One cause of the Holocaust was Social Darwinism, the idea that a race or ethnic group is better than another. Charles Darwin, a renowned British scientist who is credited with the theory of evolution in his famous book 'The Origin of Species', came up with "Survival of the fittest", which was purely an experiment on animals. Although Charles Darwin was referencing animals, some people took his idea and twisted it to apply to humans. The book 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas' shows this because, Bruno finds Shmuel in a concentration camp, and Shmuel is Jewish. Hitler blamed Jewish people for the problems that Germany had, and Hitler also thought that the Aryan race was superior to all others, and Bruno was Aryan. Shmuel wasn't German, he was Jewish, and Hitler had the mindset that Jewish and communists were bad. Another cause of the Holocaust, was the development of eugenics and the support of a master race. Eugenics is the idea of "improving" human population by controlling desirable traits. The Nazis (and Hitler) thought that the desirable traits were being tall, blond hair, and having blue eyes. So with everybody who didn't have desirable traits, Hitler would kill by gassing, shooting, or starving to death.
Hitler' s rise to power
Hitler's rise to power was mostly legal. But, you may be asking who in their right mind would vote Hitler into power? Well, Hitler's rise to power took many decades to do. It all started when Hitler got politically involved and joined the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei party. From there, Hitler worked himself up in the party, and later renamed the party the Nazi party. Hitler was an excellent public speaker. Later, he came to the realization that he was the best speaker, and demanded he become party leader or he would leave. They obliged and made him party leader. Later on, the Nazi party made a very successful propaganda poster that helped them go from 12 seats to 230 seats, making them the largest party. Even though, the Nazi party was the biggest and most powerful party, they lost close to two million votes in the November 1932 Reichstag elections. The Nazi party ended up with only 33% of the votes, and not the vast majority they wanted. Papen, who wanted the position of vice chancellor and thought he could control Hitler, convinced Hindenburg to form an alliance with the Nazis and designate Hitler as chancellor. Hindenburg finally agreed and made Hitler chancellor. Hitler finally came in to power when he negotiated with the Reichstag members to give him temporary “emergency” powers for four years, allowing him to act without the permission of parliament or the German constitution. While negotiations were taking place, Hitler's large military force was surrounding parliament treating war, if they were to refuse. Not having much of a choice, they gave Hitler what he wanted and Hitler became absolute ruler of Germany.
Germany's economic situation
Germany's economy wasn't the best before World War 2. Unemployment was tremendously high. Unemployment had reached to about 6 million people (about 33% of the population). After Germany received most of the blame for World War 1, Germany's social structure and political stability weakened, and during that , an inflation was happening. Even while that, more was happening. The reichsmark, Germany's currency, collapsed from 8.9 per US$1 to 4.2 trillion per US$1 in a very short amount of time. One of the big factors for Hitler's success, was the mass unemployment that happened in Germany. "The number of able-bodied young men with nothing to do became delinquents and gangsters." Hitler relieved of the unemployment problem almost instantly by getting the people to work in rearmament. By dressing the gangsters in uniforms, and hence giving them an aspect of Teutonic respectability, he was able to induce millions of Germans to go back to the regimentation of Prussian militarism. This relates to the book because, Bruno and his family are 'rich', because Bruno's father works for Hitler. They lived in Germany, in a big house, the father worked for Hitler, and they had servants. Eventually, The father got a promotion and Bruno and his family moved to Poland. Poland was (and still is) a poorer country, and Bruno and his family lived in a smaller house, right next to a concentration camp.