Greed In The Holocaust

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Jealousy. Greed. Narcissism. Do these traits sound familiar to you? Those three negative human characteristics were the main causes of the tragic event we know of today as the Holocaust. These contributing factors to the Holocaust were simply human nature, but those horrible feelings were cleverly stroked into a burning fire inside of the Nazis by none other than Adolf Hitler. He manipulated the Nazis to agree with what he believed in and to do his will. It is frightening that the causes of the Holocaust still distinctly exist in us today. Jealousy was the largest factor out of the three, because a lot of Germans, not just the Nazis and Hitler, were feeling jealous at the time of the Holocaust. After losing World War 1, Germany’s economy was …show more content…
Greed and the compelling idea of gain was an incentive to the Nazi party to driving away or killing the Jews. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Gain included the acquisition of material possessions either bought at a large discount at auctions or looted after the owners (Jews) ‘disappeared’…” The Nazis took any of the items and materials that once belonged to the Jewish families and sold or kept them for a small profit. It is normal to want more possessions or money in modern times, and this was how the Nazis felt, except they had a cruel and brainwashed mindset, leading them to go to drastic measures for their own …show more content…
The psychological definition of narcissism is “extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one's own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type.” That description fits Hitler completely. He wanted to be known and admired for “making Germany great again”. Hitler’s selfish plan of rebuilding Germany was to kill all of the Jewish citizens, the disabled and ill, and to only have an Aryan (blond-haired, blue-eyed, perfect German) race. His narcissism was overwhelming him, clouding his thoughts and actions, making him, as Walter Langer of Harvard University described him, a “neurotic psychopath”. Hitler’s narcissism and sovereign contributed to the killing of millions of innocent Jews and people who didn’t agree with his beliefs. The three negative traits in us as human beings -- jealousy, greed, and narcissism -- were the main causes of the Holocaust. Hitler and the Nazis contained an excessive amount of those qualities, which led to their cataclysmic decisions. It is unfortunate, but we learn from mistakes, and hopefully an event like the Holocaust will never happen again; especially when it’s due to our negative human
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