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

arrested in Vienna and transported

to Dachau. 7 In Austria, a few months after the Anschluss, not only had the Jews been totally eliminated from the economy, but the first mass deportations had

been put into effect. As a result of these measures the pressure upon the Austrian

Jews was intensified to the extent that their emigration assumed the character of a

mass exodus: in the first five months after the Anschluss 46,000 Jews emigrated

from Austria. 8

The Final Exclusion of the Jews from the Economy

and the Crisis of Jewish Emigration

The anti-Semitic thrust in ‘annexed’ Austria was to have a radicalizing effect on

the persecution of Jews throughout the whole of the Reich.

If the ‘Aryanization’ of Jewish assets along legal lines was now introduced in the

‘Old Reich’ under the influence of the results achieved in Austria, these measures

merely ended the factual expropriation of Jewish property, which was already far

advanced.

The ‘boycott’ of Jewish companies, the continued discriminatory state measures

against them, manifold pressure on Jewish owners to sell their businesses, were

backed up from the end of 1937 by a massive obstruction of access to raw materials

in the context of the allocation measures of the Four-Year Plan. 9 The Israeli historian Avraham Barkai estimates that by early 1938, as a result of all these

hindrances to Jewish economic activity, around 60–70 per cent of Jewish busi-

nesses existing in 1933 were no longer in the hands of their former owners. Of the

50,000 retail businesses in the Old Reich in 1933, by July 1939 only about 9,000 still

remained, while the assets in Jewish ownership which, in 1933, were estimated at

10–12 billion Reichmarks (RM), by April 1938 had already fallen to 5 billion. 10 In contrast, between April and November 1938 about 4,500–5,000 Jewish firms of all sizes

100

Racial Persecution, 1933–1939

and business types were ‘Aryanized’, or no more than 5 per cent of the Jewish

businesses existing in 1933.

The recording and earmarking of Jewish businesses now initiated the definitive

expulsion of Jews from the economy, ‘Aryanization’, along legal lines. By the end

of 1937 Jewish businesses, following instructions from the Reich Economics

Minister, were methodically recorded by the Chambers of Trade and Industry. 11

The Third Decree of the Reich Citizenship Law of 14 June 1938 finally estab-

lished that all Jewish businesses were to be included in a special list of enter-

prises. 12 Work on the recording of the businesses began immediately, and was scheduled for completion by that autumn. 13

By autumn 1937, many local authorities had begun marking Jewish businesses

without waiting for the expected legal regulation. After the passing of the Third

Decree, there was an accumulation of cases in which Party activists marked Jewish

businesses by daubing them with paint, and local authorities, under pressure from

these actions, placed special signs on Jewish shops. 14

The Commissioner for the Four-Year Plan’s ‘Decree against Support for the

Disguising of Jewish Business Enterprises’ of 22 April threatened German nation-

als with punishment if they helped to camouflage the ‘Jewish character’ of a

business enterprise or carry out hidden transactions on behalf of Jews. 15

The ‘Decree for the Registration of Jewish Assets’ of 26 April, 16 as well as the implementing order issued on the same day, obliged all Jews to report all assets

over 5,000 marks by 30 June. The implementation order introduced a permit

procedure for the sale of Jewish businesses which was to be carried out by the

higher government departments. 17 This established the legal condition whereby remaining Jewish businesses could be steered individually towards ‘Aryan’ owners

without resorting to the compulsory expropriation of Jewish assets.

A decree of the Reich Economics Ministry on 5 July 1938 established further

particulars for the approval procedure; according to these, among other things,

the relevant Gauleiter was to be consulted in the course of the procedure. In a

Party order issued two weeks later, Bormann presented the possibilities that this

decree created for the Party with unmistakable clarity:18

I refer particularly to the fact that the transfer of Jewish businesses to German hands gives the Party the opportunity to proceed with a healthy policy with regard to middle-sized

businesses and help national comrades with suitable political and specialist qualities to achieve an independent livelihood even if they lack the requisite financial means. It is the Party’s duty of honour to support those Party comrades who because of their membership

of the movement have suffered economic disadvantages in the past and help them achieve

an independent livelihood, and to support German citizens expelled from abroad who have

lost their belongings . . . It is the Party’s duty to ensure that the Jew does not receive an inappropriately high purchase price. In this way Jewry will make reparation for part of the damage that it has done to the German Volk.

Deprivation of Rights and Forced Emigration, late 1937–9

101

Bormann further announced: ‘Party Comrade Field Marshal Goering plans a

fundamental sorting out of the Jewish question. This sorting out will occur in a

way that does the greatest justice to the demands of the Party. The Party has

accordingly undertaken to avoid all individual actions.’

The intervention of the Party through its Gau and district economic advisers in

particular involved a personal and political assessment of interested purchasers

and led to massive patronage of Party comrades. In the completion of contracts,

‘donations’ to the Party were habitual. The Party economic advisers had appro-

priate channels to use different methods to make the Jewish owner ‘happy to sell’,

for example through repeated official screenings and the imposition of conditions,

through arrests or the intervention of the Chambers of Trade and Industry or local

authorities who ‘suggested the advisability’ of the sale. 19

Between July and October a series of legal regulations was passed, definitively

excluding the Jews from a series of further professions. 20 This included in particularly the prohibition on Jews working as real estate brokers or commercial

agents; in addition, approval was withdrawn from those Jewish doctors still

permitted to practise, and lawyers still working had to abandon their legal

practices.

As early as the beginning of 1938, the SD had reached the conclusion that the

increasing elimination of Jews from the economy would not necessarily lead to a

greater volume of emigration, unless possibilities of reception abroad were also

available. In fact, the number of emigrant Jews in the last quarter