Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 (45 page)

Göring s main policy statement was delivered on December 6, following the instructions given him by Hitler on December 4. This time he was addressing the inner core of the party, the Gauleiters, and although the speech, in the usual Göring style, was relaxed in tone, there could have been no doubt in the minds of the audience that he was conveying clear orders backed by Hitler’s authority. These were to be followed strictly to the letter. As Göring put it (regarding Hitler’s decision that the Jews would not be marked by any special sign), “Here, gentlemen, the Führer has forbidden it, he has expressed his wish, he has given the order, and I think that this should entirely suffice for even the lowliest employee not to get the idea that the Führer actually wishes it but maybe he wishes even more that I do the opposite. In terms of the Führer’s authority, it is clear that there is nothing to change and nothing to interpret.”
⁶²

What is striking in Göring’s address is his constant reference to the fact that these were Hitler’s orders, that all the steps mentioned had been discussed with Hitler and had his complete backing. The most likely reason for this repeated emphasis was that some of the measures announced would not be popular with the assembly, since they would put an end to the profits party members of all ranks, including some Gauleiters, had derived from their seizure of Jewish assets. It seems that this was why Göring repeatedly linked the Jewish issue to the general economic needs of the Reich. Party members were to be fully aware that any transgression of the new orders was harmful to the Reich’s economy and an outright violation of the Führer’s orders. In concrete terms, after stressing the fact that the party and the Gaue had taken Jewish assets, Göring made it clear that, on Hitler’s orders, such unlawfully acquired property would have to be transferred to the state: “The Party should not engage in any business…. A Gau leadership cannot set up an Aryanization office. The Gau leadership has no authority to do this, it is not allowed to do it…. The Fuhrer has issued the following guidelines: obviously, Aryanization has to take place locally, because the state itself cannot do it…but the benefits from all the Aryanization measures belong exclusively and solely to the Reich, i.e., to its authorized representative, the Reich Finance Minister, and to no one else in the whole Reich; it is only thus that the Führer’s rearmament program can be accomplished.”
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Previously Göring had made it clear that deals already made by party members in order to enrich themselves were to be cancelled. It was not the fate of the Jews that mattered, Göring added, but the reputation of the party inside and outside Germany.
⁶⁴
The other internal party issue dealt with at some length was that of punishment for deeds committed on November 9 and 10: Whatever was undertaken on purely ideological grounds, out of a justified “hatred for the Jews,” should go unpunished; purely criminal acts of various kinds were to be prosecuted as they would be prosecuted under any other circumstances, but all publicity liable to cause scandal was to be strictly avoided.
⁶⁵

As for the main policy matters regarding the Jews, the recurring two issues—two facets of the same problem—reappeared once again: measures intended to further Jewish emigration, and those dealing with the Jews remaining in the Reich. In essence the life of the Jews of Germany was to be made so unpleasant that they would make every effort to leave by any means; however, those Jews still remaining in the Reich had to feel that they had something to lose, so that none of them would take it into their heads to make an attempt on the life of a Nazi leader—possibly the highest one of all.
⁶⁶

Forced emigration was to have top priority: “At the head of all our considerations and measures,” Göring declared, “there is the idea of transferring the Jews as rapidly and as effectively as possible to foreign countries, of accelerating the emigration with all possible pressure and of pushing aside anything that impedes this emigration.” Apparently Göring was even willing to refrain from stamping Jewish passports with a recognizable sign (the letter “J”) if a Jew had the means to emigrate but would be hindered from doing so by such identification.
⁶⁷
Göring informed the Gauleiters that the money needed to finance the emigration would be raised by an international loan (precisely the kind of loan that, as we shall see, Schacht was soon to be discussing with the American delegate of the Intergovernmental Committee for Refugees); Hitler, Göring stated, was very much in favor of this idea. The guarantee for the loan, presumably to be raised by “world Jewry” and by the Western democracies, was to consist of the entire assets still belonging to the Jews in Germany—one reason why Jewish houses were not to be forcibly Aryanized at that stage,
⁶⁸
even though many party members were particularly tempted by that prospect.

From world Jewry Göring demanded the bulk not only of the loan but also the cessation of any economic boycott of Germany, so that the Reich could obtain the foreign currency needed to repay the principal and the interest on the international loan. In the midst of these practical explanations, Göring mentioned that he wanted the Jews to promise that the “international department store corporations, which in any case are all in Jewish hands, should commit themselves to take millions worth of German goods.”
⁶⁹
The myth of Jewish world power loomed again.

Regarding the Jews still remaining in Germany, Göring announced Hitler’s rejection of any special identifying signs, and of excessively drastic travel and shopping restrictions. Hitler’s reasons were unexpected: Given the state of mind of the populace in many Gaue, if Jews wore identifying signs they would be beaten up or refused any food. The other limitations would make their daily life so difficult that they would become a burden on the state.
⁷⁰
In other words, the Gauleiters were indirectly warned not to launch any new actions of their own against the Jews in their Gaue. Jewish-owned houses, as has been seen, were the last Jewish assets to be Aryanized.

While discussing the measures that would induce the Jews to leave Germany, Göring assured his listeners he would make sure that the rich Jews would not be allowed to depart first, leaving the mass of poor Jews behind. This remark probably explains what followed three days later.

In the Würzburg Gestapo files there is an order issued December 9, on Göring’s instructions, to the twenty-two Franconia district offices; that order must have been issued on a national scale. In it, the State Police demanded the “immediate forwarding of a list of ‘influential Jews’ living in each of the districts.” The criteria of influence were spelled out as follows: wealth and relations with foreign countries (of “economic, family, personal, or other kinds”). The regional officers were to give the reason for every influential Jew’s inclusion on the list. The matter was so urgent that the lists had to be sent in by express mail on the next day, the tenth, so as to reach Würzburg Gestapo headquarters by 9
A.M.
on Saturday, December 11. Each regional office director was made “personally responsible for strict adherence to the deadline.”
⁷¹

There is no explanation in the files regarding Göring’s intentions, nor any record of further action; it may have been a short-lived start at taking rich and influential Jews hostage to guarantee the departure of the poor ones.

A few days before the Würzburg Gestapo transmitted Göring’s orders, Frick informed the federal state presidents and interior ministers that “by expressly highest order”—a formula used only for orders from Hitler—no further anti-Jewish measures were to be taken without explicit instructions from the Reich government.
⁷²
The echo of Göring’s announcement to the Gauleiters is clearly perceptible. On December 13 it was the Propaganda Ministry’s turn to inform its agencies that “the Führer had ordered that all political broadcasts deal exclusively with the Jewish problem; political broadcasts on other topics were to be avoided so as not to diminish the effect of the anti-Jewish programs.”
⁷³
In short, German opinion had yet to be convinced that the November pogrom had been amply justified.

After the series of internal meetings of party and state officials that aimed at clarification of the goals and limits of post-pogrom anti-Jewish policies, one additional conference took place on December 16. Convened by Frick, that meeting was held in the presence of Funk, Lammers, Helldorf, Heydrich, Gauleiters and various other party and state representatives. In the main Frick and Funk took up Göring’s explanations, exhortations, and orders. Yet it also became apparent that throughout the Reich, party organizations such as the German Labor Front had put pressure on shopkeepers not to sell to Jews. And, mainly in the Ostmark,
Mischlinge
were being treated as Jews, both in terms of their employment and of their business activities. Such initiatives were unacceptable in Hitler’s eyes. Soon no Jewish businesses would be left, and the Jews would have to be allowed to buy in German stores. As for the
Mischlinge
, the policy, according to Frick, was to absorb them gradually into the nation (strangely enough Frick did not distinguish the half- from the quarter-Jews), and the current discrimination against them contravened the distinctions established by the Nuremberg Laws. On the whole, however, the main policy goal was emphasized over and over again: Everything had to coincide to expedite the emigration of the Jews.
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Yet another set of measures descended on the Jews toward the end of December. On the twenty-eighth Göring, again referring to orders explicitly given by Hitler, both at the beginning of the document and in its conclusion, established the rules for dealing with dwellings belonging to Jews (they should not be Aryanized at this stage, but Jewish occupants should gradually move to houses owned and inhabited only by Jews) and defined the distinction between two categories of “mixed marriages.” Marriages in which the husband was Aryan were to be treated more or less as regular German families, whether or not they had children. The fate of mixed marriages in which the husband was Jewish depended on whether there were children. The childless couples could eventually be transferred to houses occupied only by Jewish tenants, and in all other respects as well, they were to be treated as full Jewish couples. Couples with children—whereby the children were
Mischlinge
of the first degree—were temporarily shielded from persecution.
⁷⁵
“The government appears, if one is prepared to accept the government’s point of view, to treat correctly Aryan’ husbands of Jewish wives,” Jochen Klepper noted in his diary. “Many of them hold important positions in the army and the economy. They are not forced to divorce and are able to transfer their possessions. But much worse off are Aryan’ wives of Jewish men. They are expelled to Jewry; on their heads fall all the misfortunes that we others are spared according to the present regulations and conditions.”
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Klepper mentions that Aryan husbands of Jewish wives “are not forced to divorce.” Aryan wives of Jewish husbands were not forced to divorce either, but the law of July 6, 1938 (already mentioned in chapter 4), had made divorce on racial grounds possible, and Göring’s decree of December 28 clearly encouraged Aryan women to leave their Jewish husbands: “If the German wife of a Jew divorces him,” said the decree, “she again joins the community of German blood, and all the disadvantages [previously imposed on her] are eliminated.”
⁷⁷

Why did Hitler oppose the yellow badge and outright ghettoization in December 1938? Why did he create a category of “privileged mixed marriages” and also decide to compensate
Mischlinge
who had suffered damages during the pogrom? In the first case, wariness about German and international opinion was probably the main factor. As for the mixed marriages and compensation decision for
Mischlinge
, it seems evident that Hitler wanted to circumscribe as tightly as possible the potential zones of discontent that the persecution of mixed marriages and of
Mischlinge
in general could create within the population.

Göring’s decree of December 28 aiming at the concentration of Jews in “Jews’ houses” became more easily applicable when, on April 30, 1939, further regulations allowed for the rescinding of leasing contracts with Jews.
⁷⁸
The Aryan lessor could not annul a contract of Jewish tenants prior to obtaining a certificate from the local authorities that alternative quarters in a Jewish-owned house had been secured. But, as noted by the American chargé d’affaires Alexander Kirk, these new regulations allowed municipal and communal authorities to “compel Jewish house-holders, or Jewish tenants in a Jewish owned house, to register with them vacant rooms, or space which they would not seem to require for their own needs. The latter may then be forced, even against their will, to lease these quarters to other Jews who are liable to eviction from ‘Aryan’ houses. The local authorities may draw up the terms of these involuntary contracts and collect a fee for this service.”
⁷⁹

On January 17, 1939, the eighth supplementary decree to the Reich Citizenship Law forbade Jews to exercise any paramedical and health-related activities, particularly pharmacy, dentistry, and veterinary medicine.
⁸⁰
On February 15 members of the Wehrmacht, the Labor Service, party functionaries, and members of the SD were forbidden to marry “
Mischlinge
of the second degree,”
⁸¹
and on March 7, in answer to a query from the Justice Minister, Hess decided that Germans who were considered as such under the Nuremberg Laws but who had some Jewish blood were not to be hired as state employees.
⁸²

During the crucial weeks from November 1938 to January 1939, the measures decided upon by Hitler, Göring, and their associates entirely destroyed any remaining possibility for Jewish life in Germany or for the life of Jews in Germany. The demolition of the synagogues’ burned remains symbolized an end; the herding of the Jews into “Jewish houses” intimated a yet-unperceived beginning. Moreover, the ever-present ideological obsession that was to receive a paroxysmic expression in Hitler’s Reichstag speech of January 30, 1939, continued unabated: A stream of bloodthirsty statements flowed from the pages of
Das Schwarze Korps
, and an address by Himmler to the SS top-echelon leadership of the elite unit SS-Standarte “Deutschland,” on November 8, 1938, carried dire warnings.