Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews
Page 85
232–3.
470
Notes to pages 111–115
76. See Goering in his speech to the Gauleiters etc. on 6 Dec. 1938 (cf. note 88), in which he attempted to represent the murders committed on 9 November as the result of
misunderstandings.
77. BAB, NS 36/13; also 3063-PS IMT xxxii. 20 ff.
78. This was the purpose of the telegrams that Müller and Heydrich dispatched to the
Gestapo offices during the night. BAB, R 58/276; also 33051-PS, IMT xxxi. 515 ff. and 74-
PS, IMT xxv. 376 ff.
79. Detailed account in Obst, Reichskristallnacht. Barbara Distel, ‘ “Die letzte ernste Warnung vor der Vernichtung”. Zur Verschleppung der “Aktionsjuden” in die Konzen-
trationslager’, Zeitschrift für die Geschichtswissenschaft 46 11(1998), 985–91; and Heiko Pollmeier, ‘Inhaftierung und Lagerführung deutscher Juden im November 1938’, Jahrbuch für die Antisemitismusforschung 8 (1999), 107–30. Distel and Pollmeier refer to
more than 26,000 prisoners, Stein, Konzentrationslager, to 30,000. See also Ben Barkow,
ed., November Pogrom 1938. Die Augenzeugeberichte der Wiener Library London
(Frankfurt a. M., 2008).
80. BAB, NS 36/13; quoted in Peter Longerich, Die Ermordung der Europäischen Juden
(Munich, 1989), 43 ff.
81. See Stein, Konzentrationslager, about conditions in Buchenwald concentration camp,
where a ‘special camp’ was set up for the arrested Jews. The camp staff mistreated these
Jews particularly badly; the days between 10 and 14 November turned into a week of
murder. This violent ‘welcome ritual’ was also performed in the other concentration
camps; but the mistreatment continued long after. The prisoners’ everyday existence in
the camp was characterized by hunger, overcrowded huts, indescribable conditions of
hygiene and theft by the staff. See also Distel, ‘Warnung’, and Pollmeier, ‘Inhaftierung’.
82. OS, 1458-1-98, Annex to the Reich Economic Minister’s minutes of the departmental
meeting of 26 Jan., 28 Jan. 1939; this figure, which has made it possible to correct earlier estimates in the research literature, was first published in Longerich, Politik, 203. These figures have been confirmed in the thorough investigation of this complex by Gerald
Feldman, Allianz and the German Insurance Business 1933–1945 (New York, 2001), 269.
83. OS, 1458-1-98, Aufstellung Fachgruppe Feuerversicherugen und Nebenzweige, 21 Dec.
1938.
84. On the atmosphere; see Bankier, Meinung, 118 ff.; Longerich, Politik, 204–5.
85. 1816 PS, IMT xxviii. On this meeting see also the description in Walter Strauss, ‘Das Reichsministerium des Innern und die Judengesetzgebung. Aufzeichnungen von Dok-tor Bernhard Lösener’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 9/3 (1961) (note from
Lösener), 286 ff.
86. According to Adolf Diamant, Zerstörte Synagogen vom November 1938. Eine Bestands-
aufnahme (Frankfurt a. M., 1978), during the whole Nazi era some 1,200 synagogues
and prayer rooms within the Reich in its 1938 borders were destroyed, most of them
during the November pogrom, the rest mostly as a result of war damage.
87. These prohibitions had already been passed by the Reich Chamber of Culture on the
day of the meeting, 12 Nov. See Walk, Sonderrecht, iii. 12.
88. OS, 1458-3-2216. On this meeting see also the circular of the Baden Gau headquarters, quoted in: Dokumente über die Verfolgung, Nr. 339, commented upon in Adam,
Judenpolitik, 218.
Notes to pages 116–118
471
89. As early as 14 November Department II of SD Headquarters, on the instructions of
Heydrich, presented five drafts for a badge for the identification of the Jews: OS, 500-1-659.
90. Published by Götz Aly and Susanne Heim in Beiträge zur nationalsozialistischen
Gesundheits- und Sozialpolitik, 9 (1991), Dokument 1, 15–21.
91. Amongst other things, Frick made the following statements on the issue: Jews were to
leave the retail trade by January 1939; profits made through ‘Aryanization’ were to be
skimmed off; rent control for Jews would be abolished within the next few days; Jews
were to be concentrated in certain buildings. Otherwise, for the employment of the Jews
there were ideas for ‘labour columns’ and for the existence of certain Jewish businesses.
92. First Decree for the Elimination of the Jews from Economic Life, RGBl, 1938, I, p. 1580.
The first implementation provision of 23 Nov. 1938 regulated further details, RGBl,
1938, I, p. 1642.
93. RGBl, 1938, I, p. 1581.
94. RGBl, 1938, I, p. 1579; the implementation order by the Reich Minister of Finance of 21
Nov. 1938 governed taxation. Walk, Sonderrecht, iii. 21 and 24; cf. Barkai, Boykott, 151.
95. According to Kratzsch, Gauwirtschaftsapparat, 203.
96. Decree for the deployment of Jewish assets, RGBl, 1938, I, pp. 1709 ff.
97. Listed in Adam, Judenpolitik, 212 ff.
98. Fricke-Finkelnburg, Nationalsozialismus und Schule, 271.
99. Walk, Sonderrecht, iii. 56.
100. Decree against the Ownership of Weapons by Jews, 11 Nov. 1938, RGBl, I, p. 1573.
101. Decree of the President of the Reich Chamber of Culture, 12 Nov. 1938; see Walk,
Sonderrecht, iii. 12.
102. Order of the Reichsführer SS and Chief of German Police, revealed in the press on 8
Dec. 1938. See VB 8 Dec. 1938.
103. RGBl, 1938, I, pp. 1676, 1704.
104. Walk, Sonderrecht, iii. 37.
105. Dieter Maier, Arbeitseinsatz und Deportation. Die Mitwirkung der Arbeitsverwaltung
bei der nationalsozialistischen Judenverfolgung in den Jahren 1939–1945 (Berlin, 1994),
26 ff.; Wolf Gruner, Der geschlossener Arbeitseinsatz deutscher Juden. Zur Zwangsar-
beit als Element der Verfolgung 1938–1943 (Berlin, 1997), 66 ff.
106. 069-PS, IMT xxv. 131 ff.
107. Walk, Sonderrecht, iii. 154.
108. Law concerning Rental Relationships with Jews, 30 Apr. 1939 (RGBl, 1939, I, p. 864).
109. Circular of the Reich Minister of the Interior, RMBliV, p. 1291, 16 June 1939.
110. Instruction by the Reich Minister of Economics of 16 Jan. 1939. Walk, Sonderrecht, iii.
106 and Third Decree to implement the Decree concerning the Reporting of Jewish
Property of 21 Feb. 1939, RGBl, I, p. 282.
111. Decree to Alter the Decree concerning Medical Examination and Recruitment of 7
Mar. 1939, RGBl, 1939, I, p. 425.
112. On ‘Compulsory Entjudung’, see Kratzsch, Gauwirtschaftsapparat, 202 ff.
113. Cf. ibid. 204–5; circular of 25 Feb. 1939.
114. BAM, RW 19/2374, 5 Jan. 1939. On the practice of Aryanization see also the case study of Marburg: Barbara Händler-Lachmann and Thomas Werther, Vergessene Geschäfte,
472
Notes to pages 118–124
verlorene Geschichte. Jüdisches Wirtschaftsleben in Marburg und seine Vernichtung im
Nationalsozialismus (Marburg, 1992), 116 ff.
115. Barkai, Boykott, 151.
116. Bajohr, ‘Arisierung’, 279.
117. RGBl, 1940, I, pp. 891–2.
118. Leo Lippmann, ‘ . . . Dass ich wie ein guter Deutscher empfinde und handele’. Zur
Geschichte der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde in Hamburg in der Zeit von Herbst 1935
bis zum Ende 1942 (Hamburg, 1994), 71–2.
119. Minutes of the first meeting of the Reich Central Agency, 11 Feb. 1939 (ADAP), series D, vol. 5, no. 665.
120. OS, 500-1-550.
121. For assets of 1 million RM the grading was 10 per cent, larger assets were to be assessed
at even higher rates in individual cases.
122. See Maier, Arbeitseinsatz, 22 ff. (especially on history and motivation) and Wolf
Gruner, Arbeitseinsatz, 40 ff.
123. See above.
124. Maier, Arbeitseinsatz, 23–4.
125. Gruner, Arbeitseinsatz, 50–1.
126. BAB, R 18/5519, ‘Entwurf für die Ansprache Fricks auf der Konferenz’; cf. Gruner,
Arbeitseinsatz, 62.
127. Maier, Arbeitseinsatz, 26 ff.; Gruner, Arbeitseinsatz, 66 ff.
128. Ibid. 92.
129. Further details in Gruner, Arbeitseinsatz, 84 ff. See, for example, the survey carried out in Berlin municipal business operations about whose results the Mayor was informed
early in March 1939: STA Berlin, Rep 01-02 GB 1281 (YV, JM 10660), the Councillor in
Charge of Municipal Business Operations, 7 Mar. 1939 to the Mayor; cf. Gruner,
Arbeitseinsatz, 90.
130. Ibid. 106.
131. OS, 504–2–2 (20), minute by the Chief of Security Police, 1 Mar. 1939, quoted in Konrad Kwiet, ‘Forced Labour of German Jews in Nazi Germany’, LBIY 36 (1991), 389–410. Cf.
also Gruner, Arbeitseinsatz, 83–4.
6.
The Politics of Organized Expulsion
1. ADAP, series D, vol. 4, no. 273.
2. ADAP, series D, vol. 4, no. 158, 167 ff.
3. Speech of 30 January, quoted in Max Domarus, Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen
(Wiesbaden, 1973), ii. 1047 ff., for the passage in question 1055–8.
4. Domarus, Hitler. Reden, ii. 1057. Stefan Kley, ‘Intention. Verkündung, Implementier-
ung. Hitlers Reichstagsrede vom 30 Januar 1939’, Zeitschrift für die Geschichtswis-
senschaft 48 (2000), sees this statement from Hitler as the announcement of the firm
intention of the dictator, who was at this time already resolved to murder the
European Jews. Kley deduced this from his view that in January 1939 Hitler had firmly
decided upon a world war, and had thus sought himself to bring about the precondi-
tion that he had introduced for the murder of the Jews, the ‘world war’. (See Kley,
Notes to pages 124–127
473
Hitler, Ribbentrop und die Entfesselung des Zweiten Weltkriegs (Paderborn, 1996),
201 ff.) The author himself concedes that ‘no direct path leads . . . from Hitler’s intentions to the events’ since, as we know, the systematic murder of the Jews of Europe did
not start until 1941/2; the forced emigration still being practised in 1939 is even in
diametrical opposition to the supposed genocidal intention. For these reasons alone
the reconstruction of a firm ‘intention’ on Hitler’s part to murder the European Jews in
early 1939 is problematic if not nonsensical.
5. For greater detail see the following section.
6. On the Fischböck plan: Aufzeichnung des Leiters der Politischen Abteilung des AA, 14
Nov. 1938, ADAP, series C, vol. 5, no. 650. The passing of the negotiation contract on to Schacht is the background for the remark made by Goering in the conference on 6
December: ‘I therefore request the gentleman—the man in question will know what I
mean—that he will carry out no further negotiations here.’
7. On the Schacht–Rublee negotiations see Ralph Weingarten, Die Hilfeleistung der
westlichen Welt bei der Endlösung der deutschen Judenfrage. Das ‘Intergovernmental
Committee on Political Refugees’ IGC 1938–1939 (Bern, Frankfurt a. M., Las Vegas, 1981),
127 ff.; Fischer, Schacht, 216 ff.
8. BAB, 25-01, 6641, letter from Rublee to Schacht, 23 Dec. 1938 with the outline for the project.
9. Details about the plan and the negotiations in note from Schacht, 16 Jan. 1939, BAB, 25–
01, 5541, ADAP, series C, vol. 5, no. 661.
10. Weingarten, Hilfeleistung, 135 ff.
11. OS, 500-1-506, undated note (‘Secret! Jewry) from the Jewish Department.
12. BAB, R 58/276.
13. On 10 January Schacht had informed Stuckart in broad terms about the agreement he
hoped to reach with Rublee. Subsequently, on 18 January a discussion was held with
senior SS and police officials in Heydrich’s office, followed by another discussion with
Stuckart and, on the following day, a meeting with Schacht. In these discussions there
was general agreement that Schacht’s ideas should be made the basis of further
emigration policy (minutes of 19 Jan. 1939); both documents in OS, 500-1-638.
14. Report on the first working discussion of the Committee of the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration on 11 Feb. 1939, ADAP, series D, vol. 5, no. 665, pp. 786 ff. At the
meeting the establishment of Central Offices in Berlin, Breslau, Frankfurt., and
Hamburg was announced.
15. RGBl, 1939, I, p. 1097. Details of the history in Wolf Gruner, ‘Poverty and Persecution: The Reichsvereinigung, the Jewish Population and Anti-Jewish Policy in the Nazi State
1933–1945’, YVS 27 (1999) 28 ff.; and Esriel Hildesheimer, Jüdischer Selbstverwaltung
unter dem NS-Regime. Der Existenzkampf der Reichsvertretung und Reichsvereinigung
der Juden in Deutschland (Tübingen, 1994), 79 ff.
16. Further details see below, pp. 134–5.
17. See Herbert A. Strauß, ‘Jewish Emigration from Germany: Nazi Policies and Jewish
Response’, LBIY 25 (1980), 313–61 (I) and 26 (1981), 343–409.
18. Ibid. 383 ff.
19. Ibid. 326.
20. Barkai, Boykott, 169 ff.
474
Notes to pages 127–134
21. Bruno Blau, ‘Die Juden in Deutschland von 1939 bis 1945’, Judaica 7 (1951), 270–84, 278.
22. Ibid. 273.
23. Barkai, Boykott, 171–2. On the continuation of Jewish cultural life after the November pogrom see Volker Dahm, ‘Kulturelles und geistiges Leben’, in Benz, ed., Die Juden in
Deutschland, 223 ff.
24. Barkai, Boykott, 171–2; Hildesheimer, Selbstverwaltung, 80 ff.
7.
The Persecution of Jews in the Territory of the Reich, 1939–1940
1. Michael Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten. Das Führungskorps des Reichssicherheit-
shauptamtes (Hamburg, 2002), 358 ff.
2. Esriel Hildesheimer, Jüdische Selbstverwaltung unter dem NS-Regime. Der Existenz-
kampf der Reichsvertretung und der Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland
(Tübingen, 1994), 116 ff.
3. Ibid. 132 ff.
4. Ibid. 153 ff.
5. Ruth Röcher, Die Jüdische Schule im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland 1933–1942
(Frankfurt a. M., 1992), 86 ff.; Joseph Walk, Jüdische Schule und Erziehung im Dritten
Reich (Frankfurt a. M., 1991), 217 ff.
6. Hildesheimer, Selbstverwaltung, 163–4.
7. Ibid. 165 ff.
8. See Uwe Adam, Die Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf, 1972), 258 ff. and
Avraham Barkai, Vom Boykott zu ‘Entjudung’. Der wirtschaftliche Existenzkampf der
Juden im Dritten Reich 1933–1943 (Frankfurt a. M., 1988), 183 ff.
9. Special Measure, Joseph Walk, Das Sonderrecht für die Juden im NS-Staat. Eine
Sammlung der gesetzlichen Massnahmen und Richtlinien—Inhalt und Bedeutung
(Heidelberg, 1981), iv. 2; Adam, Judenpolitik, 259. The news reached Victor Klemperer,
for example, on 13 September 1939 (three days after it had been decreed) via a
messenger from the local office of the Protestant Church to which Klemperer belonged
(Viktor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries of Viktor Klemperer 1941–1945
(London, 1999), i. 378).
10. Dokumente zur Geschichte der Frankfurter Juden 1933–1945 (Fra
nkfurt a. M., 1963),
no. 433.
11. Special Measure, Walk, Sonderrecht, iv. 115 (Decree of the Reich Postal Ministry, 19 July 1940).
12. Statutes of the ‘Reichsluftschutzbund’, 28 June 1940, RGBl, I, p. 992; Adam, Judenpo-
litik, 258–9.
13. Special Measure, Walk, Sonderrecht, iv. 127.
14. Adam, Judenpolitik, 260 ff.
15. Special Measure, Walk, Sonderrecht, iv. 10 (Decree of the Chief of the Security Police concerning Special Food Shops for Jews, 12 Sept. 1939).
16. Konrad Kwiet, ‘Nach dem Pogrom. Stufen der Ausgrenzung’, in Wolfgang Benz, ed.,
Die Juden in Deutschland. 1933–1945. Leben unter nationalsozialistischer Herrschaft
(Munich, 1988), 605 ff.
Notes to pages 134–135
475
17. Kwiet, Pogrom, 606 ff. and in more detail Regina Bruss, Die Bremer Juden unter dem
Nationalsozialismus (Bremen, 1983), 151 ff.
18. Special Measure, Walk, Sonderrecht, iv. 67 (Decree of the Reich Minister of Economics, 23 Jan. 1940). This measure meant that Jews did not receive clothing coupons, tokens
for knitting or sewing, or shoes. They were provided with second-hand clothing by the
municipality (see Hildesheimer, Selbstverwaltung, 168).
19. This emerges particularly clearly from Victor Klemperer’s diaries.
20. For examples see Joseph Werner, Hakenkreuz und Judenstern. Das Schicksal der
Karlsruher Juden im Dritten Reich (Karlsruhe, 1988), 281 (Karlsruhe); Horst Matzerath,
‘Der Weg der Kölner Juden in den Holocaust. Versuch einer Rekonstruktion’, in
Gabriele Rogmann and Horst Matzerath, eds, Die jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozia-
lismus aus Köln. Gedenkbuch (Cologne, 1995), 534 (Cologne). The Oberpräsident
(provincial governor) responsible for the Rhine Province issued a general ban on
moves into cities on 15 Feb. 1940 (Herbert Lepper, Von der Emanzipation zum
Holocaust. Die israelitischen Synagogengemeinde zu Aachen 1801–1942; geschichtliche
Darstellung Bilder, Dokumente, Tabellen, Listen (Aachen, 1994), ii, doc. 1109).
21. Vienna was in the forefront of such developments. Partly because of direct pressure
from the NSDAP the majority of Jews had been driven out of their homes by the end of
1938. In September and October 1939 plans were drawn up for the settlement of
Vienna’s Jews in closed camps, but they were dropped as the Nisko Programme