Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 01: The Years of Persecution

by Saul Friedlander

  41. Quoted in J. M. Ritchie, German Literature under National Socialism (London, 1983), p. 100.

  42. Quoted in Ulrich Knipping, Die Geschichte der Juden in Dortmund während der Zeit des Dritten Reiches (Dortmund, 1977), p. 50.

  43. Roland Müller, Stuttgart zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (Stuttgart, 1988), pp. 292–93, 296.

  44. Quoted in Noakes and Pridham,, Nazism 1919–1945, vol. 2, p. 531. (Translation slightly revised.)

  45. For the cable to Müller see Röhm and Thierfelder, Juden-Christen-Deutsche, vol. 1, p. 268.

  46. Sauer, Dokumente über die Verfolgung, vol. 1, p. 62.

  47. Ibid., p. 63.

  48. The Minister of Justice to the Reich Chancellor, 20.5.1935, Max Kreuzberger Research Papers, AR 7183, Box 8, Folder 9, LBI, New York.

  49. Lammers to Minister of Justice, 7.6.1935, ibid.

  50. Akten der Parteikanzlei der NSDAP (abstracts), part 2, vol. 3, p. 107.

  51. See Anton Doll, ed., Nationalsozialismus im Alltag: Quellen zur Geschichte der NS-Herrschaft im Gebiet des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz (Speyer (Landesarchiv), 1983, p. 139. Translated by Dieter Kuntz in Sax and Kuntz, Inside Hitler’s Germany: pp. 410–11. (Translation slightly revised.)

  52. Steven M. Lowenstein, “The Struggle for Survival of Rural Jews in Germany 1933–1938: The Case of Bezirksamt Weissenburg, Mittelfranken,” in Arnold Paucker, ed., The Jews in Nazi Germany 1933–1943 (Tübingen, 1986), p. 116.

  53. Ibid., p. 117.

  54. Ibid., p. 123.

  55. Ibid., p. 121. For the opposition between the economic interests of the peasants and the pressure of party radicals regarding the activities of Jewish cattle dealers in Bavaria see Falk Wiesemann, “Juden auf dem Lande: die wirtschaftliche Ausgrenzung der jüdischen Viehhändler in Bayern,” in Peukert and Reulecke, Die Reihen fast geschlossen,, pp. 381ff.

  56. Thévoz, Branig, and Löwenthal-Hensel, Pommern 1934/1935, vol. 2, p. 103.

  57. Klemperer, Ich will Zeugnis ablegen, vol. 1, p. 110.

  58. Angress, “Die ‘Judenfrage’,” in Büttner, Das Unrechtsregime, vol. 2, p. 25.

  59. Chief of the SD Main Office to NSDAP district court III/B, 11.10.35, SD Hauptamt, microfilm MA–554, IfZ, Munich.

  60. Thévoz, Branig, and Löwenthal-Hensel, Pommern 1934/1935, vol. 2, p. 93.

  61. Ibid., p. 118.

  62. Baltic Sea Resort Management, Binz, 17.5.38, SD Main Office, microfilm MA–554, IfZ, Munich.

  63. Thomas Klein, ed., Der Regierungsbezirk Kassel 1933–1936: Die Berichte des Regierungspräsidenten und der Landräte (Darmstadt, 1985), vol. 1, p. 72. Sometimes, mainly in small towns and villages, the reactions of some Germans were determined both by economic advantage and by the habit of buying from the Jews, who were a long-standing part of the life of the community. According to the report of a Blockleiter from a small town near Trier (September 20, 1935), the mayor continued his practice of buying meat from Jews. When confronted by the Blockleiter, he answered: “One should not be so filled with hatred; the small Jews are no Jews.” See Franz Josef Heyen, Nationalsozialismus im Alltag: Quellen zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialimus vornehmlich im Raum Mainz-Koblenz-Trier (Boppard am Rhein, 1967), p. 138.

  64. Angress, “Die ‘Judenfrage,’” p. 29.

  65. Commander of SD main region Rhine to SS Gruppenführer Heissmeyer, Koblenz, 3.4.1935, SD-Oberabschnitt Rhein, microfilm MA–392, IfZ, Munich. The contradictory reports about the economic relations between Germans and Jews show that the situation varied from place to place and that, in any case, manifold relations were maintained. As early as 1934, small-town shopkeepers may have displayed their commitment to Nazism by refusing to serve Jewish customers; yet, according to a September 1934 entry in Bella Fromm’s diary, the real attitudes were often different: “I talked to shopkeepers and people at gas stations and inns. In many cases, their strictly National Socialist attitude was obviously a measure of precaution. Many Jewish people told me: ‘although we can’t enter their shops, Aryan shopkeepers give us what we need after business hours.’” Fromm, Blood and Banquets, p. 183.

  66. Herbert Freeden, “Das Ende der jüdischen Presse in Nazideutschland,” Bulletin des Leo Baeck Instituts 65 (1983): 6.

  67. Heydrich, Gestapa to all State police local offices, 25.2.1935, Ortspolizeibehörde Göttingen, microfilm MA 172, IfZ, Munich.

  68. The Mayor of Lörrach to all municipality employees and workers, 7.6.1935, Unterlagen betr. Entrechtung der Juden in Baden 1933–1940, ED 303, IfZ, Munich.

  69. Robert Weltsch, “A Goebbels Speech and a Goebbels Letter,” LBIY 10 (1965), p. 281.

  70. Ibid., pp. 282–83.

  71. Ibid., p. 285.

  72. Ibid. (Misprinted as “West-end” in Weltsch’s text.)

  73. Franz Schonauer, “Zu Hans Dieter Schäfer: ‘Bücherverbrennung, staatsfreie Sphäre und Scheinkultur’” in Denkler and Lämmert, eds., “Das war ein Vorspiel nur…,” p. 131.

  74. NSDAP Reichsleitung, Office of Technology, Circular 3/35, 25 Jan. 1935, Himmler Archives, Berlin Document Center, Microfilm no. 270, Roll 2 (LBI, New York, microfilm, 133g).

  75. Heiber, Universität unterm Hakenkreuz, Der Professor im Dritten Reich: Bilder aus der akademischen Provinz (Munich, 1991), pp. 216–17. See also Beyerchen, Scientists under Hitler, pp. 67–68. The commemoration of Haber’s death was an unusual act of courage. It was made easier, in this instance, because Haber had converted to Protestantism and had been an ultranationalist until 1933, and mainly by the fact that he had made singular contributions to science, to the German chemical industry, and to the German war effort by discovering the synthesis of ammonia (allowing for the mass production of fertilizers—but also of explosives), and also by inventing and launching the use of chlorine gas, the first poison gas used in combat during World War I. Paradoxically, though solemnly commemorated one year after his death, Haber was isolated and ostracized at the time of his resignation, and when he left Germany for England (and then Switzerland), he had abandoned much of his German nationalist stance and was actually planning to move to Palestine. On these various issues, see Stern, Dreams and Delusions, pp. 46ff and mainly pp. 51ff, as well as the recent massive—and at times problematic—study by Dietrich Stolzenberg, Fritz Haber: Chemiker, Nobelpreisträger, Deutscher, Jude (Weinheim, 1994). For a review of Stolzenberg’s biography, see M. F. Perutz, “The Cabinet of Dr. Haber,” New York Review of Books, June 20, 1996.

  76. Reuth, Goebbels (Munich, 1990), p. 322.

  77. Ibid., p. 323.

  78. Rosenberg to Goebbels, 30 August 1934, Doc. CXLII–246 in Michel Mazor, Le Phénomène Nazi: Documents Nazis Commentés (Paris, 1957), pp. 166ff. See also Wulf, Theater und Film, p. 104. The debates in the plastic arts and in literature followed a similar pattern. At the outset expressionism and modern trends more generally in both domains were protected by Goebbels against Rosenberg. But the Rosenberg line, which was Hitler’s position, won. In the plastic arts, the notorious turning point took place in 1937, when orthodoxy was presented at the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung, and heresy was pilloried at the exhibition of “Entartete Kunst” (degenerate art). In literature some debates continued until the late 1930s. For literature see Dieter Schäfer, “Die nichtfaschistische Literatur der ‘jungen Generation,’” in Horst Denkler and Karl Prumm, eds., Die deutsche Literatur im Dritten Reich (Stuttgart, 1976), pp. 464–65.

  79. Levi, Music in the Third Reich, p. 74. Yet, Paul Graener’s Friedemann Bach and Georg Vollerthun’s Der Freikorporal were performed despite the fact that the libretti had been written by Jewish playwright Rudolf Lothar. Ibid., p, 75.

  80. Michael H. Kater, Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany (New York, 1992), p. 43.

  81. Ibid.

  82. Kampfbund für Deutsche Kultur/local group Greater Munich to Reich Association “Deutsche Bühne,” Berlin, 16.8.1933, Rosenberg Akten, microfilm MA–697, IfZ, Munich.

  83. Reich Association “Deutsche Bühne” to Kampfbund…, 23.8.1933, ibid.

>   84. Kampfbund…Northern Bavaria/Franconia to “Deutsche Bühne”…2.12.33, ibid.; “Deutsche Bühne” to Kampfbund…, 5.12.33, ibid.

  85. Pätzold, Verfolgung, Vertreibung, Vernichtung, pp. 77–78.

  86. Levi, Music in the Third Reich, p. 76.

  87. Ibid., pp. 67. Also Erik Levi, “Music and National-Socialism: The Politicization of Criticism, Composition and Performance,” in Brandon Taylor and Wilfried van der Will, eds., The Nazification of Art: Art, Design, Music, Architecture and Film in the Third Reich (Winchester, 1990), pp. 167–71. On September 1, 1936, the Reichskulturkammer published an alphabetical list of mainly Jewish composers whose works were not allowed under any circumstances: Abraham, Paul; Achron, Josef; Alwin, Karl; Antheil, George; Barmas, Issay; Becker, Conrad; Benatzky, Ralph; Benjamin, Arthur; Bereny, Henry; Berg, Alban; and so on. Himmler Archives, Berlin Document Center, microfilm No. 269, Roll 1 (LBI, New York, microfilm 133f).

  88. Memorandum II 112, 27.11.1936, SD-Hauptamt, microfilm MA–554, IfZ, Munich.

  89. Memorandum II 112, 3.1.1938, ibid. The search for Jews and Jewish influence in music and theater illustrates but one aspect of the general identification drive in every possible cultural domain, including völkisch authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, even those considered as belonging to the intellectual-ideological background of Nazism. For example, Ernst Häckel’s “Monist League” came under scrutiny, as did the racial theorist Ludwig Woltmann. On both cases see Paul Weindling, “Mustergau Thüringen: Rassenhygiene zwischen Ideologie und Machtpolitik,” in Norbert Frei, ed., Medizin und Gesundheitspolitik in der NS-Zeit (Munich, 1991), pp. 93, 93n.

  90. Minister of the Interior to Reich Chancellor, 19.7.1935, Max Kreuzberger Research Papers, AR 7183, Box 8, LBI, New York.

  91. Lammers to Frick, 31.7.35, ibid.

  92. Frick to Gürtner, 14.8.35, NSDAP, Parteikanzlei, microfiche 024638ff., IfZ, Munich.

  93. Pfundtner to Reich Office for Ancestry Research, 14.8.1935, ibid., microfiche 024642, ibid.

  94. Steinweis, “Hans Hinkel,” p. 213.

  95. Heydrich to all Gestapo stations, 19.8.1935, Aktenstücke zur Judenverfolgung, Ortspolizeibehörde Göttingen, MA–172, IfZ, Munich.

  96. Steinweis, “Hans Hinkel,” p. 215.

  97. Heydrich to all State Police Offices, 13.8.1935, Aktenstücke zur Judenverfolgung, Ortspolizeibehörde Göttingen, MA–172 IfZ, Munich.

  98. Adam, Judenpolitik, p. 115.

  99. Report of the Police Directorate Munich, April/Mai 1935 (Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Munich, MA 104990), Fa 427/2, IfZ, Munich, pp. 24ff.

  100. Jochen Klepper, Unter dem Schatten deiner Flügel: Aus den Tagebüchern der Jahre 1932–1942 (Stuttgart, 1983), p. 269.

  101. Ibid., p. 270.

  102. Ibid., pp. 282–83.

  103. SOPADE, Deutschland-Berichte 2 (1935): 803.

  104. Ibid., p. 804.

  105. Ibid., 921.

  106. Marlis Steinert, Hitlers Krieg und die Deutschen: Stimmung und Haltung der deutschen Bevölkerung im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Düsseldorf, 1970), p. 57.

  107. Ian Kershaw may have overstressed the negative reactions of the population to the violence against the Jews in his “The Persecution of the Jews and German Popular Opinion in the Third Reich,” LBIY 26 (1981).

  108. Fischer, Hjalmar Schacht, pp. 154–55.

  109. For the list of participants see Otto Dov Kulka, “Die Nürnberger Rassengesetze und die deutsche Bevölkerung,” VfZ 32 (1984): 616.

  110. Ibid.

  111. Parts of the protocols of this meeting presented at the Nuremberg trial as NG–4067 are quoted in Michalka, Das Dritte Reich, vol. 1, p. 155. For additional material to the published German text see Otto Dov Kulka, “Die Nürnberger Rassengesetze,” pp. 615ff. See also Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series C, vol. 4 (Washington, D.C., 1962), pp. 568ff.

  112. For a comparison of different versions of Wagner’s suggestions, see Peter Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter (Munich, 1992), pp. 212–13.

  113. Michalka, Das Dritte Reich, p. 155.

  114. Ibid.; Kulka, “Die Nürnberger Rassengesetze,” p. 617.

  115. Ibid.

  116. Wildt, Die Judenpolitik des SD, pp. 23–24, 70–78.

  117. Quoted in Ephraim Maron, “The Press Policy of The Third Reich on the Jewish Question” (Ph. D. diss., Tel Aviv University, 1992), pp. 81n–82n.

  118. Adolf Hitler, Speeches and Proclamations 1932–1945, ed. Max Domarus, trans. Chris Wilcox and Mary Fran Gilbert, vol. 2, The Chronicle of a Dictatorship, 1935–1938, (Wauconda, Ill., 1992), p. 702. [Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen, 1932–1945: Kommentiert von einem deutschen Zeitgenossen, ed. Max Domarus, vol. 1, Triumph (1932–1938) (Würzburg, 1962), p. 534.]

  119. For Hitler’s speech see Hitler, Speeches, ed. Max Domarus (English), vol. 2, pp. 706–7.

  120. Walk, Das Sonderrecht, p. 127.

  121. Ibid.

  122. Noakes and Pridham, Nazism 1919–1945, vol. 2, p 463.

  123. Hitler, Speeches, vol. 2, p. 708.

  124. Ibid.

  125. Ibid., p. 731.

  126. Helmut Heiber, ed., Goebbels-Reden, vol. 1, 1932–1939 (Düsseldorf, 1971), p. 246.

  127. Manuscript notes taken by Fritz Wiedemann, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich. Quoted in Helmut Krausnick, “Judenverfolgung,” in Hans Buchheim et al., Anatomie des SS-Staates, vol. 2 (Munich, 1967), p. 269.

  128. “An dieser Stelle erklärte er noch, dass er in dem Falle eines Krieges auf allen Fronten, bereit zu allen Konsequenzen, sei.” Philippe Burrin, Hitler and the Jews: The Genesis of the Holocaust (New York, 1994), pp. 48–49. In his book Burrin emphasizes the significance of Hitler’s threat in case of a war “on all fronts”—that is, in a situation similar to that of 1914–18. For Germany World War II became such a war, as the Russian campaign did not result in a rapid German victory. The relation between this situation and Hitler’s decision to exterminate the Jews will be discussed in volume 2 of Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Extermination.

  Chapter 5 The Spirit of Laws

  1. Minister of Education…, decree, 13.9.1935, Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft u. Erziehung, microfilm MA–103/1, IfZ, Munich.

  2. Klemperer, Ich will Zeugnis ablegen, vol. 1, p. 195.

  3. Neliba, Wilhelm Frick, pp. 198ff.

  4. For these various details see David Bankier, The Germans and the Final Solution: Public Opinion under Nazism (Oxford, 1992), pp. 43–44.

  5. Neliba, Wilhelm Frick, pp. 200ff.

  6. Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 2, p. 488.

  7. For Lösener’s attitude see Bankier, The Germans and the Final Solution, p. 43.

  8. Robert L. Koehl, The Black Corps: The Structure and Power Struggles of the Nazi SS (Madison, Wis., 1983), p. 102.

  9. Bernhard Lösener, “Als Rassereferent im Reichsministerium des Innern,” VfZ 3 (1961): 264ff.

  10. Ibid., pp. 273–75.

  11. Ibid., p. 276.

  12. Ibid., p. 281.

  13. For a thorough analysis see Noakes, “Wohin gehören die ‘Judenmischlinge’?” pp. 74ff.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Walk, Das Sonderrecht, p. 139.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Noakes, “Wohin gehören die ‘Judenmischlinge’?” pp. 85–86.

  18. Walk, Das Sonderrecht, p. 139.

  19. Führer’s Deputy Circular No 228/35, 2.12.1935, Stellvertreter des Führers (Anordnungen…), Db 15.02, IfZ, Munich.

  20. Friedlander and Milton, Archives of the Holocaust, vol. 20, Bundesarchiv of the Federal Republic of Germany, Koblenz and Freiburg, pp. 28–30.

  21. Führer’s Deputy Circular 2.12.1935, Stellvertreter des Führers (Anordnungen…), 1935, Db 15.02, IfZ, Munich.

  22. Herbert A. Strauss, “Jewish Emigration from Germany: Nazi Policies and Jewish Responses (I),” LBIY 25 ([London] 1980): 317. Werner Cohn, in his 1988 study on “non-Aryan” Christians, also offers a thorough statistical analysis. He estimates the population of partial Jews at 228,000 in 1933,
which could roughly correspond to the 200,000 estimate for 1935. See Werner Cohn, “Bearers of a Common Fate? The ‘Non-Aryan’ Christian ‘Fate Comrades’ of the Paulus-Bund, 1933–1939,” LBIY 33 (1988): 350ff. H. W. Friedmann, of the Paulus-Bund, also evaluated the number of “non-Jewish non-Aryans” at 200,000, which according to him was considered much too low by the Racial Policy Office of the Party. See Akten deutscher Bischöfe, vol. 2, 1934–1935, p. 133.

  23. Dr. E. R——x, “Die nichtjüdischen Nichtarier in Deutschland,” CV Zeitung 20, no. 1 (Beiblatt): 16 May 1935. I am grateful to Sharon Gillerman for drawing my attention to this article.

  24. Bernhard Lösener and Friedrich U. Knost, Die Nürnberger Gesetze (Berlin, 1936), pp. 17–18.

  25. Wilhelm Stuckart and Hans Globke, Kommentare zur deutschen Rassengesetzgebung, vol. 1 (Munich, 1936).

  26. Ibid., pp. 65–66.

  27. The example given by Stuckart and Globke was obviously meant as the most extreme illustration of the principle that lay at the very basis of the Nuremberg Laws. Yet the manifest absurdity of determining race by religion must have been troublesome enough to induce the ministerial bureaucracy to issue at least one clarification. On November 26, 1935, a circular was issued by the Ministry of the Interior: “In assessing whether a person is Jewish or not, it is basically not the fact of belonging to the Jewish religious community that is decisive, but that of belonging to the Jewish race. However, in order to avoid difficulties in dealing with [individual] cases, it has been expressly decided that a grandparent who has belonged to the Jewish religion unquestionably belongs to the Jewish race; counter-evidence is not permitted.” Quoted in Noakes, “Wohin gehören die ‘Judenmischlinge’?” p. 84.

  28. Stuckart and Globke, Kommentare, p. 5.

  29. Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State, p. 49.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Adjutantur des Führers, microfilm MA–287, IfZ, and Munich.

  32. Monthly Report, 8.12.1937, Die Kirchliche Lage in Bayern nach den Regierungspräsidentenberichten 1933–1943, vol. 2, Regierungsbezirk Ober- und Mittelfranken, ed. Helmut Witeschek (Mainz, 1967), p. 254.