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In his essay on "Judaism versus Christianity on the Nature of the Afterlife," Yale Magrass observes that according to the Nazis, Jews did not "undrstand the higher spiritual life." Their "decadence" was inherent in their being, maybe in their genes. Given that Jewish decadence was inherent in their genes, this Jewish trait could not be modified. Therefore "extermination was the only solution."
What was this genetically given characteristic of the Jews that could not be altered?
The following judgment by the Cologne Labor Court (January 21, 1941) denied the claim of Jewish employees to a vacation (Noakes & Pridham, 2001):
The precondition for the claim to a vacation—membership of the plant community—does not exist. A Jew cannot be a member of the plant community on account of his whole racial tendency, which is geared to forwarding his personal interests and securing economic advantages.
The genetically given characteristic of the Jew, the racial tendency that could not be modified or altered, was their tendency to "forward personal interest" and "secure economic advantages" at the expense of the community.
Hitler stated that it was "beside the point whether the individual Jew is ‘decent’ or not." His condemnation of Jews, in other words, was not based upon evaluating the personal qualities of any particular Jewish person. Rather, the Jew carried within himself "those characteristics which Nature has given him.”
The genetically given characteristic of the Jew--his fatal flaw according to the Nazis--was his tendency to forward personal interests and "secure economic advantages at the expense of the community."
Jews were a people, Hitler believed, characterized by their selfish individualism. They lacked "the conception of an activity which "builds up the life of the community."
Nazi scholarship declared (Aronsfeld, 1985) that the "peculiar characteristic of Judaism" was its “hostility to human society,” which meant that there could be “no solution to the Jewish question.” A true understanding of Jews insisted on their “total annihilation.”
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