Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews Peter Longerich (grave mercy .TXT) 📖

(Wehrgesetz) of 21 May 1935. RGBl, 1935, pp. 609 ff.

6. Gestapo Decree, probably of 28 Jan. 1935, quoted in Verfügung Landrat Eschwege,

14 Mar. 1936, published in Thomas Klein, ed., Der Regierungsbezirk Kassel 1933–1936.

Die Berichte der Regierungspräsidenten und der Landräte (Darmstadt and Marburg,

1985), i. 712.

7. Details in Longerich, Politik, 82 ff. Those who opposed a continuation of the violence included the Führer’s Deputy in an order of 11 Apr. 1935 in Institut für Zeitgeschichte

(IfZ) VAB, A 63/35 and the Reich Minister for Economic Affairs, Schacht in his

memorandum on ‘The Imponderables of Export’ of 3 May 1935 in Akten zur deutschen

auswärtigen Politik (ADAP), Series C, vol. iv. 120 ff.

8. See Norbert T. Wiggershaus, Der deutsch-englische Flottenvertrag vom 18. Juni 1935

(Bonn, 1972). According to his own account, in the course of the negotiations between

Britain and Germany the leader of the British delegation, Lord Lothian, had indicated

to Ribbentrop that an improvement in the treatment of Jews in Germany was

a prerequisite for a successful outcome. By doing so, Lothian was responding to a

request made by Chaim Weitzmann, the President of the World Zionist Organization.

454

Notes to pages 55–58

See the Weizmann–Lothian correspondence in Deutsches Judentum unter dem Natio-

nalsozialismus. Dokumente zur Geschichte der Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden

1933–1939, ed. Otto Dov Kulka (Tübingen, 1997), i. 214 ff.

9. Details in Longerich, Politik, 83 ff.

10. There is detailed material on this point in BAB, 15.01, 27079/35. See also Pätzold,

Faschismus, 216 ff., including material on the aftermath.

11. National Archives Washington DC (NA), T 175 R 180, Himmler’s order of 7 June 1935;

IfZ, Decree of the Führer’s Deputy V 123/35 or 14 June 1935; Westdeutscher Beobachter,

29 May 1935; Frankfurter Zeitung (FZ), 3 June 1935.

12. Details in Longerich, Politik, 85 ff.

13. This was the headline in Der Angriff for 16 July 1935.

14. Cf. Longerich, Politik, 88 ff.

15. Ibid. 89 ff.

16. Edition 25 (1935). Der Stürmer is referring here to the colours of socialists, Catholics, the Weimar Republic, and Imperial Germany respectively.

17. This is evident from the relevant ‘reports on the popular mood’, above all those

prepared by the Gestapo and the Sopade. See Deutschland-Berichte der Sozialdemokra-

tischen Partei Deutschlands (Sopade) 1934–1940 (Frankfurt a. M., 1980) (Sopade, August

1935, A 42-A46, and Longerich, Politik, 90 ff.).

18. IfZ, circular from the Führer’s Deputy, R 164/35 of 9 Aug. 1935.

19. Verhandlungen des Reichstages, vol. 440, Appendices, Document 1741. In an earlier

speech Hitler had already demanded the death penalty for ‘every Jew caught with a

blond woman’. See Hitler, Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924, ed. Eberhard Jäckel

(Stuttgart, 1980), no. 355, 2 Feb. 1922.

20. Cornelia Essner, Die ‘Nürnberger Gesetze’ oder die Verwaltung des Rassenwahns 1933–

1945 (Paderborn, 2002), 77 ff., which has the most detailed survey of the genesis of the

Nuremberg Laws.

21. 37th meeting of the Criminal Law Commission of 5 June 1934, published in Jürgen

Regge and Werner Schubert, eds, Protokolle der Strafrechtskommission des Reichsjus-

tizministeriums (Berlin and New York, 1988), part II, vol. ii, 223 ff. Further details in Essner, ‘Nürnberger Gesetze’, 96 ff.

22. Military Law of 21 May 1935, RGBl, 1935, I, pp. 609 ff.

23. Lothar Gruchmann, Justiz im Dritten Reich. Anpassung und Unterwerfung in der Ära

Gürtner 1933–1940 (Munich, 1980), 871–2.

24. Ministerialblatt für die innere Verwaltung (MbliV), 1935, p. 980.

25. Essner, ‘Nürnberger Gesetze’, 106 ff.

26. VB, 7 Aug. 1935; Goebbels’s speech is reproduced in the issue for 5 Aug. 1935.

27. See below, p. 59.

28. According to Arthur Gütt (from the Reich Ministry of the Interior) at a meeting on

25 Sept. 1935 (R 2/12042, cited in Gisela Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialis-

mus. Studien zur Rassenpolitik und Frauenpolitik (Opladen, 1986), p. 101).

29. English trans. in J. Noakes and G. Pridham, Nazism 1919–1945 (Exeter, 1983), i. 14.

30. See above, p. 40.

31. Berliner Illustrierte Nachtausgabe, 27 Apr. 1935.

32. OS, 500-3-316, Situation Report for the first Half-Year 1935, 17 Aug. 1935.

Notes to pages 58–60

455

33. NG 4067, International Military Tribunal (IMT) (Nuremberg) xiii. 698. Unusually this

speech was reproduced in the daily press and distributed by the Reichsbank as a special

pamphlet. The draft for the speech, which is in the Bank’s archives, is more detailed and more critical in its approach to the ‘individual operations’ than the printed version

(BAB 25–01, 6992). Cf. Albert Fischer, Hjalmar Schacht und Deutschlands ‘Judenfrage’.

Der ‘Wirtschaftsdiktator’ und die Vertreibung der Juden aus der Wirtschaft (Cologne,

1995), 161 ff.; and Pätzold, Faschismus, 234 ff.

34. There are three versions of the minutes of this meeting, one from the Reich Ministry of the Interior (BAB, R 18/5513, 27 Aug. 1935), with in addition manuscript notes by

Bernhard Lösener, the head of the Jewish desk in the Reich Ministry of the Interior

(IfZ, Fb 71/2); one from the Foreign Ministry (PA, Inland II A/B, 34/3 II, published in

ADAP, series C, vol. 4, 559 ff., 21 Aug. 1935); and one from the Gestapo (OS, 500-1-379

US, II 1 B 2, 20 Aug. 1935).

35. BAB, R 43II/602.

36. BAB, MF 3572; cf. Pätzold, Faschismus, 241.

37. BAM, RW 19/9, Report on a Weapons Inspection, VI (Münster), appendix.

38. For example, Gauleiter Bürckel on 26 August 1935 on the occasion of the ‘Saar

Liberation Festival’ (FZ, 27 Aug. 1935) and the Deputy Gauleiter of Westphalia South

at a workers’ meeting on 23 August (VB, 24 Aug. 1935). See also the leading article of the SS newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps, 21 Aug. 1935.

39. In Berlin (FZ, 16 Aug. 1935 and GStaA, Rep 90 P 2,1, Situation report for August),

Magdeburg (GStaA, Rep 90 P, 10,3) and Hamburg (Hamburger Fremdenblatt, 31 Aug.

1935.

40. Elke Fröhlich, ed. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–

1941 Band 3/I April 1934–Februar 1936. Bearbeitet von Angela Hermann, Hartmut

Mehringer, Anne Munding und Jana Richter (Munich, 2005). Entry for 19 Aug. 1935,

pp. 278–9.

41. The impetus for this decision was the so-called New York swastika incident: a judge in New York had ordered the release from prison of workers who had ripped the swastika

flag from a German ship and in doing so had attacked the ‘Third Reich’. Cf. Bankier,

Meinung, 65–6.

42. Fröhlich, Goebbels Tagebücher, Entry for 15 Sept. 1935, p. 294.

43. Karl Schleunes, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy towards German Jews

1933–39, (Urbana, Ill., 1970), 122 ff. For critiques of this document and its treatment by historians, see in particular Essner, ‘Nürnberger Gesetze’, 113 ff.