Billy and the Joels--The American rock star and his German family story

by Steffen Radlmaier

  In the following weeks, Fritz Tillmann negotiated with the Nazi mayor of Nuremberg, Willi Liebel, as well as with the district administrator Streicher, who, in seeming contradiction to his habit of harassment, argued in vain against letting a flourishing business leave. Soon it was agreed that the linen business would be allowed to relocate to the Wedding quarter of Berlin. On May 16, 1934, Karl Joel dictated a letter to his secretary for all employees: “I hereby make it known to you that, with the permission of the Reich’s Ministry of Economy and the city of Berlin, I will over the next few months relocate my business, with the exception of the linen factory, to Berlin. I am therefore forced, with regret, to release you from employment on June 30, 1934. I however leave open the possibility of your relocating with the business to Berlin.”

  It speaks not only for the difficult situation in the employment market but even more for the good working atmosphere in Joel’s company, that 75 percent of the employees followed their respected boss to the capital city despite Nazi threats.

  Some 160 railway cars loaded with equipment and inventory were sent on their way to Berlin. The company found a spacious home in the modern Osram complex on Utrechter Strasse. The sewing factory with the three assembly lines and 200 sewing machines remained in Nuremberg.

  There, Der Stürmer resumed its repellent smear campaign against ‘Linen Joel’. Along with personal insults concerning the owner (‘Jew Joel, the bloodsucker and oppressor’), the contemptuous articles – in 1934 alone there were seven – concerned themselves with defaming and alienating the customers of the ‘Jewish vermin infesting the folk’. The hateful attacks were very hard psychologically on the Nuremberg businessman, who had done nothing wrong. How was this all going to end?

  In September the city was as usual the stage for the annual National Party Congress, better known as the Nuremberg Rally. In the streets of the old quarter and on the Zeppelin field, tens of thousands of Germans marched in uniform. Among the spectators of this carefully staged spectacle were Helmut Joel and Rudi Weber. The American journalist William L. Shirer noted in his journal on September 4, 1934: “Like a Roman emperor he [Hitler] rode into the medieval town at sundown, past solid phalanxes of wildly cheering Germans who packed the narrow streets that once had been the gathering place of Hans Sachs and the Meistersinger. Thousands of swastika flags blotted out the Gothic beauties of the city‘s architecture, the facades of the old houses, the gabled roofs. The streets, hardly wider than alleys, were a sea of brown and black uniforms. I got my first glimpse of Hitler, as he drove by our hotel to his headquarters at the Deutscher Hof, a favorite old hotel of his, which had been newly remodeled for him. He fumbled with his cap, which he held in his left hand, as he stood in his car acknowledging the delirious welcome with somewhat feeble Nazi salutes with his right arm. He was clad in a rather worn gabardine trench coat. His face had no particular expression – I expected it to be much stronger – and I wondered what there was in his almost modest bearing, in his rather common look that could unleash such hysterical acclaim in the mob.”7

  During those weeks Karl Joel was arrested three times, but because of his good connections with Fritz Tillman he was freed each time within a couple of days. Yet it was high time that the family moved. In the Charlottenburg quarter of Berlin the Joels found a lavish villa bordered by a forest.

  That year, the French writer Simone de Beauvoir was on a visit to the City of the Rallies with her companion Jean-Paul Sartre. For them it was an eerie experience, as she wrote in her autobiographical book The Prime of Life: “We had expected much from picturesque Nuremberg. But thousands of swastikas were still fluttering from the windows, and the images that we had seen in the news oppressed us with their insatiable arrogance: The enormous deployments, the raised arms, the glassy looks, a whole people in trance. We were relieved when we had left the city behind us.”8

  Dance on the Berlin Volcano

  It looked like Berlin would be their salvation. The imperial capital was buzzing day and night, was cosmopolitan and liberal-minded. This was a place where business could be done, here could be found an exciting cultural life and enticing leisure time pursuits. No comparison with provincial Nuremberg. The Joels didn’t regret their decision for one minute and made the most out of their apparent freedom. The mail-order business was doing well, the customer-base was growing continually, as was the product range. The company was gaining new customers from the economically underdeveloped eastern regions of Germany in particular (e.g. Pomerania and East Prussia). The company records registered 850,000 regular customers. Ordering and delivery by post was easy and cheap. Together with the companies Witt (in Weiden), Schöpflin (Hagen) and Quelle (Fürth), Joel was one of the market leaders in the branch. The innovative clothing production used state-of-the art technology and being connected to the railway was an added advantage over competitors. Joel was one of the first to utilize fashionable finished textiles and, along the lines of American companies, produce a colored, illustrated mail-order catalogue.

  Fully loaded with new textile products, the company’s own truck regularly drove along the newly built autobahn between Berlin and Nuremberg. However, just to be on the safe side, the truck didn’t bear the company’s name or logo. During school vacations, Rudi Weber was sometimes allowed to sit in the driver’s cab on the way to visit his pal.

  Helmut Joel still hadn’t found too many friends at his new school in Berlin, and he and Rudi kept in touch regularly. The two were inseparable and liked to roam the big, exciting city. They idolized Atlantic-crossing pilot Charles Lindbergh, and laughed themselves silly at the antics of Munich comedian Karl Valentin and his “Orchestra Rehearsal” sketch. They also often went to the movies to see films like the then popular “Emil and the Detectives”. But it was the crazy adventures of Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin that got the two pals laughing loudest. Sometimes Helmut would play the film music on the piano, or he and Rudi would imitate the sketches at home and demand admission from the grown-ups watching.

  The Lessler private school was situated in the middle of a garden in Roseneck, an uptown residential area. “The Lessler school had nothing in common with a Judenschule (school for Jews)” wrote long-forgotten author Ludwig Greve in his book describing his boyhood in the Third Reich: Wo gehörte ich hin? [Where did I belong?] – a book that is still very much worth reading. His story had unusual parallels to that of the Joels. He was a year younger than Helmut and attended the Lessler School at about the same time; he was also from a good middle-class Jewish family and experienced the same increased isolation firsthand. “Thanks to the anti-Jewish laws, Ms Lessler – without even getting out from behind her desk – had her choice of the very best teachers, something she never tired of telling our mothers. Her voice, so deep that it sounded almost ceremonial […] corresponded entirely with her double chin, the likes of which I’d never seen before. She had been in charge ever since the days when the school was entirely elitist; nobody, not even the older schoolboys, had ever heard of a Mr. L. Our fathers paid school fees, and although we weren’t really thankful, at least we could enjoy certain privileges, or shall we say just a few, which made it a bit easier to get over the pain of having to say goodbye to our old friends.”9

  It seemed to be a carefree time, but the dark clouds were getting nearer and nearer. Anti-Semitic demonstrations were on the increase.

  Karl Joel in his office in Berlin · © Private collection Radlmaier

  Joel´s factory in The Osram house in Berlin, 1935 · © Private collection Radlmaier

  A postal service truck in the courtyard of Karl Joel’s mail-order company in Berlin · © Private collection Radlmaier

  American journalist William L. Shirer, who, from 1934 onwards, was a correspondent in Germany, described the strange atmosphere in the Third Reich: “There was much that impressed, puzzled and troubled a foreign observer about the new Germany. The overwhelming majority of Germans did not seem to
mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of their culture had been destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work had become regimented to a degree never before experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal of regimentation. In the background, to be sure, there lurked the terror of the Gestapo and the fear of the concentration camp for those who got out of line or who had been Communists or Socialists or too liberal or too pacifist, or who were Jews. The Blood Purge of June 30, 1934, was a warning of how ruthless the new leaders could be. Yet the Nazi terror in the early years affected the lives of relatively few Germans and a newly arrived observer was somewhat surprised to see that the people of this country did not seem to feel that they were being cowed and held down by an unscrupulous and brutal dictatorship. On the contrary, they supported it with genuine enthusiasm. Somehow it imbued them with a new hope and a new confidence and an astonishing faith in the future of their country.”10

  Helmut on his bicycle in front of the family villa in Berlin, 1935 · © Private collection Radlmaier

  The Joels also ignored the signs of the times as best they could. The posh villa in Tannenbergellee 2–4 in Charlottenburg had twelve rooms and a large garden, in which the boys often romped around with the two fox terriers. One of their favorite games was ‘Cops and Robbers’ – good versus evil.

  Helmut’s mother made sure her son stuck to his piano practice in the music room. They had a very comfortable home. There were guest rooms and a study where Karl’s imposing desk stood beneath a portrait of Otto von Bismarck that had been painted by Franz von Lenbach. The Joels had a chauffeur to drive their elegant Buick, they had a maid, a cook and a gardener. They were markedly sociable and welcoming and, from time to time, held large parties.

  The forest at the back of the villa was a popular place for young Nazis to meet, train and party. They would often sing there too. One day Helmut heard a song that scared the life out of him: “When the Jew’s blood drips from the knife” bawled the Nazi mob as they marched past. The anti-Semites were getting increasingly brazen.

  And in Berlin too, reprisals were on the increase. Karl Joel was forced to employ an ‘Aryan’ in his management team, he was no longer permitted to advertise in newspapers, he had no more contact with the association of mail-order companies, and packages to customers had to be labeled with a large, black ‘J’ on a yellow background. The ‘J’ didn’t stand for ‘Joel’, however, it stood for ‘Jew’. And some ‘Aryan’ suppliers stopped honoring their contracts.

  Thanks to his contact with Fritz Tillmann, Karl Joel was at least up to date on Nazi plans. The situation got increasingly difficult for Jewish businesses. Department stores and mail-order companies were generally considered to be Jewish and, therefore, undesirable types of businesses; as time went by, Joel’s turnover decreased significantly.

  When, in 1935, the ‘Nuremberg Laws’ were passed, the Joels decided to send their son to a Swiss boarding school. At the ‘Rally of Freedom’ in Nuremberg, Hitler proclaimed the ‘legal’ basis for the following exemption provisions for Jews: the ‘Citizenship Law of the Reich’ distinguished between citizens of the State and citizens of the Reich, and the ‘Law to preserve German blood and honor’ forbade mixed marriages and extramarital relationships between Jews and Aryans. The Nuremberg anti-Semite Julius Streicher, opened a large propaganda branch office in Berlin. There he published an offshoot of his Der Stürmer magazine entitled Judenkenner (‘The Jew-Expert’), and he advertised Der Stürmer prolifically on new housing estates.

  There was no future for the Joels in Germany, where the self-proclaimed ‘Master Race’ were now officially treating the Jews as second-class citizens. The Nazi leaders employed increasingly aggressive methods to fuel what was already latent anti-Semitism among large parts of the population.

  Helmut’s mother took her son by train to St. Gallen; the separation was a very tearful affair for both of them. “That was the last time I ever cried in my life”, remembered Helmut Joel. The twelve-year-old, who up to now had been a rather spoiled only-child, was now far from home, and faced the strict discipline of the prestigious Institut auf dem Rosenberg boarding school. At least he was able to find a few fellow sufferers here, as a number of Jews who could afford the fees had sent their children to Switzerland. Some of the pupils, including Helmut, were taught in Villars in the French-speaking area of Switzerland, where the institute had a subsidiary. The boy looked for consolation in music; his teachers were aware of his musical talent and his success in piano competitions.

  Plagued by homesickness, Helmut visited his parents in Berlin during school vacations, despite the unsettling situation in Germany. It was, after all, his home. In June of 1936 he visited Berlin for his bar-mitzvah in the large Berlin synagogue. And sometimes the family even met up to go skiing in St. Moritz.

  For a time it still looked as if an arrangement could be made with the National Socialists. Adolf Hitler utilized the brilliantly organized 1936 Olympics to gain popularity among other nations: Economically burgeoning, Germany put on its friendlier face, and German athletes impressed hugely, winning more medals than any other country (33 gold, 26 silver and 30 bronze). In Berlin and other places, telltale signs bearing messages such as ‘Jews are unwanted here’ were temporarily removed from shops, hotels and restaurants, and attacks on Jews were suspended.

  On August 16, 1936, William L. Shirer noted the following: “I‘m afraid the Nazis have succeeded with their propaganda. First, the Nazis have run the games on a lavish scale never before experienced, and this has appealed to the athletes. Second, the Nazis have put up a very good front for the general visitors, especially the big business-men.”11

  Of course, Helmut and Rudi couldn’t wait to get to the games to cheer on the German gold medal winners. A young man from Würzburg was among the enthusiastic spectators, someone who made no secret of his sympathy for the National Socialist leaders: Josef Neckermann, ambitious young businessman and avid horseman. He had already profited from the so-called Aryanization of Jewish companies, buying up the Ruschkewitz department store in Würzburg for next to nothing. The 24-year-old had recognized the signs of the times and was looking for a similar bargain in Berlin. He achieved his goal just two years later.

  Neckermann, who went on to become a mail-order mogul, wrote the following in his memoirs: “I asked my father-in-law to ask around, to find out if a department store might be up for sale somewhere. I wanted to pay about three million”. Brückner had nothing else to do, so continued to enthusiastically concern himself with the progress of Josef Neckermann’s business. Not entirely unselfishly, but all the same. He started talks with the Hardy & Co. bank and with the Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft [Credit Company of the Reich]. “When Brückner called me one day to tell me that Karl Amson Joel wanted to sell his linen goods business and department store I was as keen as mustard. Yearly turnover was around four million. That was in the spring of 1938.”12

  It was a good opportunity. Joel was feeling the strain more and more, and was worried about his family’s future. His wife was scared and urging him to flee from Germany. His long-time legal adviser Dr Loeb had left him in the lurch in the middle of the Aryanization phase, fleeing to Switzerland – which still didn’t stop him sending Joel a hefty bill for services rendered.

  The political situation had deteriorated noticeably. In March of 1938 German troops marched into Austria. As of April 26, 1938, a law was passed legally binding Jews to declare assets over 5,000 Reichsmarks. Furthermore, an increase in reprisals meant business was going from bad to worse. Joel had to lay off some of his 500 employees, and came to the decision to sell the company. On April 30th he dictated this letter of dismissal to Johann Stichler, one of his department heads: “Mr. Stichler is herewith resigning voluntarily on the best of amicable terms and in mutual agreement. This is because, due to declining turnover, I have been forced to reorganize the company and there is
not a position requiring Mr. Stichler’s particular capabilities within the reorganized company.”

  Joel was already making definite plans to flee, even though he no longer possessed a passport; he was already learning English. He wanted to avert the forced closure of his company and had his confidante Tillmann secretly making plans for the sale.

  Joel’s competitors had gotten wind of his plans to sell, and were already on their toes. One of the interested parties was Gustav Schickedanz, party member and owner of the Quelle mail-order business in Fürth. Schickedanz used to send his packages labeled with what was intended to be a hallmark of quality: next to the sender’s address was printed: “A Christian company with an Aryan owner”.

  The National Socialist term ‘Aryanization’ indicated just how much German Jews were being separated from economic and business life. It entailed the dispossession of Jewish property in favor of non-Jews (‘Aryans’), the restriction of gainful employment, as well as direct access to any assets held by Jews. Of the 100,000 Jewish companies existing in the German Reich in 1933 (including department stores, medical practices and workshops), 60 percent had been ‘Aryanized’ by 1938. This elimination of the Jewish competition meant the ‘Aryan’ businesses were gifted a major competitive edge. Due to the plight they were in, Jewish owners were usually forced to sell their companies way below value. ‘Aryanization’ was more or less the economic term for the gradual deprivation of rights for Jews in Germany. There was no specific dispossession law; implementation of the racial laws sufficed. Between 1933 and 1940, one of the main objectives of the Nazi regime’s ‘Aryanization’ policy was to force Jews into exile.