Did Hitler hate the Jewish religion, ethnicity, or both?

by tigerfestivall

I'm a little hazy on what people mean when they say that Hitler hated the Jews. For instance, would Hitler have hated a Christian man with Jewish ancestry? What about a person who practices Judaism, but has little to no Jewish ancestry? (I don't know to much about conversion to Judaism so I don't know what sort of hypotheticals are reasonable here.) Thanks for any information that could clear this up.

gingerkid1234

As a bit of an introduction, I think there's a bit of a false dichotomy here. People often have the idea that Nazi-era racism was scientific and coherent. While it often attempted to be, it wasn't always.

Anyway, the Nazi's anti-Jewish legislation was based on ancestry. The Nuremburg laws defined people based on how many Jewish grandparents they had. However, practicing Judaism could move you from being a mischling (someone of mixed ancestry) to a full-fledged Jew. It's also important to note that there were very few people without Jewish ancestry who converted to Judaism, but a large number of non-Jews with Jewish ancestry who were subject to Nazi discrimination to varying degrees.

However, Nazi propaganda was heavily tied into older more religious bigotry. And it wasn't particularly scientific about exactly why Jews were to be hated, so there's no particular reason to think that the Nazis would've been cool with someone who did Jewish things without actually having Jewish ancestry.

While the Nazis' laws might've had specific criteria for who was Jewish (and therefore subject to discriminatory laws) and who wasn't, that's only because they were trying to make rules. It shouldn't be taken to mean that their beliefs followed such a strict rubric, though.