by The Destruction of the European Jews, Vol. 1-3 (Third Edition) Yale University Press (2003) (pdf)
concerned. Goring was confident that he could deal with any competitor by invoking the Reich interest. As we shall see, this calculation proved correct. The personal relations between Flick and the Petschek
family were to prove no obstacle to the Aryanization. Even in its early
days, the destruction process was a powerful transformer of relationships and attitudes.
On
January
10,
1938,
Flick’s
deputy,
Steinbrinck,
wrote
a
memorandum in which he noted that the Ignaz Petschek group was not
willing to sell its property or to exchange the mines for other holdings.
In view of that situation, “one would have to consider the possible
employment of force or Reich intervention (mnss man gegebenenfalls
Gewaltmassnahmen
oder
staatliche
Eingriffe
ins
Auge
fassen].”
This
remark is significant. One rarely finds such a naked expression of Nazi
philosophy, even in secret documents. In this case, the remark is doubly significant, for in the same memorandum there is a clear implication that even if the Petscheks were willing to sell out for reichsmark, there
would not be enough capital to pay for the property. Four interested
parties—namely, 1.
G.
Farben,
the
Vereinigte Stahlwerke,
the
Hermann Goring Works, and the Dresdner Bank—were ready to invest
less than half the funds necessary to pay for the Petschek stocks at par
value.”
In the meantime, the Ignaz Petscheks were beginning to set up
dummy corporations in Switzerland and Holland.88 89 90 91 No time could be
lost, for with the passage of the months the Ignaz Petscheks would
scatter their holdings among foreign corporations, a process that the
Germans called Einneblung, or “fogging in.” On January 19, 1938, the
88. Testimony by Flick, Case No. 5, tr. p. 3242.
89. Memorandum by Steinbrinck, January 10, 1938, NI-32S4.
90. Ibid.
91. Ibid.
119
EXPROPRIATION
leader of the Ignaz Petschek group, Karl, was summoned to the Economy Ministry, where he declared to Staatssekretär Posse and the assembled German officials: “You want war, gentlemen; lam prepared.
The Germans looked for a way to open the attack. In June a Flick
lawyer submitted a memorandum on possible legal action against the
Petscheks. There was no possibility for such action, complained the
lawyer, for there was no law compelling a Jew to sell his property. He
enclosed a draft of such a law as his only solution.” Then, in July,
things began to move.
On July 22 an interministerial conference was called to discuss the
Petschek problem, the only conference concerned with a single Jewish
family of which we have a record.“ The following officials participated:
Ministerialrat Wohlthat (chairman). Office of the Four-Year Plan
Gerichtsassessor Dr. Hahn, Office of the Four-Year Plan
Oberregierungsrat Dr. Müller, Oberfinanzpräsident, Berlin
Steuerinspektor Krause, Oberfinanzpräsident, Berlin
Legationsrat Altenburg, Foreign Office
Konsul Dr. Kalisch, Foreign Office
Oberregierungsrat Dr. Gotthardt, Economy Ministry
Bergrat Ebert, Economy Ministry
Dr. LintI, Reichskommissar for Coal
Amtsgerichtsrat Herbig, Justice Ministry
Wohlthat opened the discussion by pointing out that Goring had
ordered the Aryanization of the Ignaz Petschek properties in Germany.
The value of these properties was 200,000,000 reichsmark. The representative of the Justice Ministry explained that there was no basis for legal action under any anti-Jewish decrees. Then, as the conference
went on, the representatives of the ministeries all agreed that funds for
the purchase of the property were simply not available. The representative of the Coal Commissar stressed the importance of the Petschek coal for the economy. He wanted immediate Aryanization. Everyone
agreed, however, that no measures could be taken that would throttle
production in the Petschek coal mines. The Finance Ministry offered a
partial solution: one could always claim taxes. In fact, research had 92 93 94
92. File note by Steinbrinck, January 19, 1938, NI-3249.
93. Dr. Hugo Dietrich to Direktor Steinbrinck, June 20, 1938, NI-898.
94. Summary of Petschek conference (signed Wohlthat), August 2, 1938, NG-2398.
The office of the Oberfinanzpräsident in Berlin was a regional office of the Finance
Ministry: that of the Reichskommissar for Coal was an agency of the Office of the Four-
Year Plan.
120
ARYANIZATIONS
already disclosed that the Petscheks owed 30,000,000 reichsmark to the
Reich.
The conferees then
considered
alternate solutions:
replacement
of Jewish directors in subsidiaries of the Petschek combine on the
ground that the Jews were a danger to the community, dissolution of
the Petschek-controlled East Elbian Lignite Syndicate (wholesale trade
organizations), and so on.
The tax claims proved to be the lever that toppled the Petschek
empire. In October 1938 the Germans, marching into the Czechoslovak
Sudetenland,
took
possession
of
the
Ignaz
Petschek
headquarters
in
Aussig, with a view of discovering further tax delinquencies. Matters
were going so well that in a conference of Finance, Economy, and
Mittelstahl officials, Steinbrinck advised the suspension of negotiations
on the ground that “the Petscheks were not yet soft enough [Die
Petscheks seien noch nicht weich genug].''” From the government of
the short-lived, amputated Czech state (October 1938 to March 1939)
help came in response to a German request. Czech Foreign Minister
Chvalkowsky declared his readiness to cooperate with the investigation
in every respect, “since the Czech state, too, had been defrauded by
the Petscheks.”’6
By June 1939 the Finance Ministry had increased its claim from
30,000,000 to 300,000,000 reichsmark. The entire Petschek property in
Germany would now be insufficient to pay the taxes claimed by the
Reich.” The Finance Ministry was jubilant. On June 26 the Finance
Ministry’s
Ministerialrat
Gebhardt
stated
that
his
ministry's
position
was
now
“stronger
than
ever.”
Speaking
to
Steinbrinck,
Gebhardt
called it “unshakable.” In other words, after all the troubles with
plenipotentiaries and committees, the Finance Ministry had done the
job
singlehandedly.
Gebhardt’s
happiness
was
clouded
by
only
one
thought. It was unfortunate, he said, that the Reich
had made a deal
with the Julius Petschek group so hastily. Undoubtedly, that concern
had also engaged in “irregular business activities.”"
The Ignaz Petschek enterprises were now sold by the Reich for
whatever the traffic would bear. The central German mines were taken
over by Goring and Flick—but only after a nasty swap of mines be- 95 96 97 98
95. Hahn to Oberregierungsrat Muller and Ministerialrat Gebhardt, February 10.
1939, NI-10086. During the same meeting Dr. Rasche of the Dresdner Bank made an
attempt to takeover the functions of the Finance Ministry by offering to negotiate the tax
claims with the Petscheks. Gebhardt declined on the ground that such an arrangement
would bring the other great banks into “ill humor.’’ Ibid.
96. Ibid.
97. File note by Steinbrinck, June 12, 1939, NI-3364.
98. File note by Steinbrinck, June 26, 1939, NI-10139.
121
EXPROPRIATION
tween the Goring Works and Mittelstahl, under the terms of which the
Reichsmarschall
received
the
decidedly
better
bargain
in
the
“state-
political interest.”*
The Czech mines, captured in the meantime by the Dredsner Bank
without any difficulty at all, were transferred to an Auffanggesellschaft
(a company formed for the explicit purpose of taking over Aryanized
property). The company in question, the Egerländer Bergbau A. G.,
was Reich owned because the Czech mines, too, had been confiscated
by the Reich in partial satisfaction of the tax claim. However, the
Egerländer Bergbau was sold to private interests controlled by the
industrial family Seebohm.1“
The fate of the Ignaz Petscheks was the same as the fate of the
Weinmanns, and this was true even though the Weinmanns had argued
and petitioned, while Karl Petschek had “declared war.” The answer to
the riddle is that both the Weinmanns and the Petscheks were pursuing
strategies that led inevitably to a showdown. In the final encounter,
neither family could defend itself. The Weinmanns were playing a very
old game, and their performance was not unskillful. But they were
maneuvering without a base. The Ignaz Petschek group stood fast,
since they were literally too big for bargaining. Their battle, however,
was inevitably lost, for they were fighting alone against the total power
of the German state.
The “penalty” confiscations of the Weinmann and Ignaz Petschek
enterprises
mark
the
close
of
the
“voluntary”
Aryanizations-
Of
course, “voluntary” in this connection means only that the Weinmanns
and the Petscheks still had an opportunity to bargain with the Germans.
So long as such an opportunity existed—no matter how adverse the
conditions and how strong the pressure—the process was considered a
voluntary
one.
The
involuntary
or
forced
Aryanization
(Zwangs-
arisierung
or
Zwangsentjudungsverfahreri)
was
characterized
by
the
complete absence of a Jewish negotiator. In such a proceeding the
Jewish owner was represented by a “trustee”; i.e., both parties in the
negotiations were German.
There were two reasons for the introduction of the involuntary
scheme of Aryanizations. One was the impatience of the ministries.
With compulsory procedures the process could be speeded up, termination dates could be set, and the overall completion of the transfers 99 100
99. Memorandum by Flick, December 5, 1939, NI-3338. This remarkably candid
account of Flick's relations with Goring was read to the Vorstand members of one of
Flick's subsidiaries, Harpen.
100. Memorandum by Direktor Andre (Dresdner Bank), November 3. 1940, NI-
13944. Memorandum for Vorstand meeting, Dresdner Bank, by Direktor Busch, November?, 1940, NI-6462.
122
ARYANIZATIONS
could be envisaged within those time limits. The other reason was
more important: the ministerial bureaucracy wanted to have a say in
the distribution of the Jewish enterprises.
One of the major effects of the Aryanizations was an increasing
concentration within the business sector. We have seen that there was
no tendency to break up Jewish enterprises among small buyers. There
was no “decartellization.” Similarly, it happened only rarely that a
major Jewish business was taken over by several German firms acting
as a buying syndicate or Auffanggesellschaft. Most often the German
buyer was bigger than the Jewish seller. In short, the Aryanizations had
altered the structure of German business in such a way as to accentuate
the power of already powerful firms. This means that the business
sector as a whole, represented as it was by powerful industrialists, had
become more formidable in its dealings with other hierarchies.
In
their
attitude
toward
the
distribution
problem,
however,
the
party and the ministries did not manage to form a united front. In fact,
disagreements cut clearly across the two hierarchies. Most of the party
officials and the interior Ministry became defenders of the small businessman, whereas the Economy Ministry, the Finance Ministry, and, ultimately, a very decisive party voice (Goring) lined up with big business in what was called the “liberal” point of view. The issue was fought out in a great debate, one that was to be dwarfed only by
another controversy in the 1940s about the status of the Mischlinge.
The debate was precipitated in the course of the Interior Ministry's
publication of three administrative measures that were obviously preparatory steps in the development of an involuntary Aryanization proc-On April 26,1938, the Interior Ministry ordered all Jews to register
their
property.
Characteristically,
the
work
of
registration
was
entrusted
to
regional
offices
that
were
not
answerable
to
competing
ministries:
the
Regierungspräsidenten
in
Prussia
and
Bavaria;
the
Police President in Berlin; the Reichsstatthalter in Thüringen, Hessen,
Schaumburg-Lippe,
Hamburg,
and
Lippe;
the
Kreishauptmänner
in
Saxon^;
the
Ministries
of
State
in
Mecklenburg
and
Anhalt;
the
Reichskommissare in the Saar and in Austria.
Ano
ther decree of the same date provided that contracts involving
transfer of a business from a Jew to a German required the approval of
the
“higher
administrative
offices”
(Höhere
Verwaltungsbehörden)."*
Ordinarily, the term Höhere Verwaltungsbehörden comprised only the
regional offices of general administration, of the kind that were en- 101 102
101. RGB] 1,414.
102. RGBl 1,415.
123
EXPROPRIATION
trusted
with
the
registrations. In
this case,
however, the
Economy
Ministry,
the
party
regional
economic
advisors
(Gaumrtschaftsberater
and Kreiswirtschaftsberater), the local chambers of commerce, and the
competent industrial associations all got into the picture."0 Everyone
wanted the veto power in the final transaction.
On June 14, 1938, the Interior Ministry took the third preparatory
measure: the definition of a Jewish enterprise.11“ This decree provided
that a business was Jewish if the proprietor was a Jew, if a partner was
a Jew, or if on January 1, 1938, one of the Vorstand or Aufsichtsrat
members was a Jew. Also considered Jewish was a business in which
Jews had more than one-fourth of the shares or more than one-half of
the votes, or that was factually under predominantly Jewish influence.
A branch of a Jewish business was declared Jewish, and a branch of a
non-Jewish business was considered Jewish, if the manager of the
branch was a Jew.
On the very day of the issuance of the business definition decree,
Interior Minister Frick opened the debate by proposing the introduction of compulsory Aryanization.1“ Frick suggested that Jewish enterprises be transferred to the Reich in return for bonds and sold by the Reich, on credit basis, to suitable middle-class buyers. The rights of
non-Jewish creditors were to be largely cut out. So far as Frick was
concerned, Aryan creditors who to that day had kept up business
relations with Jews deserved no consideration.
In a reply dated August 23, 1938, Finance Minister von Krosigk,
noting the Interior Ministry’s preference for the middle class, stated
that—on
principle—important
enterprises
should
be
taken
over
by
financially
strong
concerns
and
that
enterprises
in
overcrowded
branches
should
be
liquidated.