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

emigrate, I will not allow to do so

because I need them as guarantees that the other tribe outside will also contribute

for Jews without means.’

Finally Goering discussed the question of the employment of Jews; it could

occur in closed ‘worker formations’ or, within production facilities, in closed-off

areas.

Ten days after this conference, on 16 December 1938, another major discus-

sion of the ‘Jewish question’ took place, in which several Reich Ministers

participated, among them Heydrich and a large number of Gauleiters and

heads of the Prussian provincial administration. 90 On this occasion Wilhelm Frick, the Minister of the Interior, clearly distanced himself from the events of

9/10 November, which he described as ‘nonsense’, ‘indeed madness’. The

whole action had ‘only one positive consequence’, namely that the impetus

of the Jews to leave Germany had now become so great that ‘it is to be hoped

that in a few years we will be freed from them’.

Deprivation of Rights and Forced Emigration, late 1937–9

117

Frick went on to discuss Schacht’s emigration project, already mentioned by

Goering, and made a series of statements concerning the next imminent steps in

Judenpolitik. In the foreground were the problems that had, at the two Goering

conferences, emerged as the chief problems of future Judenpolitik: comprehensive

emigration, the conclusion of ‘Aryanization’, the questions of employment, and

accommodation. 91

Legislation after the Pogrom

As early as 12 November 1938, the day when Goering held his first conference on

the future of Judenpolitik, the first concrete legal and administrative measures had

been set in motion. These measures primarily concerned ‘Aryanization’. Jews were

prohibited from working in retail or business enterprises, and forbidden to offer

goods or services at fairs and so on. A Jew could no longer run a business; where

Jews occupied posts as managerial employees, they could be summarily dis-

missed. 92 The Decree to Restore the Appearance of the Streets as affecting Jewish Businesses decreed that Jewish shop- and home-owners were obliged immediately

to remove all damage caused in connection with the pogrom. All insurance claims

by Jews of German nationality were to be confiscated for the benefit of the Reich. 93

A further act of 12 November imposed an ‘atonement payment’ of one billion

Reichmarks upon Jews with German citizenship. 94 The businesses of domestic and stateless Jews had to be closed immediately, while foreign Jews were granted a

deadline of the end of the year. 95

A decree of 3 December 1938 ordered the compulsory ‘Aryanization’ of still

existing Jewish businesses by officially appointed trustees. Cash, securities, and

jewellery could no longer be freely sold, but had to be offered to public purchasing

offices; securities were to be put in depositories in foreign exchange licensed

banks. 96

In addition, during the weeks after the pogrom, a whole series of further

discriminatory anti-Jewish regulations was introduced:97 on 15 November 1938

the Reich Education Minister ruled that ‘all remaining Jewish pupils in German

schools be dismissed immediately’; 98 with the law of 8 December Jewish academics were forbidden to do private work in libraries and universities; 99 Jews were prohibited from owning any weapons; 100 they were excluded from any kind of cultural events; 101 they were no longer permitted to drive motor vehicles. 102 A police ordinance of 28 November empowered the authorities to impose spatial and

temporal residential restrictions upon the Jews. 103 This provided a major precondition for the implementation of the ‘ghettoization’ of the German Jews, the details

of which were still unclear. This new instrument was immediately applied: the chief

of the Security Police determined that Jews were to stay in their homes from

midday until 8.00 p.m. on ‘days of national solidarity’. 104 A fundamental 118

Racial Persecution, 1933–1939

edict issued by the President of the Reich Labour Exchange introduced a duty of

labour for ‘all unemployed Jews who are fit for work’. 105

On 28 December, after a conversation with Hitler, Goering announced the

authoritative ‘expression of the Führer’s will’ concerning further measures in

Judenpolitik. 106 In accordance with this catalogue, which was less severe than the far more radical plans discussed by Heydrich, Goebbels, and Goering after the

November pogrom, and which was aimed primarily at the restriction of the

mobility of the Jews, a further wave of discriminatory regulations was passed by

the ministerial bureaucracy over the ensuing weeks and months: Jews were

forbidden to use sleeping and dining cars, 107 rent protection for Jews was largely abolished. 108 Extensive restrictions, as decreed by Hitler, were imposed upon stays by Jews in spas and health resorts. 109

In the first months of 1939, these were joined by further anti-Jewish measures

that had not been contained in Hitler’s late-December catalogue. Thus, in

January and February 1939 various measures were introduced to force the

Jews to hand over to state offices jewellery, precious metals, and other valuable

objects. 110 In March 1939 Jews were definitively excluded from military and labour service. 111

If we consider the anti-Jewish measures passed in the first few months after the

November pogrom against the background of the steps discussed in the three

great meetings on 12 November, 6 and 12 December, it becomes apparent that the

five major problem areas discussed there—emigration, ‘Aryanization’, labelling,

ghettoizing, employment—were addressed at different tempos. While the further

intensification of the expulsion of the Jews—which was seen as the decisive

beginning of the solution—depended on the international negotiations under-

taken by Schacht, ‘Aryanization’ was pursued with the greatest vigour, spatial

concentration began relatively slowly, labelling was rejected or shelved, and the

problem of Jewish employment in view of the rapid impoverishment of the Jews

was acknowledged relatively late, but then taken up at an accelerated pace. After

large-scale ‘emigration’ proved to be illusory, compulsory employment and spatial

restriction (with a tendency towards ghettoization) were combined to form an

enforced regime and detention in camps was taken into consideration as the

‘interim solution’ best suited to a war situation.

Through the legal regulations for ‘Aryanization’ instituted after the November

pogrom, the existing authorization procedure became obligatory for the ‘Aryani-

zation’ or liquidation of Jewish property. 112 In December 1938 the procedure was straightened out by the relevant ministries and the staff of the Führer’s Deputy

(StdF), and in February there followed an order from the Führer’s Deputy

regulating the Party’s involvement in the context of the disposal of Jewish property. 113

A vivid picture of the practice of Aryanization after the pogrom is contained in

the special report