nesses was affected. Discrimination took various different forms: Jewish trades-
men were driven from marketplaces; 53 Jewish firms were disadvantaged when rationed goods were distributed; 54 farmers were under pressure to break off commercial connections with Jewish traders; 55 Jewish firms were banned from advertising in newspapers and elsewhere; 56 local government ceased all business contacts with Jews57 and subjected them to arbitrary harassment; 58 again and again the windows of Jewish businesses and apartments were smashed; 59 signs announcing a ‘ban on Jews’ were displayed; cemeteries were desecrated and
synagogues ransacked. 60 ‘Racial violators’ were physically attacked and mobs organized by the Party prevented the celebration of ‘mixed marriages’. 61
Party activists repeatedly—and successfully—attempted to force people to
boycott Jewish shops and required them to be specially marked out as such.
Whilst in many villages and small towns Jewish shops were subject to a permanent
blockade, in 1934 the militant small-business Party activists who had now formed
the National Socialist Trade Organization (NS-Hago) launched measures to
boycott Jewish shops within the context of a ‘spring campaign’ across the whole
of the Reich. Similarly comprehensive campaigns were undertaken during the
Christmas seasons of December 1933 and 1934. 62 Although both the Party headquarters in Munich and government agencies repeatedly resisted the excesses of
boycotts, they were not able to put a truly effective stop to the boycott movement
that emanated from the Party activists. 63
42
Racial Persecution, 1933–1939
These boycott campaigns and the numerous other discriminatory measures
taken against the Jews were always accompanied by violent attacks. 64 These anti-Semitic acts of violence reached a high point on Palm Sunday 1934 in the Upper
Bavarian town of Gunzenhausen, when more than a thousand of the inhabitants
of this small town marched through the streets, forcibly hauling Jews from their
homes and dragging them off to the town prison. One Jewish citizen was later
found hanged; another stabbed himself; a few weeks later one of the main
perpetrators, who had in the meantime been punished, albeit leniently, shot a
Jewish restaurant owner on his own premises. These excesses show how the anti-
Semitic hatred of Party activists was liable to explode at any point, even during the
phase of ‘relative calm’ that then supposedly characterized the Nazis’ persecution
of the Jews. 65
The Nazi government’s unbending severity with regard to the ‘Jewish
question’ was made obvious during an inter-ministerial briefing in November
1934, which at the same time manifested a notable readiness to compromise
in the treatment of non-European ‘alien races’. During this meeting it was
first established that ‘adverse consequences of German racial policy over
recent months had placed serious strain on relations with various foreign
states’. This meant mainly Germany’s relations with a series of Asiatic and
South American states, who were responding angrily to the discriminatory
treatment of their citizens resident in Germany and to the depiction of all
Artfremde (literally all those ‘foreign to the species’, i.e. all those of non-
European descent) as members of ‘inferior’ races by the publicity material of
the ‘Third Reich’. The meeting was agreed that ‘the principles underlying the
racial politics of the National Socialist world-view must not be compromised
even by strong pressure from outside’, but also that the ‘application of the
racial principle in practice should not be permitted to have adverse reper-
cussions in the area of foreign policy, if these were disproportionate to its
domestic political benefits’. 66
Following a suggestion made by Helmut Nicolai, the representative of the
Reich Ministry of the Interior, a solution to this problem was found: legislation
would in future avoid the term ‘non-Aryan’ in favour of ‘Jewish’. 67 The meeting agreed that in future all decisions about the application of legal requirements
against ‘foreigners of alien blood’ would be exclusively within the purview of the
Foreign Office. Any Artfremder could be ‘exempted from the racial legislation’,
according to a decree of the Reich Minister for the Interior issued in April 1935,
if reasons of foreign policy required this—but only in cases where these ‘aliens’
were of ‘non-Jewish blood’. 68 The aim of the policies formulated in this meeting on 15 November, as expressed more than a year later by the representative of the
Foreign Office Bülow-Schwandte, was the ‘restriction of racial policy measures
to the Jews’. 69
Displacement from Public Life, 1933–4
43
Jewish Reactions to the First Phase of Persecution
The National Socialists’ policy of excluding the Jews from public life affected the
members of a minority that was by no means homogeneous. 70 At the beginning of the National Socialist dictatorship some half a million people were living in
Germany who professed membership of the Jewish community, and amongst
these were about 100,000 who did not have German citizenship (mostly immi-
grants from Poland and Russia, the so-called Ostjuden or Eastern Jews). In
addition there were more than 40,000 people who were not Jewish in the
confessional sense, but were regarded as Jews by the National Socialists on the
grounds of their origins or ancestry. 71
Whilst the German-Jewish minority was legally and culturally integrated, it is
impossible to overlook the particular social structure of this group, which distin-
guished it clearly from the rest of society. The large majority of Jews lived in large
cities, they were mainly members of the middle class, to a large extent of the educated
bourgeoisie, they were predominantly active in trade and commerce, and represented
a relatively large proportion of the professions. As far as religion was concerned, most
classed themselves as liberal Jews, although an ever greater degree of religious
indifference was manifest amongst Jews as it was amongst the rest of the population.
In sharp contrast to this group was an independent Eastern Jewish proletariat in
which orthodox religious conviction was comparatively well represented. 72
The identity of the overwhelming majority of the German Jews was founded on
their being firmly anchored in German culture and in both patriotic and liberal
convictions. The very name of the Jewish organization that counted the most
members, the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (literally
the Central Organization of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith) was itself an
expression of the belief predominant amongst German Jews that the process of
acculturation had been successfully completed, for the most part, and that the
development of a certain group identity did not represent isolation but was an
instrument for making a specific Jewish contribution to the well-being of the
German state.
In relation to this main general tendency, the Zionists—who reacted strongly
against the idea of a German-Jewish symbiosis—played a comparatively minor
role: the Zionist Organization for Germany had only some 20,000 members
around 1930.73
Even this brief ove
rview suggests clearly that the majority of German Jews were
not inclined to abandon their position in Germany over-hastily, and they clung—
to the point of self-delusion—to the idea that the ‘seizure of power’ was a
temporary crisis that would blow over. Nonetheless, under the pressures of the
boycotts and the National Socialist terror during the phase of seizing power
44
Racial Persecution, 1933–1939
in 1933, an estimated 37,000 Jews left the Reich; politically active, younger, and
relatively prosperous Jews were comparatively over-represented amongst these
refugees. In 1934, because of the relatively calm situation, only some 23,000
Jews left. 74
A particular chapter in the history of German-Jewish emigration, in which a
clear signal was given for how far the new regime was prepared to work together
with the Zionist movement in this area, is the so-called ‘Haavara Agreement’
concluded in August 1933 by the Reich Finance Ministry, the Zionist Organization
for Germany, and the Anglo-Palestine Bank in Tel Aviv. This agreement estab-
lished special measures for circumventing the restrictive currency legislation that
banned the export of foreign currencies and therefore represented a considerable
hurdle for those wishing to emigrate. The wealth of Jewish émigrés that remained
in Germany was liquidated and an equivalent was transferred to the British
Mandate of Palestine in the form of exported German goods. These were then
sold, and from the proceeds the German émigrés were provided with the min-
imum level of capital that enabled them to count as ‘capitalists’ in the eyes of the
British authorities, which in turn guaranteed them fast-track immigration. Of the
approximately 50,000 German Jews who emigrated to Palestine before the begin-
ning of the war, several thousand were to profit from this agreement; in this way
German goods to the value of more than 100 million Reichsmark were exported to
Palestine, as well as to other countries. The regulated emigration of a not incon-
siderable proportion of the German Jews was therefore assured by means of a
consolidation of the German export market in the Near East, which from the
German perspective represented an important breakthrough against the attempts
of international Jewish groups, and others, to boycott German goods. 75
The decision by the majority of German Jews to hang on at first and stay where
they were was considerably influenced by the activities of Jewish organizations,
which will be investigated in more detail in the course of this overview. In the early
days of National Socialist rule, the Centralverein was unable to rid itself of the idea
that the continuing existence of the Jews in Germany could be safeguarded after
all, if necessary by accepting certain forms of legislative discrimination. It was not
until 1935 that the Centralverein (which had to alter its name after the Nuremberg
Laws)76 recognized the illusory nature of such beliefs and began urgently advocating emigration. It is certain, however, that the increasing level of activity on the
part of Jewish support organizations contributed to the decision to wait and see.
One consequence of the pressure on the German Jews was that for the first time
the heterogeneous Jewish minority in Germany formed a unified representative
body to coordinate the various efforts. At the beginning of 1932 the regional
organizations of the Jewish communities decided to create a national delegation
to safeguard their interests, but in practice it did not become active at that point.
Only in September 1933 did the umbrella organizations of the Jewish communities
in the individual German states, the Centralverein, the Jewish Veteran Organizations,
Displacement from Public Life, 1933–4
45
and the Zionist Organization form a Reichsvertretung or Reich Board of Deputies
of German Jews. The President was Rabbi Leo Baeck, universally recognized as a
leading figure in the intellectual life of German Jewry. 77
In addition, on the initiative of the Reich Board, the Central Committee for
Support and Development was created on 13 April, as a reaction against the
boycott. This Central Committee set itself the task of maintaining and strength-
ening the position of German Jews by social and economic means, whilst the
Reich Association concentrated on political representation and education. The
leading Jewish organizations were represented on the Central Committee, which
was also chaired by Leo Baeck. In its first appeal, made at the end of April 1933, it
opposed what it called ‘unimpeded emigration’. The Committee was integrated
into the Reich Board in April 1935. 78 As far as its practical activities were concerned, the Central Committee took up the work begun before 1933 by the Jewish
support organizations. Economic measures for support were in the hands of the
Central Office of Jewish Economic Assistance, founded in March 1933.79
A broad range of support measures were coordinated under the umbrella of the
Central Committee and the Central Office, including distributing loans, correlat-
ing applications for and offers of capital funds, finding jobs for Jews who had been
dismissed, and a special support programme for out-of-work academics and
artists, to name only the most important measures. 80 An important area in which the Central Committee was active was ‘professional restructuring’, or the
re-education of the predominantly commercially trained Jewish minority for
technical, practical, or agricultural professions, which were more likely to be
useful for emigrants. It was in the first years of the ‘Third Reich’ that this work
was severely hampered by the authorities. 81
The Central Welfare Office of the German Jews had been founded in 1917 to
coordinate the various socially oriented Jewish organizations, and the main
problem that it faced was the severe diminution in resources for the support of
people in need that had been caused by the collapse of the small and medium-
sized Jewish communities in many towns. 82 Until 1938, even if Jews were discriminated against in many respects, they had the right to support from the social
services. Until then, Jewish welfare services were essentially supplementary to this,
and embraced many different types of allowances and subsidies.
In 1933 by far the majority of the approximately 60,000 Jewish school-age
children attended state-funded schools. 83 At the end of 1933 the newly created Education Committee of the Reich Board passed guidelines for the curriculum in
Jewish primary and secondary schools that emphasized the rootedness of the
German Jews in Germany. The foundation of new Jewish schools began rather
tentatively, but in 1935 there was a significant influx of children into Jewish
schools. 84
In July 1933 the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden (the Cultural Association of
German Jews) was formed in Berlin. Its main considerations were to help Jewish
46
Racial Persecution, 1933–1939
artists from the capital who had been dismissed from their positions to find other
means of supporting themselves and to spare the Jewish public the need to attend
the events organized by the ‘Aryanized’ culture industry. By 1934 the Kulturbund
attracted 2
0,000 members and was able to offer them a comprehensive pro-
gramme of culture, in part in its own theatre in Berlin. More Jewish cultural
associations were founded in the provinces during the months that followed. 85
From 1933 Jewish men and women were excluded from sporting clubs
and associations, and this strengthened the activities of the existing Jewish
sports clubs. 86 In 1934 the Jewish National Committee for Physical Education in Germany was founded as an umbrella organization for the 250 clubs and 35,000
activists.
In 1933 and 1934, therefore, significant initiatives towards the organization of an
independent Jewish life were discernable beneath the persecutions, which together
formed an impressive picture of Jewish self-determination and which enabled
individuals to have a degree of autonomy. From 1935, when the regime imposed
the segregation of Jews in all areas of life and increased the restrictions on their
economic activity, these early beginnings were to form the basis for a Jewish sector
that was independent within Nazi-dominated society, if under attack from all
sides.
Racial Persecution of other Groups in
the First Years of the Regime
The persecution of the Jews by the National Socialist regime was at the centre of a
more widely reaching implementation of racist policy. This approach was deter-
mined by two main considerations. First, measures against ‘alien peoples’ (Fremd-
völkische) or ‘alien half-breeds’ (fremdvölkische Mischlinge) can be grouped under
the heading of ‘ethnic racism’—these included measures against Gypsies and the
small group of non-Europeans living in Germany, mostly Africans, or the children
born of Germans with non-Europeans. The second target of Nazi racial policy—
under the slogan of ‘racial hygiene’—was the ‘eradication’ (Ausmerzung) of
undesirable elements in the ‘Aryan’ race and was thus directed against those
with so-called hereditary diseases, ‘social misfits’, and homosexuals.
‘Racial hygiene’ concentrated first above all on those suffering from ‘hereditary
diseases’. As has already been outlined, the sterilization law of 14 July 1933
provided for the enforced sterilization of men and women in this category,
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