by The Destruction of the European Jews, Vol. 1-3 (Third Edition) Yale University Press (2003) (pdf)
come tax in lieu of donations for
Party purposes imposed on Nazis,
December24,1940 (RGBI I, 1666.)
Prohibition of Sunday work, Synod of
Szabolcs, 1092
Jews not permitted to be plaintiffs, or
Proposal by the Party Chancellery
witnesses against Christians in the
that Jews not be permitted to insti
Courts, 3d Lateran Council, 1179,
tute civil suits, September 9, 1942
Canon 26
(Bormann to Justice Ministry, September 9, 1942, NG-151.)
Jews not permitted to withhold in
Decree
empowering
the
Justice
heritance from descendants who
Ministry to void wills offending the
had
accepted
Christianity,
3d
“sound judgment of the people,”
Lateran Council, 1179, Canon 26
July 31, 1938 (RGBI 1,937.)
11
T A B L E 1 - 1
CANONICAL AND NAZI ANTI-JEWISH MEASURES (Continued)
Canonical Law
Nazi Measure
The marking of Jewish clothes with a
Decree of September 1, 1941 (RGBl
badge, 4th Lateran Council, 1215,
I, 547.)
Canon 68 (Copied from the legislation by Caliph Omar II [634-644],
who had decreed that Christians
wear blue belts and Jews, yellow
belts.)
Construction of new synagogues pro
Destruction of synagogues in entire
hibited, Council of Oxford, 1222
Reich, November 10, 1938 (Hey-
drich to Goring, November II,
1938, PS-3058.)
Christians not permitted to attend
Friendly relations with Jews pro
Jewish
ceremonies,
Synod
of
hibited, October 24, 1941 (Gestapo
Vienna, 1267
directive, L-15.)
Jews not permitted to dispute with
simple Christian people about the
tenets of the Catholic religion, Synod of Vienna, 1267
Compulsory ghettos, Synod of Bres
Order by Heydrich, September 21,
lau, 1267
1939 (PS-3363.)
Christians not permitted to sell or rent
Decree providing for compulsory sale
real estate to Jews, Synod of Ofen,
of Jewish real estate, December 3,
1279
1938 (RGBl I, 1709.)
Adoption by a Christian of the Jewish
Adoption of the Jewish religion by a
religion or return by a baptized Jew
Christian places him in jeopardy of
to the Jewish religion defined as a
being treated as a Jew. (Decision by
heresy, Synod of Mainz, 1310
Oberlandesgericht Königsberg, 4th
Zivilsenat, June 26, 1942.) (Die
Judenfrage [Vertrauliche Beilage],
November 1, 1942, pp. 82-83.)
Sale or transfer of Church articles to
Jews prohibited, Synod of Lavour,
1368
Jews not permitted to act as agents in
Decree of July 6, 1938, providing for
the conclusion of contracts, espeliquidation of Jewish real estate
cially marriage contracts, between
agencies, brokerage agencies, and
Christians, Council of Basel, 1434,
marriage agencies catering to non-
Sessio XIX
Jews (RGB1I, 823.)
Jews not permitted to obtain aca
Law against Overcrowding of Gerdemic degrees. Council of Basel,
man
Schools
and
Universities,
1434, Sessio XIX
April 25, 1933 (RGB1 I, 225.)
12
PRECEDENTS
community organization; (2) a yearly sum of 5,250 lire to the Casa Pia
for missionary work among Jews; (3) a yearly sum of 5,250 lire to the
Cloister of the Converted for the same purpose. In tum, the Papal State
expended a yearly sum of 1,500 lire for welfare work. But no state
money was paid for education or the care of the sick.
The papal regime in the Rome ghetto gives us an idea of the
cumulative effect
of
the
canonical law.
This
was its total result.
Moreover, the policy of the Church gave rise not only to ecclesiastical
regulations; for more than a thousand years, the will of the Church was
also enforced by the state. The decisions of the synods and councils
became basic guides for state action. Every medieval state copied the
canonical law and elaborated upon it. Thus there arose an “international medieval Jewry law,” which continued to develop until the eighteenth century. The governmental refinements and elaborations of the clerical regime may briefly be noted in Table 1-2, which shows also the
Nazi versions.
These are some of the precedents that were handed down to the
Nazi bureaucratic machine. To be sure, not all the lessons of the past
were still remembered in 1933; much had been obscured by the passage
of time. This is particularly true of negative principles, such as the
avoidance of riots and pogroms. In 1406 the state sought to make
profits from mob violence in the Jewish quarter of Vienna. Christians
suffered greater losses in this pogrom than Jews, because the Jewish
pawnshops, which went up in smoke during the great ghetto fire, contained the possessions of the very people who were rioting in the streets." This experience was all but forgotten when, in November
1938, Nazi mobs surged once more into Jewish shops. The principal
losers now were German insurance companies, who had to pay Geman
owners of the damaged buildings for the broken window glass. A historical lesson had to be learned all over again.
If some old discoveries had to be made anew, it must be stressed
that many a new discovery had not even been fathomed of old. The
administrative precedents created by church and state were in themselves incomplete. The destructive path charted in past centuries was an interrupted path. The anti-Jewish policies of conversion and expulsion could carry destructive operations only up to a point. These policies were not only goals; they were also limits before which the
bureaucracy had to stop and beyond which it could not pass. Only the
removal of these restraints could bring the development of destructive
operations to its fullest potentiality. That is why the Nazi adminis- 13
13.
Otto Stowasser, “Zur Geschichle der Wiener Geserah,” Vierteljahrschrifl fur
Soval- und Wirlschafisgeschichle 16(1922): 117.
13
T A B L E 1 - 2
PRE-NAZI AND NAZI ANTI-JEWISH MEASURES
Pre-Nazi Slate Development
Nazi Measure
Per capita protection tax (der goldene
Opferpfennig) imposed on Jews by
King Ludwig the Bavarian, 1328-37
(Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland,
P-31)
The property of Jews slain in a Ger13th Ordinance to the Reich Citizenman city considered as public propship Law providing that the property, “because the Jews with their erty of a Jew be confiscated after
possessions belong to the Reich
his death, July 1, 1943 (RGB1 I,
chamber," provision in the 14th-
372)
century code Regulae juris "Ad de-
cus” (Kisch, Jews in Medieval Germany,
pp.360-61,560-61)
Confiscation of Jewish claims against
11th Ordinance to the Reich Citizen
Christian debtors at the end of
ship Law, November 25, 1941
the
14th-century
in
Nuremberg.
(RGB1 I, 722)
(Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland,
p. 58)
“Fines”: for example, the Regensburg
Decree for the "Atonement Payment”
fine for “killing Christian child,"
by the Jews, November 12, 1938
1421. (Ibid., pp. 77-79)
(RGB1 I, 1579)
Marking of documents and personal
Decree providing for identification
papers
identifying
possessor
or
cards, July 23, 1938 (RGB1 1, 922)
bearer as a Jew (Zosa Szajkowski,
“Jewish Participation in the Sale of
National
Property
during
the
French Revolution," Jewish Social
Studies, 1952, p. 29ln)
Around 1800, the Jewish poet Ludwig
Decree providing for marking of pass
Borne had to have his passport
ports, October 5, 1938 (RGB1 I,
marked “Jud von Frankfurt" (Hein1342)
rich
Graetz,
Volkstiimliche
Ge-
schichte der Juden [Berlin-Vienna,
1923], vol. 3, pp. 373-74)
Marking of houses, special shopping
Marking
of
Jewish
apartments.
hours, and restrictions of move
(Jüdisches Nachrichtenblatt [Berment,
17th
century,
Frankfurt
lin], April 17, 1942)
(Ibid., pp. 387-88)
Decree
providing
for
movement
restrictions,
September
1,
1941
(RGB1I, 547)
Compulsory Jewish names in 19th-
Decree of January 5,1937 (RGBl 1,9)
century bureaucratic practice (Leo
Decree of August 17, 1938 (RGBl I,
M. Friedman, “American Jewish
1044)
Names,” Historia Judaica, October 1944, p. 154)
14
PRECEDENTS
trators became improvisers and innovators; that is also why the German bureaucracy under Hitler did infinitely more damage in twelve years than the Catholic Church was capable of in twelve centuries.
The administrative precedents, however, are not the only historical
determinants with which we are concerned. In a Western society, destructive activity is not just a technocratic phenomenon. The problems arising in a destruction process are not only administrative but also
psychological. A Christian is commanded to choose good and to reject
evil. The greater his destructive task, therefore, the more potent are
the moral obstacles in his way. These obstacles must be removed; the
internal
conflict
must
somehow
be
resolved.
One
of
the
principal
means through which the perpetrator attempts to clear his conscience
is by clothing his victim in a mantle of evil, by portraying the victim as
an object that must be destroyed.
In recorded history we find many such portraits. Invariably they
are floating effusively like clouds through the centuries and over the
continents.
Whatever
their
origins
or
destinations,
the
function
of
these stereotypes is always the same. They are used as justification for
destructive
thinking;
they
are
employed
as
excuses
for
destructive
action.
The Nazis needed such a stereotype. They required just such an
image of the Jew. It is therefore of no little significance that when Hitler
came to power, the image was already there. The model was already
fixed. When Hitler spoke about the Jew, he could speak to the Germans
in familiar language. When he reviled his victim, he resurrected a
medieval conception. When he shouted his fierce anti-Jewish attacks,
he awakened his Germans as if from slumber to a long-forgotten challenge. How old, precisely, are these charges? Why did they have such an authoritative ring?
The picture of the Jew we encounter in Nazi propaganda and Nazi
correspondence had been drawn several hundred years before. Martin
Luther had already sketched the main outlines of that portrait, and the
Nazis, in their time, had little to add to it. We shall look here at a few
excerpts from Luther’s book About the Jews and Their Lies. In doing
so, let it be stressed that Luther’s ideas were shared by others in his
century, and that the mode of his expression was the style of his times.
His work is cited here only because he was a towering figure in the
development of German thought, and the writing of such a man is not
to be forgotten in the unearthing of so crucial a conceptualization as
this. Luther’s treatise about the Jews was addressed to the public
directly, and, in that pouring recital, sentences descended upon the
audience in a veritable cascade. Thus the passage:
Herewith you can readily see how they understand and obey the fifth
commandment of God, namely, that they are thirsty bloodhounds and
PRECEDENTS
murderers of all Christendom, with full intent, now for more than fourteen
hundred years, and indeed they were often burned to death upon the
accusation that they had poisoned water and wells, stolen children, and
tom and hacked them apart, in order to cool their temper secretly with
Christian blood.1*
Now see what a fine, thick, fat lie that is when they complain that they
are held captive by us. It is more than fourteen hundred years since
Jerusalem was destroyed, and at this time it is almost three hundred years
since we Christians have been tortured and persecuted by the Jews all
over the world (as pointed out above), so that we might well complain that
they had now captured us and killed us—which is the open truth.
Moreover, we do not know to this day which devil has brought them here
into our country; we did not look for them in Jerusalem.1’
Even now no one held them here, Luther continued. They might go
whenever they wanted to. For they were a heavy burden, “like a
plague, pestilence, pure misfortune in our country.” They had been
driven from France, “an especially fine nest,” and the “dear Emperor
Charles” drove them from Spain, “the best nest of all.” And this year
they were expelled from the entire Bohemian crown, including Prague,
“also a very fine nest”—likewise from Regensburg, Magdeburg, and
other towns.14 15 16 17
Is this called captivity, if one is not welcome in l
and or house? Yes,
they hold us Christians captive in our country. They let us work in the
sweat of our noses, to earn money and property for them, while they sit
behind the oven, lazy, let off gas, bake pears, eat, drink, live softly and
well from our wealth. They have captured us and our goods through their
accursed usury; mock us and spit on us, because we work and permit them
to be lazy squires who own us and our realm; they are therefore our lords,
we their servants with our own wealth, sweat, and work. Then they curse
our Lord, to reward us and to thank us. Should not the devil laugh and
dance, if he can have such paradise among us Christians, that he may
devour through the Jews—his holy ones—that which is ours, and stuff our
mouths and noses as reward, mocking and cursing God and man for good
measure.
They could not have had in Jerusalem under David and Solomon such
fine days on their own estate as they have now on ours—which they rob
and steal daily. But still they complain that we hold them captive. Yes, we
have and hold them in captivity, just as I have captured my calculum, my
blood heaviness, and all other maladies.1’
14. Luther, Von den Jueden, p. diii.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., pp. diii, e.
17. ibid., p. e.
16
PRECEDENTS
What have the Christians done, asks Luther, to deserve such a
fate? “We do not call their women whores, do not curse them, do not
steal and dismember their children, do not poison their water. We do
not thirst after their blood." It was not otherwise than Moses had said.
God had struck them with frenzy, blindness, and raging heart.11
This is Luther’s picture of the Jews. First, they want to rule the
world.18 19 20 21 22 Second, they are archcriminals, killers of Christ and ail Christendom.” Third, he refers to them as a “plague, pestilence, and pure misfortune.This
Lutheran
portrait
of
Jewish
world
rule,
Jewish
criminality, and the Jewish plague has often been repudiated. But, in
spite of denial and exposure, the charges have survived. In four hundred years the picture has not changed.
In 1895 the Reichstag was discussing a measure, proposed by the
anti-Semitic faction, for the exclusion of foreign Jews. The speaker,
Ahlwardt, belonged to that faction. We reproduce here a few excerpts
from his speech:3
It is quite dear that there is many a Jew among us of whom one cannot
say anything bad. If one designates the whole of Jewry as harmful, one
does so in the knowledge that the racial qualities of this people are such
that in the long run they cannot harmonize with the racial qualities of the