovakia | 207,260 | 147,650 |
| Denmark | 7,800 | 60 |
| Estonia | 4,500 | 1,750 |
| Finland | 2,000 | 7 |
| France | 350,000 | 77,320 |
| Germany | 566,000 | 138,000 |
| Greece | 77,380 | 63,500 |
| Holland | 140,000 | 100,000 |
| Hungary | 825,000 | 559,500 |
| Italy | 44,500 | 7,680 |
| Latvia | 91,500 | 70,750 |
| Libya | 30,000 | 712 |
| Lithuania | 168,000 | 141,500 |
| Luxembourg | 3,500 | 1,950 |
| Norway | 1,700 | 762 |
| Poland | 3,300,000 | 2,950,000 |
| Romania | 609,000 | 278,000 |
| Tunisia | 90,000 | 260 |
| USSR | 3,020,000 | 1,050,000 |
| Yugoslavia | 78,000 | 59,750 |
| TOTAL | 9,916,840 | 5,728,051 |
Created by:Faith Brown, Pryor Middle School