Answers to Questions by Yair Davidiy (10 September 2017, 19 Elul, 5777)
Could it be possible that most of Europe was anti-Semitic during World War 2 and only blamed it all on Hitler when it was over cause he was dead?
https://www.quora.com/Could-it-be-possible-that-most-of-Europe-was-anti-Semitic-during-World-War-2-and-only-blamed-it-all-on-Hitler-when-it-was-over-cause-he-was-dead/answer/Yair-Davidiy
Anti-Semitism existed throughout Europe before Word War-2.
It was even almost scientifically accepted with academic works on Race speaking disparagingly of the Jewish People.
There was a great deal of anti-Jewish propaganda. There still is, both through right-wing Conspiracy Theories and pro-Palestinian propaganda.
The same themes are repeated.
Hitler gave expression to the anti-Jewish feelings of very many.
Judeophobia was a weapon the Nazis used to their advantage among occupied peoples.
Both Britain and the USA took in a great number of Jewish refugees but they were not exactly enthusiastic about it.
The British, due to fear of arousing Arab and Moslem antagonism, limited the access of Jews to Palestine.
Not all the leaders of Allies liked Jews. Their attitude was at times ambivalent.
Nevertheless,
The War was fought for the Jews!
The War was caused by German aggrandizement in the Ruhr, in Austria, in the Sudetenland and then in the rest of Czechoslovakia, and then in Poland.
Nevertheless at crucial moments, such as when Churchill came to power, British Public Opinion was what kept the war going.
The historian A. J. P. Taylor noted that the most important single factor turning British Public Opinion away from Germany was the German maltreatment, humiliation of, and enmity towards the Jews.
This was based what was known from before the war before the Holocaust got truly underway.
The Allied Leadership knew of the Holocaust but could not publicize since it had the support of anti-Semite elements in occupied Europe.
Nevertheless this is what kept them from any serious consideration of accommodation with the Nazis.
An analogy may be taken from the American Civil War.
The Civil War was fought over whether or not a portion of the black people in America should remain in slavery or not.
Other factors were also involved such as economic rivalry, State Rights, cultural fiction and resentments, historical differences, etc.
Nevertheless the bottom line was slavery.
Most Yankees may not have really liked black people. Lincoln wished to resettle them in Africa. They would not have wanted them to marry their daughters nor to take them as wives.
Even so, slavery was a no-no.
What the Germans were doing to the Jews was likewise anathema.
And the Germans could not stop doing it.