Germany Key Words

Key terminology, regions, and sites related to the Holocaust in Geermany include:

• Anschluss The annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938.
• Aryan A term misused by the Nazis to describe a supposed Germanic “master race” characterised by specific physical traits like blonde hair and blue eyes.
• Buchenwald One of the first major concentration camps on German soil.
• Dachau Model concentration camp located outside Munich, opened 20 March 1933; initially designed to hold political prisoners.
• Displaced Persons Camp (“DP Camp”) A series of camps established by the Allies after World War II to house survivors of Nazi persecution and refugees from eastern Europe, known as displaced persons, or DPs, while they awaited repatriation to their home countries or resettlement in a new destination.
• Euthanasia Program The secret Nazi program (“Aktion T4”) targeting physically and mentally disabled individuals for murder, which pioneered the use of gas chambers.
• Führer The German word for ‘leader’, adopted by Adolf Hitler as his title to denote absolute authority.
• Gestapo The Nazi Secret State Police, responsible for brutally crushing political opposition and organising the deportation of Jews.
• Kristallnacht “The Night of Broken Glass” (November 9–10, 1938) A state-sponsored violent pogrom involving the destruction of Jewish synagogues, businesses, and homes across Germany and Austria.
• National Socialism (Nazism) The fascist political ideology of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), rooted in extreme nationalism, racism, and totalitarianism.
• Nuremberg Laws Anti-Jewish racial laws enacted in 1935 that stripped German Jews of citizenship and prohibited marriage with non-Jews.
• SS An elite Nazi paramilitary organisation led by Heinrich Himmler that managed the concentration and killing centres.
• Third Reich The official Nazi designation for the German regime from 1933 to 1945, meaning the “Third Empire”.
• Weimar Republic The democratic German republic established after World War I that collapsed when Hitler seized power in 1933.
• Wehrmacht The combined regular armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945.