Adolf Hitler, young and impressionable, had been immersed in the boastful, grandeur city of Vienna, where his senses would indubitably absorb his new knowledge and experience. Under the thumb of Franz Joseph, Vienna appeared to be thriving. This ‘gilded age’ had no doubt influenced Hitler, who lived and believed all that the government and his ‘schooling’ had taught him. Certainly, five years of an imposing voice and unrelenting doctrines can have its impact on anyone; Hitler was not exempt. Hitler was exposed to the almost inherent, inborn hatred of Jews, the scapegoat of Vienna’s capitalist exploitation and social instability. For three years, Hitler resided beside a Jewish ghetto. No doubt, Hitler was desensitized to the suffering and the plight of the oppressed Jews. Day after day, Hitler’s immunity to the suffering of others, especially of those who had allegedly brought their poverty and suffering onto themselves and into Vienna, was strengthened.
Moreover, on top of society’s persistent voice of intolerance, Adolf Hitler had already harbored a strong pan-German sentiment (in contrast to Alois Hitler’s unwavering allegiance to Austria). Hitler, like many of those in his generation, believed in this sense of German nationalism and xenophobia. In Vienna, Adolf Hitler’s disposition towards foreigners and threats to Germany was cemented – the ghetto district “‘seemed the embodiment of racial desecration’ (Blutschande)”. In Hitler’s eyes and those of the bourgeois, these mixed races of minority Jews did not coincide with or contribute to the “imperial grandeur, dazzling opulence and splendour” of powerful, proud Austria’s capital (Kershaw 30). Even if the Jews weren’t united in race, language, or descent, Germany and Austria were. Both Germany and Austria thrived on the national unity that went towards attacking and oppressing the unpopular minority, the Catholics and the Jews, respectively.
Finally, this anti-Semitic sentiment was compounded by those that Hitler revered and admired. A hero is Hitler eyes equated to power and wealth. At the same time, Hitler’s heroes were not shy to express their fiery hatred of Jews. Through idolizing people such as Karl Lueger, Vienna’s “uncrowned king” and reading propaganda, yellow journalism of Vienna’s “gutter press,” Hitler, naïve and eager to rise in the ranks of society, hated too, despising the pandemonium surrounding mixed races, Judaism, and dividedness. In those settings, Hitler learned one skewed, closeminded view, and not one and not anything told him to believe otherwise.
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ReplyDeleteI also believe Hitler's early life experiences attributed to his hate of Jews and his love for Germany. Living next to a ghetto inhabited by mostly Jews could have led to Hitler witnessing horrific acts or lifestyles that come along with living in a poverty stricken area. This could be where Hitler's hatred of Jews began to fester which would have only grown larger with the anti-Semitic tendencies of Austria at the time. Since Jews also controlled most of the banking and financing jobs in a poverty stricken Austria, the negative propaganda definitely reached Hitler's eyes and ears as well justifying his beliefs in his mind. Also, those who Hitler looked up to and whom he strove to become like such as Karl Lueger, as Lan stated, led Hitler to believe to become a man in power in Austria or Germany he must be an anti-Semitic like them. All these factors led to Hitler's view on Jews and shaped him to be the man he became.
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