Editing Dehumanization (section)

=== Nazi Germany ===
Dehumanization reached one of its most extreme expressions under [[Nazi Germany]], where it was systematically employed to justify and implement the persecution and extermination of various groups, including [[Jews]], [[Romani people|Romani]] and [[Sinti]] people, people with disabilities, political dissidents, and [[LGBTQ people|LGBTQ+]] individuals.<ref name=":45">{{Cite journal |last1=Emile |first1=Bruneau |last2=Kteily |first2=Nour |date=2017-07-26 |title=The enemy as animal: Symmetric dehumanization during asymmetric warfare |journal=PLOS ONE |language=en |volume=12 |issue=7 |pages=e0181422 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0181422 |doi-access=free |issn=1932-6203 |pmc=5528981 |pmid=28746412|bibcode=2017PLoSO..1281422B }}</ref>  [[The Holocaust]] is regarded as one of the most systematic and historically significant examples of atrocities carried out through sustained processes of dehumanization.<ref name=":0233">{{Cite book |title=The Routledge handbook of dehumanization |date=2021 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-138-58815-8 |editor-last=Kronfeldner |editor-first=Maria E. |series=Routledge handbooks in philosophy |location=Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY}}</ref>

Nazi Germany institutionalized dehumanization through the construction of legal and bureaucratic structures that explicitly denied the full humanity of targeted populations.<ref name=":0233" /> Legal frameworks played a central role in this process, with laws such as the [[Nuremberg Laws]], codifying discriminatory categories and racial hierarchies that legitimized exclusion, persecution, and ultimately extermination.<ref name=":64">Luigi Corrias, “Dehumanization by Law 1.” In ''The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization'', 1st ed., 1:201–13. Routledge, 2021. doi:10.4324/9780429492464-chapter13.</ref> The Nazi regime also employed mass media and [[Propaganda in Nazi Germany|state propaganda]] to disseminate dehumanizing imagery and rhetoric that depicted these groups as subhuman threats to the German nation.<ref name=":73">Robert Wilson, “Dehumanization, Disability, and Eugenics.” In ''The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization'', 1st ed., 1:173–86. Routledge, 2021. doi:10.4324/9780429492464-chapter11.</ref>

Jews were frequently portrayed through animalistic metaphors, including comparisons to vermin, and framed as biologically impure threats to racial purity.<ref name=":73" /> The term [[Untermensch]] (subhuman) was used to deny Jews and others moral standing and membership to the human community.<ref name=":73" />  In an October 1943 speech, [[Heinrich Himmler]] framed the extermination of the Jewish people as a historical mission, specifically comparing the Jews to a bacillus, reinforcing the portrayal of Jews as a dangerous disease that needs to be eradicated.<ref>{{Cite web |title=From a Speech by Himmler Before Senior SS Officers in Poznan, October 4, 1943 |url=https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%204029.pdf |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250117234148/https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%204029.pdf |archive-date=2025-01-17 |access-date=2025-05-16 |website=www.yadvashem.org}}</ref> These dehumanizing narratives facilitated the systematic extermination of 6,000,000 Jews during the Holocaust at the hands of the nazis.<ref name=":73" /> In addition, a state-sponsored eugenics program, most notably through [[Aktion T4]], targeted individuals with disabilities or others deemed possessing a ‘’[[life unworthy of life]]’’.<ref name=":73" /> These individuals were deemed inferior and a threat to the purity of the [[Aryan race]], and were also systematically exterminated.<ref name=":73" />