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In 1894, historian Theodor Mommsen wrote that the root cause of the anti-Semitic ‘affliction’ was ‘envy and the basest instincts,… a barbaric hatred for education, freedom, and humanism.’

— Götz Aly Why the Germans? Why the Jews?: Envy, Race Hatred, and the Prehistory of the Holocaust (2011)

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Hitler and others promised that as soon as the National Socialist revolution had removed Jewry, economic exploitation would be overcome and a socially just utopia would be nigh.

Why the Germans? Why the Jews?: Envy, Race Hatred, and the Prehistory of the Holocaust (2011)

Nazi ideology conceived of a racial conflict as an antidote to class conflict.

Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2007)

In one of his central pronouncements, Hitler promised 'the creation of a socially just state,' a model society that would' continue to eradicate all [social] barriers.

Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2007)

Even the traditional anti-Jewish pogroms in medieval Europe were not always based on religious hatred alone. Often, anti-Semitism was combined with plunder for plunder’s sake.

Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2007)

By exploiting material wealth confiscated and plundered in a racial war, Hitler’s National Socialism achieved an unprecedented level of economic equality and created vast new opportunities for upward mobility for the German people.

Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2007)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Götz Aly (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.